Description

Diala's challenging play confronts its audience with the disturbing questions, whether the Nigerian civil war has really ended, and if it has, what it means to activate its memory. His answers to these questions lie in the ever-fascinating assumption that since all the world is a stage, the tive imagination probes reality as an inexhaustible source of meaning, with theatre and its traditions as its instruments. The theore traditions available to this playwright include classical drama, aditional Igbo ritual and performance, as well as contemporary Egerian theatre with Soyinka as the prime model. The Truce is a sta imitation of the active memory of the civil war. The dramatic aci action turns on the cross-appropriation of identity symbols by the protagonist and the antagonist. From its exposition to its climax ad resolution, the dramatic action is driven by these two conflicting symbols-military boots and the Igbo traditional totem of tho python. But for this playwright, it is not enough to turn contempo mporary reality into theatre if the outcome is limited to entertainment. The playwright elicits a range of contemporary Nigerian themes from his simple stage set and restricted setting. By the probing, symbolic language as well as the characters' role playing and role swapping suggestive of masks and incarnations, theatre becomes reality and fulfils its mimetic purpose. -Dan Izevbaye