ABSTRACT
The (in)voluntary dispersal or ‘migritude’ (Chevrier 2004) of Africans by circumstances that dramatists constantly query is of utmost significance to the body of plays that have made the most of global Africa. Africa and its Diasporas have dialectical constructs in these plays about what, where, and how the homeland is pre- or post-migration and the transnational features that emerge therein. The plays relay the Diasporas in gendered, cultural, economic, and political terms in ways that necessitate decoding and meaning-making which consequently warrant the contemporary signification of hybridity. In accessing these new Diasporan plays, what forms of Diasporas exist in the plays? Which ones come out loud in the drama and which Diasporas are muted? Do repercussions exist for both the loud and silent approaches? Are there spheres of unease, pain, and gain about African Diaspora drama arising from Brain Drain? Do the dramatic genres bear any weight on the future of racial spread and the survivalist values, and identities ascribed to them in exilic and home literature? In assessing the waves of Diasporan literature, what concerns can the New drama of African Diaspora help to further contradict or consolidate about oppression, mobility, class structure, identity and other theses? The plays that underscore new African Diasporan realities in and outside Africa, with a specific note of Nigeria, are crucial to the meaning-making process in this chapter. These dramatists and the indices of indigenous weltanschauung and cross-continental zeitgeist that they propagate and about the queries raised above and other similar ones are of utmost concern and importance and shall be premised on their drama. This chapter examines the contributions of Nigerian dramatists in the Diaspora to the global and national theatre by highlighting the themes and perspectives underlining their creativity as well as the challenges and prospects of diasporic writings in the Nigerian theatre-scape.
