Soyinka V. Zeami?

Entry #19
26 March 2007 (approximately)
Work: Wole Soyinka’s Collected Plays 1

This idea of bloodlines being cursed in some way, or predestined—that’s a better way to describe it, I suppose—contrasts with the Japanese Nō plays. The actors are restricted to certain roles depending upon birth. You know, on second thought, I don’t know if it is much of a contrast. Perhaps I’m looking at in such a way that the carriers are the shit shovelers, carrying away the sins, while the Nō actors are esteemed and privileged. Though the carriers are abused, reviled, and in some cases, possibly killed, they are doing as much a service to their communities as the Nō actors who teach moral lessons. Seeing a play enacted on the stage, illustrating a human failing, teaches in a different way, offers hope in a different way. Do the African villagers have hopes, at year’s end, that the carrier will have a lighter load the next year? Do they learn? Or is it entirely a blameless ritual. “Oh, well, we’ve got a whole year to screw things up again!” I don’t know, and I don’t think that the play is intended to show that sort of thing. Soyinka and his culture are heavy on illustration and celebration and a little lighter on didactics, I think.

Till later...