By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
There is a revolution afoot on the Nigerian stage that promises to quake the theatre world. The solo play is all the rage. One actor takes over the stage and overwhelms the audience with the masterly rendition of multiform roles. Greg Nnamdi Nbabike Mbajiorgu, author and the original one-man-actor of the groundbreaking play The Prime Minister’s Son, takes theatre to the stratosphere with the publication of The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays.
The history of the published solo drama text in Nigeria started out of Greg Mbajiorgu’s avant-garde thinking. In the words of the irrepressible Greg Mbajiorgu, “For as long as the solo performer lives and dies with his or her solitary art, the teaching and learning of this art in our tertiary institutions will be almost impossible.” He therefore showed the way by publishing what he describes thusly as “my stage-oriented work, The Prime Minister’s Son.”
Greg Mbajiorgu has now decided to go further afield to publish in one volume the cognate plays of his pioneering work The Prime Minister’s Son. It is noteworthy that The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays edited by Greg Mbajiorgu is one of the few historic compendiums that has emanated from the Nigerian theatre circuit in the last three decades. Here is an anthology that professional actors, playwrights, directors and theatre scholars will find dependable and compelling in many ways.
There is the endearing benediction that The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays is edited by a committed playwright who has devoted over thirty years of his career in conserving and consolidating the aesthetics of solo dramatic literature in Nigeria. The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays should rank as Mbajiorgu’s topmost contribution to the development of African theatre. The history of solo dramatic literature in Africa can hardly ever be accurate without highlighting the pioneering role of Associate Professor Greg Nnamdi Nbabike Mbajiorgu.
Given available records, The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays is the first anthology of solo plays to have come out of the African continent. The plays in the anthology are multi-dimensional and indeed exhilarating.
It is striking that the award-winning established playwright Ahmed Yerima offers his endorsement through the inclusion of his experimental solo play The Gadfly. There is the mind-blowing dimension of Benedict Binebai’s Esther’s Last Wish that elicits empathetic imagination and heightened emotional purgation even at the reading stage.
It is remarkable that the lionized playwright and thespian Ben Tomoloju is using some of the solo plays for his post-graduate classes in the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos. Also worthy of note is the revelation that a PhD Student at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka has just concluded his dissertation on four of the plays in The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays.
Doyens of the creative arts have variously offered critical words of approval. According to Emeritus Professor El Anatsui, “The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays showcases a good number of Nigerian playwrights who have been inspired to contribute towards advancing the solo drama frontier. It does not need much reiteration to affirm that Nigeria is indeed ripe to celebrate her first anthology of solo plays. This well-timed compendium is a treasure trove to multi-talented actors. The plays are all written in a no-holds-barred technique that grants the solo performer the needed freedom and flexibility to possess the stage and hold the audience transfixed and spellbound. This treasury of old and new Nigerian solo plays is worthy of celebration.”
Dr. Tunde Awosanmi, Department of Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan, endorses thusly: “The Power of One galvanizes the artistes of this ever inspiring genre into an aesthetic and philosophical movement. At conceptual, creative and organizational levels, this volume palpably affirms Associate Professor Greg Mbajiorgu’s resilience through decades of pioneering labour at institutionalizing the solo dramatic/performance genre within the Nigerian humanistic ecosystem.”
In the words of Denja Abdullahi, Poet, Playwright, Culture Administrator and former President Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), “This Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays is a culmination of Associate Professor Greg Mbajiorgu’s life-long commitment to give substance and corporeality to a sub-genre of performative art that has been the soul and wellspring of theatrical and cultural performances in Africa. The spontaneity, immediacy and fleetingness of improvisatory solos have been arrested textually by the rich array of dramatic texts featured in this anthology under the watchful guidance and inspiration of their ‘patron-saint’ who is also the sole editor of this historic collection.”
For Professor Austin Amanze Akpuda, Co-Editor, 50 Years of Solo Performing Art in Nigerian Theatre: 1966 – 2016, “The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays is an important offering because of its aesthetic beauty and what it represents in the Nigerian and African theatre history. While the initiator, Associate Professor Greg Mbajiorgu, did not originate the art of solo performance in modern Nigeria, he is undoubtedly the first African to transcribe and publish his improvisatory act, thereby inaugurating the sub-genre of solo dramatic literature in Nigeria and ensuring that the African age-long solo act ceases to remain an exclusively unsettled oral text and unpublished entity. Mbajiorgu has equally engendered a consciousness that even attracted major Nigerian playwrights to patronize this burgeoning movement. Most importantly, The Power of One projects the vision of a resourceful thespian-teacher-scholar. It is a historic treasury that compliments the earlier text on this subject: 50 Years of Solo Performing Art in Nigerian Theatre: 1966- 2016.”
Greg Mbajiorgu has singularly established himself as the go-to authority in solo performance in African theatre. The Power of One: Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays breaks bold ground in foundationally gathering in one volume insightful one-actor plays that are at once original and very contemporary. This groundbreaking anthology deservers to travel the world.