Stage versus pulpit and the shifting / dwindling theatre audiences in public theatres in Nigeria

Abstract

In theatrical parlance, a “stage” is the spatial context on which a performance takes place before an audience at a public theatre. However, theatre is faced with a perennial problem posed by the pulpit, itself seen as a performance area where priests stand to gesticulate using facial expressions to move the congregation during the time for sermon, priests being star actors in a congregational service seen as a form of theatre. This paper argues that the pulpit is constantly drawing audiences away form the public theatre with the result that today, by expressing faith, the audience index in public theatres is fast falling. How church theologians have theorized the concept of sermon to fit into the poetics of drama is a matter of interest in this study too.