A play of Giants

One more night to go at Efua Sutherland Drama Studio (ETS), an audacious direction of Soyinka's A Play of Giants; the maestro's political satire on military dictatorship in Africa. Lethargic in its lampoon; horrendous in its comedy and unforgiving in the presentation of the stupid and megalomaniacal , yet conceited cabal that once held Africa hostage. The dialogue is explicitly mellifluous and it is one of those rare moments when the master climbs down from the Ogunnian heights of poetry and obscurity. The savagery is gut-wrenching and it is what stands this play in the in-between space of laughter and bestiality. What comes through the laughter is the anger of the playwright. The director has done well to take some of the gory scenes offstage so that we may laugh well and louder! In bringing the representatives of the world powers under Field Marshal kamini's (Idi Amin of Uganda ) hostage and torture, Soyinka wishes that they,too, have the hellish experience of the devil they supported and funded. Twum Elijah Owusu's impressionistic acting of the Kamini role sustains the neurosis and horror at each end of the dramatic stick. If you are in Accra, this is the last night