Ghana's Concert Party Theatre - Book Review

African Arts, Winter, 2002 by Reagan M. Street

Catherine M. Cole Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2001. 196 pp., 24 b/w photos, 3 maps. $52.95 hardcover, $21.95 softcover.

Catherine M. Cole's new book is an extensive overview of the history and development of the Ghanaian concert party, a theatrical form that uses humor and music to tell stories conveying moral lessons; in his article "Comic Opera in Ghana," E. J. Collins characterized it as "a slapstick musical comedy containing a prominent moral tone, performed in the Akan language" (African Arts, January 1976, p. 50). The author herself provides the best description of her book: "[It] is the first study of West African popular theatre to be wholly historical, with an empirically detailed portrait of the changing social, political, aesthetic, and economic circumstances of Ghana's concert theatre during the colonial and early postcolonial era" (p. 3). Cole successfully accomplishes this task and much more. One would think that an adequate discussion of the vital aspects of such a dynamic performance art would require volumes, but instead Ghana's Concert Party Theatre is a concise and engaging read that provides not only a history of the genre but also a sense of performance theory.

The concert party is unique in that the intended audience has always been ordinary Ghanaians rather than the elite. To appeal to the masses, its participants and creators have borrowed from a wide range of disciplines, dramatic forms, and cultures. The concert party has survived nearly fifty years in Ghana, continually evolving and transforming itself in order to accommodate ever-changing social issues. As the author explains, British and American influences were important in shaping it into its present-day form. While early practitioners appropriated conventions from these two cultures, they also incorporated Ghanaian values and themes. Cole examines some of these themes as they pertain to proverbs and situations that occur in everyday life. She also goes into great detail about the social standing of the attendees and how it has changed over time. Initial performances "drew a socially stratified crowd ... from lawyers, district commissioners, clerks, and teachers to semi-skilled laborers, merchants, and' small traders" (p. 55). Today concert parties also appeal to middleclass families and Western visitors.

Cole discusses such sensitive topics as female impersonation and minstrelsy in order to deconstruct and elaborate on the many nuances of the concert party theater. She quickly dispels the argument that putting on blackface derives purely from Western theatrical performances, and she expands on the various ways in which the performers she spoke with view blackface. While minstrelsy has very specific racial connotations in the United States, this is simply not the case for many Ghanaians, who regard blackface as a comical device or just another means of body alteration. According to some of those interviewed, the use of black and white face paint signifies racial harmony. The author offers another reading: many west African peoples enhance the body through paint and ornament on ritual occasions, and she cites one man who associated blackface with "Ghanaian puberty rites, annual festivals, and ritual practices performed by priests and priestesses of traditional religion" (p. 28).

Cole discusses modernity and postcolonial theory as they apply to not only the concert party but also perceptions of Africa. "A central argument of this book is that concert parties helped colonial Ghanaians re-invent modernity with a critical difference" (p. 6). Cole uses a more Ghanaian-specific definition of modernity, one that replaces the typical European framing of the issue in terms of the primitive/civilized binary opposition; instead she speaks of modernity as "a process of conscious, well considered choices of inclusion and exclusion" (p. 6). The concert party creators, then, constructed performances that incorporated or omitted certain aspects of other cultures and practices in order to "reinvent" what they deemed to be modern.

Ghana's Concert Party Theatre is a groundbreaking work that underscores the need for additional studies that look closely at specific aspects of African culture. The performing arts are often left out of "academic" discussions, which give little attention to "non-textual expressions in so-called indigenous languages of the formerly colonized world" (p. 7). Cole's research suggests that both the written and the spoken word have important places in academia. In other words, she calls on scholars and readers to follow one of the concert party proverbs: Ohia Ma Adwennwen--"Use your gumption!"

REAGAN M. STREET is currently completing her thesis to receive her M.A. in African area studies at UCLA.