From Page to Stage: Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Language of African Theatre Re-visited

Abstract

A play’s production team has the task of interpreting the dramatic text into a theatrical production. The director and his cast have to create semiotic codes by which to present to the audience their understanding of the playwright’s message to the audience. The director, having an upper hand, in such cases, tends to spend time to keenly pre-empt the audience’s theatre literacy levels to be able to communicate to them in a sign system or language that they can understand. It is within this shared language that the contribution of the production team - a director, designer, and thespians, among others to the interpretation of a text can be understood (Balme, 2010). The transformation of a text from the script to a stage performance becomes a process akin to translation from one language to another; from verbal language adorned with implied supra-segmental features to a performative language whose basis is not idioms –as is with literary language- but voice, movement fabric, paint and so on. In this endeavor, the director, in collaboration with the rest of the crew and cast has to make sense of the written. Primarily, a director’s energy is directed towards the dialogue - and its punctuation and articulation- and stage directions to guide him on the characters’ appearance, movement and the set - and its location and appearance - as some of the crucial elements that characterize a theatrical text (Ibid, 2010: 119-121). A director’s interpretation of these is what uniquely differentiates one performance from another. Ngugi wa Thiong’o is well known for his novels and critical writings. His enormous contribution to theatre studies and practice cannot be ignored either. His flair in fiction writing and critical deliberations on the postcolonial cultural artifacts has largely propelled him as one of the most celebrated icons of African Literature. Yet specifically, he has had immense influence our understanding of African theatre. First, Ngugi has made a multi-facetted contribution to African Theatre as a playwright, scholar, critic, performer and a champion of indigenization of African theatre. As a playwright, Ngugi’s first play, The Black Hermit, question imperial cultural vestiges that propagated imperial dominance in a neocolonial Africa. His other plays such as The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, This Time Tomorrow, I Will Marry When I Want and the unpublished, “Mother Sing for me” have remained renowned in theatre spaces not only in Kenya but across the continent with their strong socio-political messages.