Description

RAPE OF AN INNOCENT... In her powerful drama BLOOD FOR PALM-WINE, legal luminary and celebrated novelist Ozioma Izuora lampoons with characteristic fire the taboo of rape (beside other social ills), which is presented as being often treated with levity both by traditional society and the courts. The victim of the crime is often left to bear society's burden of shame. The playwright offers a surprise twist in this drama by making the son of the culprit go beyond societal repulsion against having anything to do with a despoiled woman to actually marry her! That society often passes arbitrary judgment based on myopic considerations is echoed in a mad man's sensible though curious ramblings. At the end of the day the fusion is made complete with the realization that the voice of the gods is really that of a man called mad by the so-called wise society. BLOOD FOR PALM-WINE will take its place among the drama classics of our time.