Tuesday 11 October 2011

Article:DOWN THE MEMORY LANE: LET’S REFRESH OUR MINDS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEATRE IN GHANA






DANIEL APPIAH-ADJEI

Because Gold Coast, now Ghana had little performance that resembled the theatrical forms they knew, Europeans, when they began to colonize Africa were convinced that it was devoid of theatre. Nevertheless, the country was teeming with performance activities—ceremonies, festivals, religious rites, storytelling and various kinds of celebrations, all interwoven into daily life of the various cultures. The Europeans brought with them their own form of theatre and sought to naturalize it throughout much of the country. The tension between this colonialist heritage and indigenous forms has created a vigorous and dynamic spectrum of performance in cotemporary Ghana. Ghanaian ritual and performance are not rigidly fixed, for although the function of a ritual or ceremony may be constant, in its execution, there is almost always room for improvisation and adaptation.
Anansesem Tradition
Storytelling (Anansesem-Spider story) which may take many forms is an important Ghanaian performance mode. In part because when they arrived most African cultures and for that matter those of the Gold Coast, had no written language. Europeans declared that Africa had no history. They failed to recognize that much of what Africans considered to be of historical importance was embodied and preserved in their performances. Especially important in several cultures was the griot, the storyteller, the praise singer and sometimes “living archives” of society, who committed to memory and passed on to successor a record of the community. In many societies, storytellers were primarily entertainers, but almost every Ghanaian society had some form of storytelling as a cultural tradition. Storytellers usually accompanied themselves on musical instrument, such as lute, harp-guitar, but might be accompanied by one or more musicians or singers. Storytellers told stories both as education and entertainment, in a tradition analogous to Homeric epics of ancient Greece and scop’s tales of Teutonic Europe, both of which in oral form precede written records of them. Storytelling remains a vital form and a major influence of much Ghanaian drama, in which the storyteller often appears as narrator or character.

Concert Party
One major type of theatre in Ghana is the Concert Party. The Concert Party tradition is sometimes traced from the work of Mr. Yalley, the Headmaster of an elementary school in Sekondi who began in 1918 to give concerts (a mixture of jokes, singing, and dancing for which he wore various disguises, including fancy dress, wig, moustache and makeup of American black-and white-minstrel) for Empire Day celebrations. His three hour shows opened with a hired brass-band that marched and campaigned around town and ended up outside the theatre. In the theatre, Yalley performed his comedy sketches assisted by a trap-drummer and a harmonium player who provided a cross-section of the then popular ballroom dance tunes: ragtimes, quicksteps and waltzes. His shows were in English and tickets very expensive. His audience consisted mainly of the educated black elite. But it is Ishmael (Bob) Johnson; a pupil of Yalley’s who is credited with giving the Concert Party its distinctive form by intermingling elements from many sources, including Yalley’s performances, American Black Vaudeville, silent films, and spider story telling conventions. His first group was school boys’ affair called the Versatile Eight, which nevertheless included the three principal stock characters the Gentleman, the joker and the Lady impersonator.
By the late 1920s the concert party tradition had therefore begun to separate into two distinct varieties: the Upper-class shows of Yalley and the ‘Accra Vaudeville’ on one hand, and the Bob Johnson’s schoolboy sixpenny shows on the other.
In 1930, Johnson created the first of his “Trios”, The Two Bobs and Their Carolina Girl (consisting of Johnson, J, “Bob” Ansah and C.B. Hutton) that staged for villagers and the urban poor. As developed by Johnson, the Concert Party began with an opening section which included among other things: a musical number sung and danced by the Trio; a ragtime song by one of the Bobs; and a joking duet between the two Bobs. This was followed by a comic play about one hour length. The play’s parts of which were always improvised and always used music and dance were sometimes giving in English, sometimes in a local language and sometimes in Pidgin English. In addition to being entertaining, most Concert Parties dealt with contemporary topics and sought to provoke their audiences to think about them.
In 1935, Bob Johnson became the joker or ‘Bob’ for the Axim Trio concert party that became the prototype for all succeeding ones. A man called E.K Dadson played Susana and Charlie Turpin played the role of the Gentleman. With one of the famous highlife guitarist by name Kwame Asare, popularly known as Jacob Sam, they toured many places like Liberia, La Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Loene.
Their first international engagement was a tour to Nigeria for which they were joined by the twenty-two strong Cape coast Sugar Babies dance-orchestra. They also engaged the local brass band or ‘Konkoma’ for the evening performances in the Gold coast. (Ghana)
Their shows consisted of an ‘Opening Chorus’ (Duet) followed by a two our play. The titles of some of the plays they staged before the group dissolved in the 1950s include:
·         The coronation of King George the Sixth
·         The Bond of 1844 (about the Fanti-British alliance)
·         The Tenfoot man
·         The Downfall of Adolph Hitler
·         Kwame Nkrumah will Never Die

Names of Some Concert Party Groups
·         Bob Cole’s Happy Trio
·         The Jovial Jokers (JJs)
·         The Dix Covian Jokers
·         The West End Trio (All from Western Region)
·         The Saltpond Trio
·         Sam (i.e Kwame Asare)and His Party Trio from Central Region
·         Y.B Bampoe’s Schoolboy Yanky Trio from the Eastern region
·         The Keta Trio from the Volta Region
In 1952, a major contribution to the concert party profession was made by the great guitarist called E.K Nyame. He was the leader of the E.K’s Guitar-band. His concert party was called Akan Trio. It was the first concert party to use the Akan language to stage plays. His synthesis of guitar-band highlife music and concert acting in the Akan language made his group and instance success. His band made four hundred records which were not only popular in Ghana but in Nigeria as well.
Some of the most important Ghanaian concert party groups during the latter part of the fifties and the sixties were:
·         Kaikaiku’s Band (K.K’s)
·         Jaguar Jokers
·         The Ghana Trio
·         Onyina’s Royal Trio
·         Kwaa Mensah’s Band
·         The happy Stars from Nsawam
·         I.E Mason’s Group
·         Yamoah’s Band
·         ‘Doctor K. Gyasi’s Noble Kings
·         Brigade concert Party
·         Nana Kwame Ampadu’s African Brothers Band
By 1960, when Johnson formed the Musician’s Union of Ghana, there were about twenty eight Trios but the number has declined tremendously of late. The Concert Party was the first fully professional theatre in Ghana. It became a popular form of theatre in the neighboring Republic of Togo. Johnson’s success was partially a result of his fusing together the character of the imported blackface minstrel with that of the mischievous Ananse-the Spider hero of the Akan folklore. That was an important early step in the Africanisation of the Concert Party tradition.

Television Drama
There were film versions of the concert party plays such as I told you so by Bob Cole, Araba Stamp etc. television concert party series began in the 1970s and these tended to have a strong moral and didactic tone as well as providing an avenue for many concert actresses. The two most popular were the Osofo Dazie and Obra groups.
Recent times many concert groups like Santo and Judas recorded their plays on cassettes for sale. Now, many films like those of Agya koo have also emerged.

Guitar Bands and Concert Party
"Ghanaian concert parties are professional groups of itinerant artists  who stage vernacular shows for the rural and urban audiences that combine slapstick musical comedies, folk stories, acrobatics, moral sermons, magical displays and dance-music sessions. They appeared just after the First World War and since then have acted as a cultural vortex in Ghana, for besides drawing on the indigenous and imported, old and new, they have accredited to themselves local highlife music and dance, sign painting (large adverts called concert 'cartoons'), comic literature and the film/video format. Furthermore, since the 1960's a concert party and its associated guitar band has been one of Ghana's most important influences on and avenues for contemporary popular performers."

Some Guitar Bands and Titles of their Concert Performances
1.      Akwasi Ampofo Adjei and Kumapim Royals – If you do good, Time Changes
2.      Nana Kwame Ampadu – Suro Obaa, Ntwatosoo
3.      Obuoba J A Adofo and his City Boys – Owuo Mpaso, Akonobie
4.      Ewura Ama Badu – Me dofo adaadaa me
5.      Kwabena Akwaboah’s Band – Woni mea hwe me bi na ko
6.      Abirekyie Ba Kofi Sammy – Yellow Ceci Dey for Corner
7.      Dr. Paa Bobo – Wo Nyame som mpo ni?
8.      Alex Kwabena Konadu – Asaase asa, Awieye
9.      F. Mica –Odu yefoo
1.  Paapa Yankson – Woyere anaa wo maame?
1.  Prince Osei Kofi, and His African Heroes – Fine Boy Enye mea
1  Jewel Ackah and his Butterfly Six – Ayefroo, wedding
  Abrantee Amakye dede and His Apollo High Kings – Sansankromma
1.  C. K Mann and his Carousels – Asafo Bensua
1.  A.B. Crentsil – Moses
1.  Akonoba J.K – Obaa yaa Anane
1.  Osei Vasco and the Ashanti Brothers Band – Ao Love, Ao odo
1.  Atakora Manu – Odefe defe ne dee emaa beye me defee
1.  B.B. Collins – Adwoa Bene
2.  Asebu Amanfi – Nsemfo Ahi. Kana wu
2.  Snr. Eddie Donkor – Ode Nkwanpa Regye
2.  Kaakyire Kwame Appiah – 24th Ko Wo Krom
2.  Nana Akyeampong – Anka ebeyeden na aye wo ya
2.  Daddy Lumba – Aben Waha etc

S  Some Institutional Concert Parties
1.      Kristo Asafo Concert Party
2.      Anokyekrom Concert Party – Kumasi
3.      Agro Ciltad Concert party – Cape Coast
4.      Kusum Agoromma Concert Party – Art Centre, Accra

Literary Drama
A more literary drama can be traced through Kobina Sekyi’s The Blinkards (1915) and J B Danquah’s (1895-1965) The Third Woman (1943), both of which dealt with the relationship of native and colonial influences and The Fifth Landing Stage (1943) by Rev. F Kwasi Fiawoo. Written drama did not begin to flourish, however, until after independence in 1957.
Two of Ghana’s major playwrights Efua T. Sutherland and Ama Ata Aidoo emerged. Efua Sutherland, (1924-1996) was the most important figure in Ghanaian theatre after independence. Associated with the first President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah until his overthrow in 1966, she sought to create a theatre that would embody the social ideals of the state. She founded an open-air theatre, the Ghana Drama Studio in Accra in 1957, and helped to establish the School of Music and Drama at the University of Ghana, Legon, where she encouraged research about traditional performances. She also sought to strengthen the storytelling tradition through the establishment of the Kodzidan (story house) in Ekumfi-Atwia and by organizing its space to fit storytelling tradition rather than using the colonialist proscenium-arch structure. She helped to encourage children’s theatre through some of her own plays, such as Vulture!, Vulture!, and Tahinta. She was also an acclaimed director who directed many of her plays. Sutherland’s best-known plays are Edufa (1962), Foriwa (1962), and The Marriage of Anansewa (1975).
In Edufa, the title character seeks through divination and ceremonies to manipulate his wife into the death predicted for him by oracles. Foriwa concerns the attempt to bring change to a backward village (Kyerefaso) in which the elders refuse to consider new ways. It illustrates the need for cooperation among rival groups and openness to ideas favored by the new ruler. The Marriage of Anansewa draws on anansesem, spider tales tradition to create a structure that Sutherland called Anansegro. It shows how Ananse schemes to get money by setting off a bidding war among four chiefs for the hand of his daughter, Anansewa.
Ama Ata Aidoo (1942- ) is noted for two plays. The Dilemma of a Ghost (1964) concerns a man who returns from America with a black American wife and the tensions this create within the man’s family, which has deep-rooted prejudices about slavery and slave ancestry. Anowa (1970) is set in the nineteenth century and concerns the conflict that develops between husband and wife after the husband decides against the objection of the wife to buy slaves. The husband becomes impotent, which the wife believes is connected with slave ownership. Eventually, both husband and wife commit suicide. Like her first play, Aidoo is concerned with the lack of positive male-female communication.
J.C. de Graft (1924-1978) was another major playwright in Ghana. His play Sons and Daughters (1964) is about a self-made African who seeks to force his youngest son and daughter to follow the path of their older siblings into professions other than art and dance, which the younger ones have chosen. In Through a Film Darkly, (1966), an educated young African man rejects his black fiancée to go away with a white English woman, who only later to be rejected by her, (she considers him merely an anthropological specimen) He returns home, now bitterly anti-white. Muntu (1975), commissioned by the All Africa Council of Churches, uses mythology to comment on present-day Africa and the dictatorial tendencies of governments.

Other Playwrights and their works
1.      Mohammed Ben Abdallah
·         The Trial of Mallam Ilya
·         The Alien King
·         The Verdict of The Cobra
·         The Witch of Mopti
2.      Martin Owusu
·         The Story Ananse Told
·         The Sudden Return
·         The Mightier Sword
·         The Offending Corpses
·         The Legend of Aku Sika
3.      Asiedu Yirenkyi
·         Kivuli
·         Ama Pranaa
·         Blood and Tears
·         Kantinka
4.      Efo Kodjo Mawugbe
·         In the Chest of a woman
·         The Prisoners Brigade
·         Cinderama
·         Aluta Continua
·         Upstairs and Downstairs
·         Ananse Kweku Ananse
5.      Yaw Asare
·         Sodom and Gommora
·         The Leopard’s Choice
·         Ananse in the land of Idiots
·         A treasure in the Well
6.      Mensah Bonsu
·         The Trial of Kwame Nkrumah
7.      Saint Abdulai Alhassan
·         The Magic Padlock
·         When She is Dead
·         A Bird in Hand
8.      Nana Sarfo Kantanka
·         Yaa Asantewaa (Ahi Koo)
·         The Royal Pride
9.      Daniel Appiah-Adjei
·         Atobra
·         The Tears of Lucifer
·         Death on Trial
·         The Final Touch
·         A Child Once Again
·         The Bleeding Flower
·         The Fools’ Paradise
·         The Slave-ship
·         Instant Justice
·         Mathew Chapter Four 
·         Aids is no respecter of Persons
·         From Mother To Son
·         Funeral Ahead of Time
10.  Nana Adansi Pipim
·         Ur-Kaffena
·         The Afterlife
·         The Cauldron
11.  Osei Kwadwo
·         Feyiase
·         Owuo Apakan
·         Siaw Anim
12.  David Asomaning
·         The Brutal Robbery in Inzugura
·         Pinaman Aviods H.I.V Aids
·         Maggie and Purple on Campus
·         Brefo
·         Dromadeur Obama
·         Muraana
·         Samanme

13.  Ebo Whyte
·         Run for Your Wife
·         The Patient
·         Terms of Divorce
14.  Faustina Brew
·         Murder of the Surgical Bone
I presume there are many other playwrights whose names have not been mentioned but are contributing to the development of theatre in Ghana. I say bravo to you all. Keep theatre alive.
By His Grace, I shall be back


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