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Transposition and Adaptation as Sources of Playwriting: A Dramaturgical

Critique of Alachi’s The Gods Are To Blame, and Rotimi’s The Gods are Not To

Blame.

Abstract

Introduction

Playwriting is a noble art with refined hands venturing into it. The process of

crafting believable stories through characters and dramatic action for the general

audience is playwriting. Emasealu, Emmanuel once opines that, “the art of writing

plays has panned several centuries. This art has become invigorated since the epoch

of ancient Greek theatre after dialogue found its way into the dithyrambic choruses’’

(12). The play which is a product of playwriting is sometimes referred as drama

which is a genre of literature dealing with dialogue.

Playwriting is the art of telling a story through dialogue. Playwriting is the

process of writing a play. This can be adapted from a story, a historical event, a

novel, or an original idea. In the words of Chris Nwamuo, “playwriting is the art of

creating replicas of human action and experiences, with a view to improving the

human being” (15). It entails carrying thoughts and information from the mind of

one person into the mind of another. To Owuamalam, Owums, it “entails a creative
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presentation of an idea that brings conceptions to the fore for the mutual benefit of

the source and the receiver” (136).

The playwright from inception, have been questioned on the appropriate

source(s) of ideas for the piece. Some of the sources of ideas includes, life event,

dreams, biblical histories and stories and adaptation of stories, James Pressley in

this line observed that “in the entire canon of William Shakespeare’s work, there are

few original plots… drawing from classical works, histories and other literary

sources, Shakespeare liberally adapted stories (sometimes lifting words and

paraphrasing) in creating his plays” (1). Despite the ability of scholars lending their

voices to the idea of adaptation of an original piece into a new story as a source of

playwriting, some have not been able to reckon with it, and have questioned the

authenticity/ originality of the piece and the place of forgery, declining the

authenticity of having the act of adaptation and transposition as a source of

playwriting. It is on this premise the study seek to lend a voice that, despite the act

of adaptation and transposition as a source of playwriting, the art is subjective and

there is an element of imposition of ideas and style of the playwright. The

descriptive methods and analytical methods of the Quantitative and Qualitative

methodology will be used in making a critique of Atu Alachi’s The gods Are To

Blame and Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame which are a transposition and

an adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. The study covers an in-depth

dramaturgical study of the original drama text in relation to the adopted drama texts

as mentioned above, which serves as a hypothesis to other adapted works, with the
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aim of describing the entirety of the dramatic text, unveiling the level of adaptation

and the exploration of personal/ original ideas of the playwrights in the drama.

Furthermore, the content evaluation of the dramatic text will be made, using the

literary methods, by carefully looking into the elements of playwriting –setting,

theme, character, structure, language, plot and others, evaluating how these

elements were expressed throughout the dramatic works.

The study relies on the theory of Intertexuality. This theory by Julia Kristeva

sprang up in 1966, which posed the notion that all works of literature are a

derivation or have been influenced by a previous work of literature. It revealed that

intertextuality could be found throughout many forms of literature, noting that

different texts exist through their relation to prior literary texts – feeding into the

idea that no text is truly or uniquely original. The notion of intertextuality posits

that, everything has some form of influence or borrowing from literary works of the

past. The literary critic and feminist psychoanalyst, Kristeva used the term in her

seminal essays on Bakhtin and intertextuality, in both “Word, Dialogue and Novel”

in 1966 and “The Bounded Text” in 1967. These many-sided essays shed light on

the fact that Kristevan concept of intertextuality had its roots from her own reading

of Bakhtinian dialogism “as an open-ended play between the text of the subject and

the text of the addressee” (Moi 34). According to Bakhtin, a text is a representation

of various discourses ranging from everyday communication to social, historical,

literary discourses etc. or jargon, dialects or all other uses in the same language.

Kristeva gives an analysis of language, which helps understand intertextuality. By

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the term ‘intertextuality’ she means “the way in which one signifying practice is

transposed into another”. For her, the “signifying practice is never simple and

unified. It is the result of multiple origins or drives, and hence it does not produce a

simple uniform meaning” (McAfee 26). Kristeva explains the term ‘intertextuality’

with the term ‘transposition’.

The term inter-textuality denotes this transposition of one (or several) sign

system(s) into another; but since this term has often been understood in the

banal sense of “study of sources,” we prefer the term transposition because it

specifies that the passage from one signifying system to another demands a

new articulation of the thetic – of enunciative and denotative positionality.

(Kristeva 59–60)

Intertextuality, in its broadest sense, is a poststructuralist, deconstructionist and

postmodernist theory that changed the concept of text, recognizing it as an intertext

owing to the interrelations between texts and texts’ absorptions of other texts.

It is suffice to say adaptation and transposition is an acceptable source of

playwriting, owing to the inter relatedness between every work of art, either literary

or not. No art work exists in isolation, there is either a cut out of ideas, structure,

language, signs and other elements from other previous work. The primary focus in

intertextuality is the interdependence of texts. All texts are intertexts because they

refer to, recycle and draw from the preexisting texts. Intertextuality suggests a range

of links between a text and other texts emerging in diverse forms as direct

quotation, citation, allusion, echo, reference, imitation, collage, parody, pastiche,

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literary conventions, structural parallelism and all kinds of sources either

consciously exploited or unconsciously reflected. By so doing an intertext

transforms or reproduces the texts preceding it. Intertextuality itinerated from its

position in which it was just supposed to be the influence and source study to the

position in which ‘work’ has become ‘(inter)text’.

We decipher that Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is a source and influence of Alachi’s The

gods Are To Blame, and Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame, since the later is a

cut out of the source text, in terms of the themes, ideas and others, this makes the

source text to be easily appreciated in other environment, since they have been

brought to that environment through the use of language, settings and the events

being portrayed in the drama text as it affects the society. This qualifies the adapted

or transposed dramatic text to been an intertext of the original text.

Concept of Transposition and Adaptation in playwriting

Literature is no longer seen as fragmented composition of successive genres but as a

continuum, involving the constant renewal of literary styles, by constantly

readapting and translating the words of others into a new language, writers ensure

the survival of what would be otherwise forgotten literature while adapting

narrative strategies to contemporary readers. According to Princewill Abakporo and

Ogungbesan Abiodun, “Adaptation can be seen as the other side of the same coin of
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interpretation as it is a reworking of an original piece to suit the demands of a new

social climate” (2). It is the metamorphoses of an original work into a new form art

work that through its form or theme transforms a text to another time, culture,

language and even medium. There is a tendency that the adapter would trample on

the original intention of the creator and thus super-impose his own style, to suit his

culture or the intended theme, either in agreement or a revolt with the original as in

the case of a transpositional process. Adaptation which is coined from a Latin word

“adatatio” which was associated with a particular type of translation, involving a

certain degree of creativity, adaptation carried the idea of transformation,

adjustment and appropriation when it first appeared during the 13thcentury.

Translation is closely linked to the concept of creation in the form of updating or

recycling of ideas, which allows for a high level of originality. Translation serves as

a bridge between cultures and time . “It allows for collective memories to be passed

on, while being adapted to the needs and customs of the next generations”

(Abakporo 6).
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Adaptation and transposition are genres that are well known from the days of

postmodernism till today. It delves from musicians` remakes and remix of folk

songs to literary adaptations of novels to film adaptations. Adaptation has enjoyed

great popularity in the postmodern epoch and one of its most interesting sides,

which we also find, slightly modified in transposition; consist of presenting a

different point of view from the original.

In transposition, there is an attempt to produce the original as the author

might have done if he appears in the given socio-historical time and place of the

transposition and retain the consciousness that created each sentence of the original.

The central elements of transposition consist of his engagement with each sentence

and the shift in content/form. It may alter some aspects of the original form or keep

some. Unlike adaptation that may only shift from one language to another, or is

limited to the text, transposition can move as far as changing the form.

For an adapter to produce an adaptation of other people`s works, he cannot

write ignorantly away from the ideas and source offered by the original writer

because the original work serves as a means to extend his own thought. He is

relatively bringing forth the exiting text into a more recent world (time), his cultural

environment (setting), without an alteration of the original text. Likewise the

Transposer, who would neglect the entirety of the original source, and would rather

choose to change the narrative, either to suit his critical mind or the need of his

environment, this is what critical writers do. They read a work, agree or disagree

and go from there stating their own position and making sure the argument is
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original. Glenn and Loretta corroborates this thought when they maintain that

“when you write critically, you improve your understanding of what you have read;

you generate new ideas and communicate them clearly and concisely to your

audience” (2). Also, in this vein, Achor Akowe submits that:

Resulting from the above, there have been successful adaptations by Nigerian

playwrights, e.g Femi Osofisan’s Another Rift, No More the Wasted Breed,

which are adaptation of JP clark’s and Wole Soyinka’s The Raft and The

Wasted Breed respectively. Another is Yerima’s Trial of Oba Ovonramwen, a

version of Rotimi’s Ovonramwen Nogbaisi…(227)

Hence it is important to state that every form of adaptation is a work of

creative art and it is the duty of the adapter to recreate an appropriate model in order

to preserve the original source material. It is within these realms that the will power

of the adapter is dependent. He can manipulate and oscillate from level to level,

plane to plane without decrying the work that informs the source of his creativity.

Dramaturgical Appraisal of Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex, Alachi’s The gods Are To

Blame, and Rotimi’s The Gods are Not To Blame.

Synopsis of Oedipus Rex

Shortly after Oedipus’ birth, his father, King Laius of Thebes, learned from an

oracle that he, Laius, was doomed to perish by the hand of his own son, and

so ordered his wife Jocasta to kill the infant.

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However, neither she nor her servant could bring themselves to kill him

and he was abandoned in the forest to die. There he was found and brought up by a

shepherd, before being taken in and raised in the court of the childless King Polybus

of Corinth as if he were his own son.

Stung by rumours that he was not the biological son of the king, Oedipus

consulted an oracle which foretold that he would marry his own mother and kill his

own father. Desperate to avoid this foretold fate, and believing Polybus and Merope

to be his true parents, Oedipus left Corinth. On the road to Thebes, he met Laius,

his real father, and, unaware of each other’s true identities, they quarreled

and Oedipus’ pride led him to murder Laius, fulfilling part of the oracle’s

prophecy. Haven solved the riddle of the Sphinx, his reward for freeing the

kingdom of Thebes from the Sphinx’s curse was the hand of Queen

Jocasta (actually his biological mother) and the crown of the city of Thebes. The

prophecy was thus fulfilled.

Content Analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

Author: Sophocles

Type of work: Play

Genre: Tragedy

Language: Ancient Greek (later translated to English)

Time and Place written: Between 499 and 400 BC, Greece

Date of First Publication: 5th Century BC

Publisher: Simeon & Schuster

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Tone: the tone is tragic and sympathetic, everyone feels sympathy for Oedipus.

Setting (Time): thirteenth century

Setting (Place): The setting is in Thebes, Where King Oedipus resides.

Protagonist: Oedipus

Major Conflict: The major conflict arises when Tiresias reveals to Oedipus that

Oedipus is responsible for the plague, but Oedipus fails to believe him.

Rising Action: The rising action of Oedipus the King occurs when Creon returns

from the oracle with the news that the plague in Thebes will end when the murderer

of Laius the king, is discovered and driven out.

Climax: The climax arrives when Oedipus realizes that he has fulfilled destiny by

murdering his father and marrying his mother. The climax depicts the painful self-

awareness of Oedipus.

Falling Action: The consequences of Oedipus’s learning of his identity as the man

who killed his father and slept with his mother are the falling action. This discovery

drives Jocasta to hang herself, Oedipus to poke out his own eyes, and Creon to

banish Oedipus from Thebes.

Themes: The power of unwritten law, the willingness to ignore the truth, the limits

of free will

Motifs: Suicide, sight and blindness, graves and tombs

Symbols: Oedipus’s swollen foot.

Foreshadowing: Oedipus’s name, which literally means “swollen foot,”

foreshadows his discovery of his own identity.

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Sophocles who was known with placing the prowess of the superficial beings

over man’s will in his works, made use of his cultural events in communicating his

theme in the dramatic work. He made use of elements that were obtainable during

that era – fight for supremacy, the oppression of the sphinx on communities, the

ultimate submission of man to the will of superficial powers. Sophocles made good

use of dramatic irony through the play, for instance, at the beginning of the play, the

people of Thebes comes to Oedipus, asking him to rid the city of the plague, not

knowing he is the cause, and many others. Sophocles revealed the presence of

tragedy in the life of noble men, kings and queens, not only in the common man.

The language of the dramatic work is the ancient Greek, though was later translated

to English. King Oedipus was a typical of the myth stories of the Greek. And the

style of writing obeyed Aristotle’s three unities –unity of time, place and action.

Synopsis of Alachi’s The gods Are To Blame.

The gods are to blame tells a story of a boy Akanya, whose activities lead to the

death of his brother and father; Akanya is also destined to commit incest with his

Sister and have canal knowledge of his brother's wife. Accomplishing this fate takes

Akanya through thorny paths. The realization that he has had canal knowledge of

his sister and brother’s wife is the last stroke that broke the Carmel's back. Akanya

castrates himself and blames the gods for his predicament.

Content Analysis of The gods Are To Blame.

Author: James Atu Alachi

Type of work: Play

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Genre: Transposition

Language: English

Time and Place written: 2002 Benue.

Date of First Publication: 2002

Publisher: Abogom Press

Tone: Alachi portrayed a very serious issue as regards the predestined life of

Akanya over committing two grave incests, which he unknowingly walked into it.

Setting (Time): 1996

Setting (Place): Idoma, Benue State.

Protagonist: Akanya (meaning problem or trouble)

Major Conflict: the conflict began when Akanya was asked to leave school with

accompanying letters sent across the district forbidding his being admitted into any

school; all these for merely taking an inconsequential part in a demonstration

against a corrupt leader who manipulates the people to suit his whims and caprices..

Rising Action: the action began when Akanya, who, at age ten, learns during his

initiation into manhood of a curse, placed on his head by the gods. Atama Speaking:

“as a police boss, you will seduce your brother’s wife. You will devour your own

sister…” (TGATB vii-viii)

Climax: This is when Akanya somehow crowns himself the spearhead of a self-

acclaimed peasant crusade against corruption and thus, must avenge all wrongs

done the peasants. Akanya speaking: “Money must be collected from any bloody

motorist that passes (the) road block just as the officers under him must
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manufacture offences without troubling their consciences since there is nobody who

is not corrupt” (TGATB 2).

Falling Action: when the acts of Akanya ignites a chain of deaths in his family – his

brother, then father and sister – but Aladi, his sister-in-law whom had devoured

would survive to confirm the sacrilege

Themes: The power of unwritten law, predestination, corruption,

Motifs: Death, corruption, fate

Symbols: Troubles

Foreshadowing: Akanya’s name, which literally means “Problem or trouble,”

foreshadows his discovery of his fate.

Alachi is known to be highly inclined with the socio cultural and political

situation of his people. As an activist in theatre for development practice, Alachi

uses theatre as a medium to engage questions of social attitudes, morality, and

cultural cum religious crises. He is concerned about the common man and how the

society propels the wish of the gods in bringing forth the downfall of man. He made

use of trending ill issues in the society, limiting it to the Idoma people of Benue

state – corruption, incest, immorality, making use of social characters.

Synopsis of Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame

The play is about a child Odewale, who was prophesied by the gods to be an evil

child who will kill his father and marry his mother when he grows up which led his

father the king of Kutuje village to order his messenger Gbonka to kill him but
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rather he handed the child over to a royal guard, who eventually hands him to his

master King Ogundele, who was childless. The same pattern follows as Odewale

grows up and is also informed about his tragic destiny by an oracle, after being

slighted that he is not the son of his foster parents. He hastens to prevent the terrible

destiny and flees from Ijekun, the village in which he grew up, believing he was

living with his real parents. On the road, destiny takes up, when he finds an elderly

man leading a team of five men to uproot his farm products, a quarrel ensues

between them and he kills his own father. Odewale flees from the place of murder

and landed in kutuje, where he helped rescued the land out of the oppression of

Ikolus, in appreciation he was made to marry the widowed queen, his mother

without knowing it. The play concludes with the desperate Odewale punishing

himself by self mutilation for his crimes and fleeing the village.

Content Analysis of The Gods Are Not to Blame

Author: Ola Rotimi

Type of work: Play

Genre: Adaptation

Language: English and a mixture of Yoruba

Time and Place written: 1968, Lagos

Date of First Publication: 1971

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Publisher: Oxford University Press

Tone: Rotimi sees it as serious, and a tragic situation as it relates to the fate of man

over the gods will

Setting (Time): 1960

Setting (Place): Ketuje, Ede, Oshogbo in Osun State, Nigeria.

Protagonist: Odewale (meaning The Hunter has arrived home)

Major Conflict: The conflict started when Odewale due to his hot temper, accused

Baba Fakunle to have been complicit in King Adetusa’s murder. Odewale speaking;

“Don’t beg him. He will not talk. The murderers have sealed his lips with

money…”(TGANTB 2.1).

Rising Action: The rising action began when Aderopo returns from Ife and

informed Odewale about his findings concerning the cause of the ailment and death

befalling Ketuje land.

Climax: The climax arrives when Baba Fakunle tells Odewale he is the killer of the

king of Ketuje and a bed-shearer. Baba Fakunle is speaking: “The truth that you are

the cursed murderer that you seek… I said …bed sharer!”( TGANTB 2.1).

Falling Action: this comes up when Odewale began to realize with much

displeasure that he is the son of Ojuola whom he’s been married to all this while

through the revelation, given by Gbonka.

Themes: Predestination, Disobedience, Betrayal

Motifs: Anger, Death, sight and blindness, will

Symbols: Anger
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Foreshadowing: Rotimi foreshadows the play by using the prophecy being revealed

during the ceremony of Odewale’s birth. Baba Fakunle speaking: “This boy, he will

kill his own father and then marry his own mother” (TGANTB 3).

Rotimi always extols the African ethnic traditions, propagating the Nigerian

cultural diversity in his works, he is known for dealing with socio-cultural issues,

even as it affects the economic situation of his people- the Yorubas. He carefully

and successfully Africanized an originally European play, by budding in the content

and flavor of the rich African art. He discussed themes identifiable to the African

cosmology which includes betrayal, incest, pride and others. Rotimi embellished the

dramatic text with Yoruba myths, songs, proverbs and other traditional elements and

applied it to the Greek tragedy structure. He made use of several dramatic

techniques – flashback, dramatic irony, mime and others.

The Gods Are to Blame and The Gods Are Not to Blame as a Transposition and

Adaptation of Oedipus Rex.

Transposition or Adaptation involves the conversion of an original text into another

form, rendering of plays into other cultures, in terms of place, time, title and

framework and still maintaining its dramatic eminence. It involves a re-working of

an original piece to suit the demands of a new social cultural climate, wherein, the

political, economic and religious realities plunging the society are also portrayed.

Alachi’s The Gods are to Blame is a play rooted in an ideological culture of

the Benue people of Nigeria, a transposition of the old Theban myth of Sophocles.

The play by all means has been able to project the sociopolitical and cultural pattern
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as practiced by the Idoma people of Benue State. John Ochinya asserts that:

Alachi’s The Gods are to Blame is a play rooted in an ideological culture:

a reincarnation and the transposition of the old Theban myth of

humanity’s vain effort to circumvent divine will. The Sophoclean tragedy

Oedipus Rex, which is the aesthetic framing of this myth. (28)

The creative interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, by Alachi is as a

result of the particularity reflected in his immediate society that was

characterized by tragedy befalling the common man – Akanya, and a case of

questionable acts of incest as an abominable act and the place of man’s

weakness as elements that brought about the fulfillment of the divine will, as

opposed the case of King Oedipus. Akanya submits in his conversation with

Constable Chigbo: “I am not bad. Life has made me what I am: mad, callous

and wanton” (TGATB 16).

While, Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame is a post colonial adaptation of

the sophoclean myth, which is basically a transplantation / translation of King

Oedipus into the Yoruba culture and its cosmology as a whole. In support of this,

Chilaka Ngozi opines that “Rotimi interpretes Sophocles’ story within the context

of African culture, infusing his text with elements that are specific to the African

tradition” (1). The drama, similar with Alachi’s text reveals the collision of man’s

weakness and the divine will to bring forth a path of bad fate. His flaws bring him

closer to the fulfillment of destiny. Baba Fakunle reveals: “Your hot temper, like a

disease from birth, is the curse that has brought you trouble” (TGANTB 32).
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The two plays The Gods Are to Blame and The Gods Are Not to Blame are

basically alike, In fact, it can be said that besides the likewise manner in the design

of the inciting incident, at the point of realization, and the harsh punishments the

major characters meted upon themselves, the two plays closely follow each other in

content manipulation. Alachi begins with a prologue just as Rotimi, which

foreshadowed the events to come. The narrator takes us through the tour of ‘how it

all began’. Unlike Oedipus Rex, whose prologue, introduces us to the ailing

situation befalling Thebes.

One major aspect that stood prominent in this trio is the theme – the issue of

man’s destiny as immutable. They, though in different forms attempted to ask some

phenomenal questions about human destiny here on earth, looking at the

meaninglessness of man’s strength in averting ones destiny. This is what Kirszner

and Mandell calls ‘cosmic irony’, “which occurs when God, fate or some larger,

uncontrollable forces seems to be intentionally deceiving characters into believing

they can escape their fate. Too late, they realize that trying to avoid their destiny is

futile” (1024). For instance, King Oedipus, Tiresias prophesied that Oedipus will

kill his father and marry his mother. The more he tried to avoid the occurrence, by

running away from those he sees as his parents, the more he went into fulfilling the

prophesies. In Alachi’s work, during the initiation of Akanya into manhood, he is

told by Atama (the priest) that he will devour his own sister and seduce his elder

brother’s wife ;

ATAMA : As a police boss, you will seduce your brother’s wife, you will
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also devour your own sister. That is what Ejejitoke, daughter of the sun, has

asked me to tell you. (TGATB…vii)

In Rotimi’s work, during the presentation of Odewale to the god of Ogun, as

customary with the traditional Nigerian, Baba Fakunle revealed;

BABA FAKUNLE: This boy will kill his own father and marry his own

mother. (TGANTB 9)

The characters had their destinies being revealed to them, by the gods and had

tried in their human capacity to stop its occurrence. But fate prevailed. Incest is

central in thought and an abomination as commonly explored in the world of the

trio plays – Odepius married his mother, Akanya, devoured his sister, Odewale

married his mother. The themes of crime and punishment, appearance and reality,

predestination, vengeance all reverberate throughout the body of the plays.

In the case of Alachi’s work, the committed incest was different from sophocles’

and Rotimis’. This signals a break off from the latter.

Sophocles and Rotimi sympathetically portray their tragic heroes. They are both

benevolent leaders who cared and was sympathetic with their subjects in their

suffering, and was out to provide a solution for them. Odewale asks the people of

Ketuje to;

Get up,

Get up..

Not to do something is to be crippled fast. Up, up, all of you

To lie down resigned to fate is madness.

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Up, up, struggle: the world is struggle. (TGANTB 1)

Odewale is a tragic character portrayed a man prone to violence due to his

uncontrollable temper, which made him disregard the advice of the voice when he

went to consult the oracle, who told him “ to run away will be foolish. The snail

may try but it cannot cast off its shell. just stay where you are. Stay where you

are… stay where you are (TGANTB 15).

Oedipus though brave was full of wisdom. The priest said “as to the man surest in

mortal ways, and wisest in the ways of God… a king of wisdom tested in the past”

(OR 45). He was characterized to be a man of anger, always wanted to dig into

knowing the truth, rash in taking decisions and proud, which became his tragic flaw.

Oedipus commits the sin of hubris by seeking human solutions to a divine problem,

and so his suffering is justified.

On the other hand, the character Akanya who comes from a poor background

and grew finding greener pastures, displays early uprightness- judging from his

conduct of integrity. He reflects respect, discipline and patriotism to his country. In

spite of his humble background, he displays resilience for survival coupled with

doggedness and determination to succeed against all odds. Inevitably, Akanya

continues to meet with bad luck. In spite of these misfortunes, he still maintains

good moral rectitude against his proclaimed destiny by the gods, until he resented to

the place of giving in to the effect of life. Akanya on the other hand insists that the

gods be blamed, stating that by running away he thought he was being brave, he

never knew he was merely obeying what has been laid down for him by the gods
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and so he is not the one to blame but the gods. But like Sophocles (Oedipus Rex)

and Rotimi (The Gods Are Not To Blame), Alachi must make Akanya to succumb to

the in surmount.

The setting of the trio gave distinct information about the happenings in the

play. And they wrote out of the influence their culture had on them, and vice versa.

Bantock, Geoffrey lends his voice to the interrelationship between literature and the

social world from where it emerged. His argument is that:

…all novels and plays and a fair amount of dramatic or narrative poetry may

not be understood without their environing context because they focus their

attention on characters and incidents that bear close parallels to imitation of

an action with the highest consciousness of the age in which they are

written. (Quoted in Bamidele 2)

The interpretation of the drama is rooted in an ideological culture and often

reflecting the particularity of a given society. Every playwright has a divergent

thematic consideration based on his personal encounter even when his play is

influenced by an earlier one. Sophocles’ Odeipus Rex was set in Thebes, an era that

characterized the prevalence of the gods over mans will, and this informed the
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major theme. Sophocles was interested in increasing the religious faith, and justifies

the ways of God to man. The playwright was also in sync with Aristotle’s ideology

of tragedy befalling the ruling class, which led to characterizing Oedipus as one

from the ruling class even till the end- the son a king that eventually rose to being a

king even before the tragic showed up. The play was also written in Greek but was

translated into English. The happenings in the play were unique to the Greeks, for

instance, the presence of the Sphinx that was known to always through a riddle and

kill those who aren’t able to give answers to it. Since every creative work in a way

attempts to address the social decay of the society, to show its relevance, its

thematic interests have to be woven around topical and pressing needs of the

community. In this light, Alachi had his play set in Idoma, Benue State. He was

aware of social issues befalling the Benue people, which were characterized by

social vices, corruption, poverty, oppression, issues of cultural abominations. The

community was highly religious folks who believed in the supremacy of the gods,

just like the Yoruba folks. These cultural and religious factors influenced the

situation of the play. Alachi steps further to incorporate the themes of corruption

and truth versus propaganda, which was a thing of concern at that time. That’s why

the personality of Akanya revealed most of these traits. Corruption is aptly captured

in the principal, a self-acclaimed anti-corruption crusader, “a local Jesus”, but who

unlike Jesus is a failure when given the chance” (TGATB 9). Akanya, who blames

life for making him “mad, callous and wanton” orders the extortion of money from

all motorists with a further charge on his men to “manufacture offences without
 23

bothering their consciences” (TGATB 16). Rotimi did not reveal the areas of

poverty in his play like Alachi, but highlighted the royal strength and same time,

their weakness. The play extols the virtues of patience, good leadership and

communal responsibility, while denouncing the evils of anger, distrust, incest and

pride as mostly revealed by Odewale. Rotimi unlike Sophocles emphasized the

problems in Nigeria as not religious faith but blind faith in the gods. In place of the

oppression by the Sphinx, Odewale led a near defeated community to war and won

the battle. This was the peculiarity of the African community as at that time, where

the fight for dominance amongst communities was on the increase. This also was

meant to reveal the kind of strength inherent in Odewale.

Furthermore, Alachi and Rotimi in their plays choose simple English which

could be understood by all. Rotimi, noting the uniqueness of the Yoruba culture

made use of proverbs, chants, riddles, and African cultural songs, also involving the

Yoruba incantations and black magic, especially when Odewale killed his father. In

both plays, Pockets of very catchy proverbs are littered in the plays especially in

scenes depicting the local settings. Some of these quotes address issues of social

relevance, while some a motivating. Examples include “the cocoyam is never safe

with a goat as its guard…the fly does not run away from human dung, it eats it”

(TGATB 42). Rotimi uses some provides which includes “The future is not happy,

but to resign oneself to it is to be crippled fast… by trying often, the monkey learns

to jump from tree to tree without falling. Keep trying” (TGANTB 34).
 24

Finally, Ola Rotimi’s position is in contradistinction with Alachi’s ideological

inclination. The fundamental difference lies in who to blame. Rotimi dissuades us

from always blaming Nigeria’s problems and indeed Africa’s on the Western world,

and apportions it squarely on the people themselves. Alachi, on his part, blames the

society that constrains such characters. Alachi challenges society as a corrupt

backdrop that determines the nature of one’s character:

AKANYA: I am a good example of a reprobate. Even before I was born,

misery was already choking me. At ten I was told that I would seduce

my brother’s wife and devour my sister (He groans, he picks his words

painfully and sorrowfully). To avoid this ignominy, such shame, such

inglorious act, I ran away from home. I had hunger for my company till I

found a man who took care of me but I left him because of his wife. I

was later driven from school, forced into the Army, shot, then forced into

the police where I ignorantly committed the offences I was running away

(TGATB 35)
 25

Rotimi places the dictates of the gods as supreme. This made Odewale

reveal that the reason for his downfall shouldn’t be blamed on the gods but on

his weakness. Odewale says, “No, no! Do not blame the Gods. Let no one

blame the powers. My people learn from my fall. The power would have failed

if i did not let them use me. They knew my weakness” (TGANTB 71).

It is important to note that there is a considerable correspondence between

the three works despite the difference in time, setting, locale and period. Also

similarities in the works depend on a lot of visual spectacle and the fluidity of

action from one scene to another.

Conclusion

From our survey, it is suffice to note that the act of transposition and adaptation is

not a new idea, rather had been in existence from time immemorial. These acts

sprang up serving as memorial repertoire, whereby if an already exiting work must

 26

communicate to the present day, there will be need to recreate them into the

condition of the current time, place, cultural values and socio political conditions.

This consolidates the evidence of intertextuality in most literary works. Since every

playwright writes in a way to address the social decay of his society, its thematic

issues have to be topical and must be within the most pressing issue of the time.

That allows for better appreciation of the work by the readers.

An adapted or transposed work is a reorganization or reshaping of an original

work in order to suit the demands of a new social climate. Also since the aim of re-

working a text or any work of art, either in its original form or in the transposition

process, is to ensure that the adapter maintains equilibrium of both plays. From our

survey, it is suffice to note that With this definition, it is clear that the plays The

gods Are to Blame and The Gods Are Not to Blame have been transposed and

adapted carefully. Alachi transposed Sophocles Oedipus Rex into the Benue

cosmology, for the Idoma land, having an expose` of the socio political, cultural and

religious menace that existed during that period. In like manner, Rotimi adapted the

source drama, as it reflects the Yoruba cosmology, glorifying the African culture

and religious believe of the Yoruba community. Rotimi made use of diverse folk

elements which includes story telling- narrator, riddles, proverbs and even

incantations, which is notable in the African cosmology. He uses his work to

propagate the need for personal consciousness in “living right” also in support of

Brechtian ideology that sees man as being alterable and can alter, so the fate of man

can only come to place if the will of man permits.

 27

Recommendations

It is observed that the act of adaptation and transposition had been in existence

since time immemorial, and has come to be an acceptable source of playwriting,

therefore, more literary /dramatic works that had already been written but discusses

issues concerning the present should be considered and given adapted or transpose

into the current socio political and cultural issues trending today, ranging from

insurgence, political controversies, religious bigotry and other social issues

befalling the Nigeria of the 21st century.

The Nigerian readers should learn to appreciate adapted or transposed works,

since they serve as a form of reincarnation of an almost extinct work that may not

be accessible to them. These works also helps them appreciate the source work

especially because, they are broken down into the cultural and social ideological

sphere of the playwright, which they are not alien to. Just as in the case of Oedipus

Rex. For better understanding and appreciation of the dramatic text, some will need

to study the adapted or transposed versions before setting out for the original.
 28

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