Nietzsche’s Neurosis and the Dramaturgy of Godlessness in the Nigerian Theatre

Abstract

The socio-political elegance and inelegance of Oedipus
complex, the eponymous character in Sophocles’
Oedipus Rex, Hamlet self-inflicted madness in
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Freud’s inescapable Electra
complex of infamy articulated in Totem and Taboo,
Dadaism and Nietzsche’s neurosis are clear
(mistranslation, deconstruction and misrepresentation)
of the ethics and ethos of existence. They served as wild
attempt at deconstructing God which graduated into a
paradox and dialectical error of deconstructing self, trite
cliché of thinking with-the-box. Consequently, this
research work, through Gilbert Murray’s revisionism of
religion-ritual-drama’s theoretical framework examines the
dramaturgy of godlessness in the Nigerian theatre.
Subsequently, Wole Soyinka’s The trials of Brother Jero
and Jero’s Metamorphosis and Ahmed Yerima’s The Bishop
and the Soul and The Liman will be used as reference
texts for this study. While concluding, we are of the
opinion that the dramaturgy of godlessness is a satire
for godliness in the dramatists’ search for the essence of
religion in our contemporary society. We also recommend
the aesthetics of de-herotization in religious performance
articulation.