Theatre History Overview - Part 24 - African Theatre

While Africa didn't consider itself to have theatre, there was no doubt that early African traditions of dance, story telling, and songs that were rituals in the different religious practices across the continent of Africa. In the 13th century, Africa saw the first Arab shadow play. It was by Ibn Daniyal and was called Ajib wa Gharib. It was a humorous sketch on the conmen and entertainers of his day.

However, not many people have a lot of African theatre history recorded. A major reason for this is that African history was mainly oral and not written. By the late 1950s, the Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka was writing plays and by 2001, he had at least twelve plays to his name. In the 1960s, the Cameroonian Guillome Oyono Mbia was writing plays and his plays were compared to Moliere's plays.

African theatre still exists today. While this is extremely short, there are more resource on African theatre that can be found in books. There is also Britanica's article on African Theatre which is divided by country. Then there is Cambridge's online book, A History of Theatre in Africa, edited by Martin Banham.

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