Encountering The Tragedy of King Christophe

According to the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, the festival is “inspired by the spirit of convergence for which Lagos remains pre-eminent”. The theme of the festival was centred on Reconnection, Revaluation, Revindication. Some of the events that featured in the festival include colloquiums, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, visual arts, music and drama. On the part […]

According to the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, the festival is “inspired by the spirit of convergence for which Lagos remains pre-eminent”. The theme of the festival was centred on Reconnection, Revaluation, Revindication.

Some of the events that featured in the festival include colloquiums, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, visual arts, music and drama. On the part of drama, the works that were on stage included two of the plays of the Afro-Martinican Francophone poet, author and politician, Aime Cesaire, and the work of poet, Odia Ofeimun.  There were also dances which included the showcasing of traditional and contemporary steps.

All of these activities took place in different locations around the two host cities with carnivals which rivaled those of Brazil and the UK in terms of costumes and flamboyance. No day was left uneventful as artistes shuttle between venues in painted taxi cabs and buses.

The involvement of government was very obvious what with the continuous presence of the Lagos state Governor, Babatunde Fashola and his team at most of the events and also there was the unmistakable presence of the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka who was the chief consultant to the festival. The festival had traces and deep roots of his intellectual and organizational brilliance.

Aime Cesaire’s The Tragedy of King Christophe was one of the top billings as no one was sure how the director, Patrick-Jude Oteh of the Jos Repertory Theatre was going to treat the play. He did not disappoint as the play lived up to expectations. The play was written by Cesaire to warn African leaders not to fall into the pitfalls dug by King Henri Christophe who rose from the position of a cook to a general in the Haitian army under Toussaint Louverture with whom he fought for the Independence of Haiti. But he later crowned himself King and later Emperor Henri I and thus split the nation of Haiti into two with King Henri ruling the Northern part and his comrade in arms, Petion ruling the Southern part.

King Henri was a self taught leader who meant well for his people but his good intentions later translated to tyranny in a court which he had established after the absolute monarchies of Europe. He surrounded himself with lavish and sometimes ludicrous magnificence with forced labour enriching his fiefdom. He later committed suicide after a partial paralysis that left him incapacitated with revolts breaking out in the Kingdom and his generals deserting him to either join Petion in the South or carving their own piece of small kingdoms.

The play, rich in costumes and spectacularly set, was unfortunately marred by lighting challenges in Bagadry as the hall in which it was performed was not connected with electricity and the play had to make do with a generating set. But the Lagos performance was in the words of a visiting German journalist, Renate Klett, ‘a spectacle of unforgettable proportions’.  

In a festival of this nature, there are definitely some flaws that would not go unnoticed – one of such was the role of a group of people who were designated ‘logistics’; who somehow failed to understand what their role was. For instance, on more than two occasions, they booked multiple events in one venue and left the various delegates to sort out themselves. The accommodation of various artistes that grace the events also suffered serious set back.

Apart from the above hitches, the festival would go down as one that was well attended and well organised with extremely brilliant programming.