Description

Femi Osofisan TÈGÒNNI (An African Antigone) EMI Osofisan's Tegonni: An African Antigone moves beyond a concern with the political and cultural effects of colonialism. Instead, the play deconstructs colonial and other types of authority, including paternal power and the domination of the male, in the service of resistance to neo-colonialism. In place of traditional authorities, it foregrounds relationships of spontaneous affection, female agency, and a comic dimension. The self-conscious metatheatricality of the drama serves the same project; Tegonni doubles its heroine between a mythical Greek Antigone and a nineteenth-century Yorùbá princess, and thus can address, like Odale's Choice, the issue of a sacrifice that is efficacious but must be repeated. The authority of the Greek Antigone comes to symbolise the tragic inevitability of Africa's damaged history, but is countered both by the comedy in the play, represented most forcefully by the soldiers, and by the tradition of Antigones set in Africa.