A scene from the play The Lion and the Jewel performed by Kitante Hill Senior Secondary School students at the National Theatre in Kampala. PHOTO | BAMUTURAKI MUSINGUZI.
What you need to know:
Although written over 50 years ago, Wole Soyinka’s play The Lion and the Jewel addresses tensions that still afflict many African countries today as they struggle to reconcile traditional beliefs and customs with West-influenced modern culture.
Although written over 50 years ago, Wole Soyinka’s play The Lion and the Jewel addresses tensions that still afflict many African countries today as they struggle to reconcile traditional beliefs and customs with West-influenced modern culture.
Set in the small remote village of Ilujinle in Yoruba, Nigeria, the comedy is about contrasts; culture versus change and old versus new. It casts a critical eye on the West’s cultural, political and economic influence on Africa.
The comedy was recently staged by students of Kitante Hill Senior Secondary School in Kampala at the National Theatre in the city. The narrative in The Lion and the Jewel hinges on a complex love-triangle that revolves around three main characters: Sidi, Lakunle and Baroka. Each character has different thoughts about the others and each views society differently.
The play chronicles how Baroka, the Lion, fights with the modern Lakunle over the right to marry Sidi, the titular Jewel. Thus the title, The Lion and the Jewel.
Lakunle (played by Charles Neemar), is a Westernised teacher, young and arrogant who attempts to introduce his community to “modern customs and ideals” like eating with cutlery, going to the club, dancing the foxtrot and kissing. He is for modernity where cars will replace donkeys. However, Lakunle, for all his talk does not really understand Western ideas.
Baroka (Francis Ssekate), the chief of Ilujinle, is a crafty individual, cunning, autocratic and a polygamist, who at the age 62 has fathered 63 children.
Sidi (Angella Otelemwa) is an egoistic village belle who is being wooed by both Baroka and Lakunle. She will choose one of the men for a husband. She is heavily influenced by tradition and does not appreciate the Western customs cherished by Lakunle.
For example, in the opening scene, she declines Lakunle’s offer to carry her load of firewood, because it is traditionally a woman’s job.
Lakunle is in love with Sidi and he hopes to marry her, but refuses to pay the bride price because he views the custom as well as many other traditional practices of his community such as polygamy, as being barbaric, “a savage … ignoble custom.” He even calls it “pride price.”
Refusing to pay the bride price for Sidi’s hand, Lakunle tells her: “Ignorant girl, can you not understand?/To pay the price would be/To buy a heifer off the market stall./You’d be my chattel, my mere property./No, Sidi!”
Sidi however is a traditionalist and insists on the dowry saying; “They will say I was no virgin, that I was forced to sell my shame.”
Baroka too courts Sidi, but he upholds the traditions of the village and views “progress” as something attempting to promote homogeneity in the world. He also sees modern ideas as a threat to his power.
Baroka cunningly claims that he is impotent in order to lure Sidi to his house. Sidi decides to pretend that she will accept him, in order to taunt him when he is unable to perform in bed. He promises her fame and fortune. She returns from this venture defeated because she loses her virginity to Baroka as a consequence — the lion beats the jewel.
Sobbing heavily Sidi declares that she has lost her virginity. Lakunle offers to marry Sidi, despite her not being a virgin and the non-payment of bride price, but Sidi refuses and goes off to marry Baroka, the lion.
Baroka’s triumph over Lakunle represents the victory of traditional values over Western culture.
The play was acted in three parts — morning, noon, and night.
Soyinka’s language in The Lion and the Jewel is rich, lyrical and full of imagery echoing Yoruba oral literary techniques.
The Kitante students employed traditional dances and pop songs such as Oliver Mtukudzi’s Todii and Lucky Dube’s Prisoner, among others, to come up with a Ugandan version of the play.
Asked why she decided to take on the role Sidi, Otelemwa told The EastAfrican: “Sidi’s role is very interesting and I wanted to bring out the character on stage. We should insist on what we want in life. We should insist on bride price as a custom.”
“This play tells us that we should not dwell too much on modernity but also value and uphold the norms and values of our different cultures,” said Carl Seguya, who directed the play.
“We found it necessary to stage this play because we wanted the country to get in see the importance of staging such plays in high schools to give students foundations in literature,” said Seguya, a third year undergraduate performing arts and film student at Makerere University in Kampala.
“We staged this play for parents and teachers to see the talent in Uganda and the possibilities here. So we urge parents and teachers to encourage their children who express interest in the performing arts so as to encourage and groom their acting talent,” Seguya added.
The play was first published in 1962 by Oxford University Press. In it, Soyinka emphasises the themes of the corrupted African culture; the clash between African traditionalists and modernists; love and marriage; and the marginalisation of women.
The Lion and the Jewel was the first major play to draw on traditional Yoruba poetry, music, and dance to tell a Nigerian story in English.
