This work is an exploration into the writing, cultural and theatrical aesthetics of African writer and director, Ola Rotimi. It is a quest and search for an authentic African esthetic that has been transformed by at least two centuries of the European colonization. This work focuses on the aesthetic dimensions of the Ori Olokun theatre under the artistic direction of Ola Rotimi. It reviews Ola Rotimi's vision and impact with the Ori Olokun Company, and his quest to formulate a truly authentic African theatre, void of the imported European sensibility and colonially inherited aesthetic. The unique creative achievement of Rotimi's work at the Ori Olokun theatre, is that it evolved out of the ivory towers of the University, an 'unfriendly' territory as far as the indigenous theatre is concerned. Ola Rotimi dedicated his art to exploring the traditional/indigenous artistic expressions of the Nigeria people at a point when the African aesthetic had completely lost ground to the European value system. Three of Rotimi's historical plays are analyzed to understand and locate his historical perspective. African theatre, an issue that has dominated African theatre for the past half century. His solution is that writers must 'tamper with the English language to temper it's Englishness'. Clearly, what makes Rotimi unique, is that he brings to his plays, the linguistic characteristics and nuances that are authentic to African people.

In this lively and varied tribute to Martin Banham, Layiwola has assembled critical commentaries and two plays which focus primarily on Nigerian theatre - both traditional and contemporary. Dele Layiwola, Dapo Adelugba and Sonny Oti trace the beginnings of the School of Drama in 1960, at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where Martin Banham played a key and influential role in the growth of thriving Nigerian theatre repetoire and simulaneously encouraging the creation of a new theatre based on traditional Nigerian theatre forms. This comparative approach is taken up in Dele Layiwola's study of ritual and drama in the context of various traditions worldwide, while Oyin Ogunba presents a lucid picture of the complex use of theatre space in Yoruba ritual dramadar drama. Harsh everyday realitites, both physical and political, are graphically demonstrated by Robert McClaren (Zimbabwe) and Oga Steve Abah (Nigeria) who both show surprising and alarming links between extreme actual experiences and theatre creation and performance. The texts of the two plays - When Criminals Turn Judges by Ola Rotimi, The Hand that Feeds the King by Wale Ogunyemi, are followed by Austin O. Asagba's study of oral tradition and text in plays by Osofisan and Agbeyegbe, and Frances Harding's study on power, language, and imagery in Wole Soyinka's plays.

Ola Rotini, the great Nigerian playwright, died in 2000. He was reworking two of his plays:îMan Talk, Women Talkî and ìTororo, Tororo, Roroî. They are now published posthumously, and represent an epilogue to his career as a theatre artist and comic playwright. In the first play, Rotimi seeks, with wry humour, resolution of the biases men and women hold against one another; and in the second, the lessons of sharing other peopleís problems are illuminated with comic effect. Effiok B. Unwatt is an Associate Professor of Literature, and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Abuja. He is a former Head of the Department of English and Literary Studies.