By: Favour Bamijoko

Like many “Owanbe”, this marriage — the Marriage of Anansewa — happened on Saturday (the 24th of August, 2024). But unlike many Owanbe, this one, staged at the Wole Soyinka Theatre, University of Ibadan, is set in the post-colonial, and pre-contemporary cultural life of Ghana. Originally published in 1975, ‘The Marriage of Anansewa’ was written by Dr. Efua Sutherland, one of Ghana’s earliest literary writers and playwrights. As a pre-eminent playwright, she focused on promoting Ghanaian culture, and life as well as pan-African culture. This is evident in her works like Edufa, Foriwa.

The Marriage of Anansewa is a play that focuses on Ghanaian cultural practices in relation to martial practices. It explores the place of the female child, caught in the web of the societal customs of marriage in a patriarchal society; the commodification of the female child; the subjugating nature of the custom; the exploitation and greed of the supposed custodian of culture amongst others.

A four-act and mini-opera stage play, it follows the story of a young girl, Anansewa, the eponymous character, and her father Ananse a pauperized widow who devises a plan to enrich himself, and to pay his daughter’s overdue school fee in the process. He wittingly and separately writes four chiefs, (Chief of Akate (Togbe Klu IV), Chief of the Mines, and Chief-Who-ls-Chief) about the prospects of marrying his daughter, whom he advertises to them using her photograph. He does this without the consent nor involvement of Anansewa at first.

At first, she is furious and unhappy. She raises issues about being married off to a man she doesn’t know, nor love, about the place of her consent and her personal life. But, she gives in after conscious manipulation by her father who reminds her about their penury, his toils of love over her, and his authority as her father.

His plans see daylight when the four chiefs, oblivious to each other, enter a photograph engagement with Anansewa, sending bountiful gifts and cash along the line. In time, Anansewa pays her school fee, and Mr. Ananse redounds his status — begins a life of affluence. However, the plan gives a scare when the chiefs, by telegrams, notify Ananse of their plans to fulfill the ultimate marital rite, which involves a head drink ceremony.

Flustered, Ananse hatches another plan to untie the knot. According to her plans, Anansewa is to play dead, with news of it taken to the chiefs. Ultimately, Anansewa will marry the only one whose response to the news of her death is empathetically convincing. Eventually, chief-who-is-chief, as the couple of Ananse and his daughter had hoped, responds best. And Anansewa returns from the dead to marry him.

While the storyline of the play, as written by Sutherland, is itself entertaining and instructive, particularly on the issues it addresses, the staging of the play is brilliant and spectacularly intriguing. And it should perhaps be one of the most innovative plays staged at the Soyinka theater this year. More than mere generosity, this appraisal is due to some of the techniques the director adopts in presenting the play.

To begin with, perhaps the most striking technique of the play is its usage of the onstage orchestra technique. Usually for most stage plays, the orchestra or chorus are ensconced away in the orchestra pit, a depressed compartment or area, between the stage and the audience, which keeps them away from the vision of the audience. From there, they accompany whatever is being staged with the needed songs, and instrumentals. However, in The Marriage of Anansewa, the chorus was arranged in a thrust sitting set around the stage.

An innovative decision, this arrangement opened the staging of the play to significant benefits. First, the onstage placement of the chorus polished up the narration. Stationed on stage throughout the play, the narrator (Toluwaleke Owonifaari) — a member of the crew — easily appeared, withdrew, and reappeared easily to play his very role. As a result, he was able to rivet the audience with an interactive, and lively performance.

More to the onstage placement of the chorus, is the dual usage of the chorus. In the play, the chorus are made to play two roles; first, as choruses, and also, as actors with roles albeit minor. In Acts Two, as a case in study, a church setting had to be created. By a transitory move, the members of the chorus became the congregation playing supporting roles. They equally played as members of the concerned public when Ananse claimed to have lost his child.

This duality of roles, asides from augmenting the story presentation of the play, provided a needed emotional depth to the play. More so, it makes the audience much more captivated by the switch between roles of the cast. Chorus integration and involvement is a style that could be traced to Aristotle. In his Poetics, he explains “the chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action.” This objective was well achieved by the play.

In brief moments from the play, another unusual thing was done. A couple of the casts or actors changed costumes atop the stage and went on — the pastor, who was previously a member of the chorus transitioned into his pastoral role by putting on his suit on stage as opposed to using a changing room.

The effect of this quite unpopular technique is that the fourth wall was breached. The line between reality and enactments, the gap between the actors and the audience was broken. Thus, the feeling that was palpable from the audience was that of curiosity and therefore, heightened participation.

The minimalist stage usage is equally worthy of note. For most parts of the stage play, the stage simply consisted of about two to three chairs, or a bed. No extraordinary or extravagant embellishments were used. Regardless, the enactment was accurately delivered. In fact, the minimalism of the stage set up helped to emphasize the social class of Ananse.

The play equally draws heavily from Ghanaian culture. For example, throughout the play, on both sides of the stage, two boards, with large paintings of a spider, were placed. While it adorned the stage with artistic compliments, there were metaphoric undertones to it. This is because Ananse is likened to the spider in Ghanaian folklore who, like the fox, is guileful and devious. As a Ghanaian-based play, the outfits, costumes, including manner of speaking, were all solidly drawn from the rich culture of Ghana.

The unusual techniques which the play adopts stands it out as a uniquely presented play. While at a couple of points through the play, the delivery by a couple of cast appeared to be too spurious, or forced and there were moments of disconnect at the start of the play, it still cuts above a number of plays staged this year.