Osonye Tess Onweume. What Mama Said: An Epic Drama

Osonye Tess Onweume. What Mama Said: An Epic Drama. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2003. 200 pp. $19.95.

Osonye Tess Onwueme, a prolific and versatile dramatist, has earned a place among the coterie of more important African authors. Her stature as the quintessential Nigerian political dramatist has gradually increased since 1985, when she garnered the Association of Nigerian Authors' Literary Prize in drama for The Desert Encroaches, a dramatic fable that relies on animals as characters to represent countries in a world where the threat of nuclear destruction is imminent. That her dramatic oeuvre provides primarily a thematic geography that lends itself to raising the consciousness of African women is vastly important. Within the established paradigm, where Onwueme's intellectual scope is matched by her daring to tackle controversial and taboo subjects, she explores myriad topics: arranged marriages (A Hen Too Soon, 1983); a daughter's false accusation against her father as having impregnated her (The Broken Calabash, 1984); the consequences of tribal politics when a woman chosen as a temporary king refuses to abdicate her position (The Reign of Wazobia, 1988); the journey of a young woman who leaves her village to pursue a progressive urban life only to discover the importance of her rural value system (Go Tell It To Women: An Epic Drama For Women, 1992, 1994, 1997); and a single mother's journey from the US to Africa with her teenage son so that he can connect with his ancestral home and absentee African father (The Missing Face, 2002).

In more than a dozen plays, Onwueme persistently offers drama as a catalyst for social change. Her latest play, What Mama Said: An Epic Drama, is set in a metaphorical state called Sufferland and explores what happens when citizens are terrorized and exploited by government officials illicitly involved with multinational oil conglomerates. An uprising for justice, fairness, and decency occurs, and the citizens try to remove corrupt government officials and diminish the control of foreign interests over their natural resources.

After the uprising--led by children, radicalized rural women, a 23-year old former mistress of the foreign oil kingpin, and the educated niece of the corrupt tribal leader, the activists are put on trial for sabotaging oil pipelines and kidnapping the powerful foreign oil representative. The trial garners international media attention, whereby the sociopolitical issues of human rights, global oil politics, and control over one's own natural resources figure in the outcome.

A play that purports to expose injustice and mistreatment of exploited people should make for engaging drama; unfortunately, this drama does not. The dramatist's overly ambitious attempt to stage too many issues plagues the play. Poverty, rape, AIDS, destroyed dreams, environmental pollution, and political corruption are subjects blended together without any one issue benefiting from its inherent dramatic potential.

Despite the revolutionary posturing, consequences of authentic danger never emerge. A gun is stolen; nonetheless, its lethal peril remains contained in a passivity that permeates the play. Idle threats also prevent the drama from exploding. For example, although an order is given to "shoot at sight," the result is nil; another time it is to "sack the entire village." This disconnect from the severe consequence of real, violent danger not only suggests the dramatist never seriously negotiates with it as a viable option, it also detracts from the audience's total involvement in the characters' political struggle.

Myriad loose ends weaken the dramatic foundation and ultimately impugn the credibility of characters. The depiction of Oceana, the powerful foreign oil chief, as woebegone because of his missing dog veers the drama towards melodrama. Furthermore, with a prologue, 12 movements (or scenes), and an epilogue, there are still key obligatory scenes missing. As a case in point: Omi, one of the revolutionary leaders, discovers vital information about her sister being sold by the tribal leader for a Land Cruiser. She claims she will reveal this information, but this scene is inexplicably withheld from the audience.

What the play lacks is provided in Maureen N. Eke's introduction. When she writes about the activist Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution by the Nigerian military, readers learn what was at stake for governmental officials and multinational oil corporations. While the play attempts a powerful message, it is presented as if the audience is already intimately familiar with all of the issues as well as with the author's message. The introduction captures and provides what the play does not, the emotionally charged political predicament of the Nigerian people in the face of oil geopolitics.

What Mama Said, at 200 pages, is indeed a long evening at the theatre for American audiences. More baffling is the fact that the dramatic theme and account are ostensibly the same as in the earlier Then She Said It (2002). The desire to rewrite and revise is understandable; playwrights do it all the time. New characters, plot twists, better dialogue, and altered dramatic premises are not unusual when playwrights update a script. Better proofreading and trimmed dialogue are the chief contributions of What Mama Said. There are no substantial changes from the original text to warrant a new title. Two titles suggest two different plays, yet that is not the case here.