Onwueme: A theatre icon honoured by ABU

Last Saturday, the Drama Village of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria came alive when 300 level students performed in honour of theatre icon, Prof. Tess Onwueme, when they staged one of her plays, ‘Tell It To Women,’ (1992) in recognition of her contributions to Nigeria’s theatre and literary space. The production was put together by the […]

Last Saturday, the Drama Village of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria came alive when 300 level students performed in honour of theatre icon, Prof. Tess Onwueme, when they staged one of her plays, ‘Tell It To Women,’ (1992) in recognition of her contributions to Nigeria’s theatre and literary space.
The production was put together by the Department of Theatre And Performing Arts and directed by three of its lecturers led by Steve Daniel, who was one of Onwueme’s students at the University of Ibadan. The event was also organised as part of pre-celebrations marking her 60th birthday.
The play is an expression of Onwueme’s sermon on the need to protect indigenous African culture in an ever evolving world and her advocacy for women empowerment towards national development. The work interrogates the level of acceptance as well as the impact of the project in the lives of rural women as well as the implications of the tenets of the project on the few village women, who overzealously imbibe the ideology.
Everyday factors like the gap between educated and economically empowered women who seek to enlighten their rural counterparts and the rural, uneducated women, who are quite often resistant to that and may trigger certain levels of conflicts, are evident in the piece.
In the characters, Daisy and Ruth, two young women obsessed with the ideals of Westernisation and modernity, the Better Life for Rural Women project which is a metaphor for Westernisation, become, a sad narrative of the impacts of modernism or civilisation on African families.
As events unfold, the fact that the Better Life programme has appendages that contradict extinct African cultures and tradition, become glaring.
This result in anomalies like lesbianism, extreme quest for women emancipation, liberation, equality and freedom from patriarchy and its attendant subjugations, followed by the attempt to bruise the ego of an African man through gender equality doctrine. The response is outright resistance, provoking more conflict between rural men and city women, whom the men perceive as contrary to the people’s tradition and culture.
The resolution comes with traditional African culture surviving the near-suffocating Western influence. The younger generation of African women is therefore entrusted with the continuation of African cultural sensibilities.
The play also reflects recent mishaps like the kidnapped Chibok girls and the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaign as the students aptly interpreted the text as they made excellent use of the stage and with a blend of dialogue, music and dance and costumes.
Renowned for her dexterity and nimble feet on the dance floor, Onwueme who was the special guest of the day could not resist the allure of the stage as she joined the cast.
Onwueme had last year been honoured by the University of Wisconsin, USA, with the establishment of an e-archive meant to house every one of her work, including manuscripts and critical essays on her work..