Esiaba Irobi (1960-2010) was one of Africa's most innovative and productive younger playwrights. Deeply rooted in the indigenous performance traditions of his Igbo ethnic group, Irobi's drama, in the tradition of Wole Soyinka, is a hybrid production involving an iconoclastic reconceptualisation of the heritage he appropriates, its fascinating conflation with other performance traditions, and their projection onto the arena of contemporary Nigerian politics. This study by Isidore Diala is the first book-length examination of Irobi's work. It portrays a highly creative individual who was literally driven by the creative urge. The five chapters of this study illuminate different aspects of Irobi's oeuvre and include a vivid portrayal of Irobi the actor in his dream role of Elesin Oba, the eponymous King's Horseman in Wole Soyinka's drama. Diala highlight's Irobi's fascination for African festivals, which feature prominently in the earlier plays.He also demonstrates that although he is rooted in his Igbo culture, Irobi draws on different ethnic groups, pointing to conceptions of pan-Africanism that include the African diaspora.

This collection in part examines the legacy of the consummate Nigerian stage artist and scholar, Esiaba Irobi (1960–2010). Poems, tributes, and studies cele¬brate Irobi’s significance as actor, play¬wright, director, poet, and theatre theorist. Irobi’s life, temper, times, and career are inextricably linked to the history, devel¬opment, concerns, and uses of drama and theatre in Africa. The contributions high¬light the evolution of autochthonous thea¬trical practices: the interaction between Western and indigenous African perfor¬mance traditions; colonial/postcolonial government policies and the mutations of drama and theatre (and critical commen¬tary); the tensions inherent in postcolonial conceptions of history, identity, nation¬hood, and articulations of alternative aes¬thetics, pedagogies, and epistemologies for postcolonial African theatre; staging African plays in the West; and the con-stituencies of the contemporary African playwright and director. The strength of these studies derives primarily from nuanced examinations of the concerns and careers of particular African playwrights; the history, offerings, and fortunes of particular theatrical arenas, and close explorations of specific performances and texts. The foregrounding of correspon¬dences in the dramaturgies and intellec¬tual ferment of the continent critically accentuates equally privileged regional, historical, and other crucial specificities. Situated in time and place while under¬scoring the political and intellectual inter¬sections of a shared history of colonial-ism, the contributions to Syncretic Arenas, individually and collectively, reveal the transformations and growing strengths of postcolonialism as an analytical strategy. Isidore Diala is Professor of African literature in the Department of English and Literary Studies at Abia State University, Uturu, and author of Esiaba Irobi’s Drama and the Postcolony: Theory and Practice of Postcolonial Performance (2013).

Voyages in Postcolonial African Theatre Practice goes beyond the predictable academic discursive trips on postcolonial drama and theatre practice. In 14 unique but interrelated essays, this volume dissects the critical issues that envelop the practice of theatre in postcolonial Africa and the African Diaspora, and how practitioners engage with the trends which arise. The volume departs from the conventional theoretical constructs of humanistic studies and focuses on concrete realities that interface and interfere with the professional practice of African theatre, a creative industry confined by the historical and dialectical motifs of the colonial experience. Topics such as secondary adaptations, theatre training and pedagogy, censorship and performance politics, applied theatre, cultural policy and tourism, scenography, festivals and oral tradition, dance internationalisation, popular music, text and the African film reflect the broad coverage and diversity of this volume on African postcolonial theatre practices, from text to performance, planning to production.

Fémi Òsófisan is a major dramatist from Nigeria who experiments with forms and theatrical traditions. This book focuses on his development as a dramatist and his contribution to world drama as a postcolonial African writer whose major preoccupation has been to question the colonial and postcolonial issues of identity in theatre, literature and performance. The volume explores how Òsófisan exploits his Yorùbá heritage in his drama and the performances of his plays by reading new meanings into popular mythology, and by re-writing history to comment on contemporary social and political issues. Òsófisan has often introduced new motifs and narratives to energise dramatic performances in Nigeria and globally, and this text discusses developments in his theatre practices in the context of changing cultural trends.

Nadia Anwar analyzes selected post-independence Nigerian dramas using the conceptual framework of metatheatre, a theatrical strategy that foregrounds the process of play-making by breaking the dramatic illusion. She argues that distancing, as a function of metatheatre, creates a balanced theatrical experience and environment in terms of the emotive and cognitive levels of reception of a particular performance. Anwar's book is the first in-depth study to apply the concept of metatheatre to Nigerian drama. She brings the perspectives of Bertolt Brecht, Thomas J. Scheff, and other theoreticians of dramatic distancing to the analysis of plays by authors such as Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Esiaba Irobi, and Stella ‘Dia Oyedepo.