By Balarabe Oshiafi
Come December 10, at the international conference centre of the Institute of Management and Technology, (IMT), Enugu, the State’s Council for Arts and Culture will be staging a play that is emblematic of the government ‘s new policy to revive live theatre in the Coal City State of Nigeria
The Executive Secretary of the Council, and writer of the play, Laurence Ani, disclosed this to ExpressDay in a telephone interview on Sunday.
“Enugu State is an entertainment Hun in the south east. We want to revive live theatre which seems to be waning in the south east, nay Nigeria “, he said.
A synopsis which the executive secretary made available to Expressday calls the “story, the legent and the play” elucidated what play is about this:
“Years after she was forced to flee her community as a young teen, in the darkness of night, refusing to be devotee and bride to the community’s deity and her guardian, Ahebi returns to secure a place as the first and only woman Warrant Chief with the help of British colonial authority.
“Not long after, she assumes upon herself the social status of a man, determined – in violation of the community’s rejection of her kingship – to become king. Ahebi’s repeated transgressions of her community’s custom and tradition culminates in a final confrontation with the male elders and the guardian of the deity she fled in her youth.
“The Trial of King Ahebi … The Woman Who Became a Man is a dramatized account of the legendary tale of Ahebi Ugbabe (born late 19th Century in Umuida, Enugu-Ezike, in present-day Enugu State, but then a part of the sprawling British colonial outposts), the eponymous heroine in the play, who was reputedly the only female Warrant Chief in Colonial Nigeria, and first recorded female ‘Eze’ in Igboland.
“The story of The Woman who Became a Man is a drama on history. The timeline is colonial Nigeria, but the tragedy of Ahebi Ugbabe stretches to the present”, he posited.
The writer notes that although the play is historical, the reenactment is coincidental and bear no exactitude with characters and situations.
