Enraged Voices and Social Realities in Ahmed Yerima’s Pari and Temilolu Fosudo’s Another Episode of Trauma

Abstract

The art of Playwriting remains one of the most important and viable channels of creative
expression in the 21st century where social vices with their attendant intricacies tend to abound.
Through the creative invention of imaginary but lifelike characters, Playwrights are able to
negotiate various political, economic, religious, social and cultural bends in their play-texts,
thereby, articulating their voices. To our notice however, not too many research works exist that
have contextualised and compared enraged voices and social realities in the plays of Ahmed
Yerima and Temilolu Fosudo who represent the third and recent generations of Nigerian
playwrights respectively. Through Zengin’s (2016) modification of the theory of Intertextuality and
the adoption of the textual analysis approach, this study examines Ahmed Yerima’s Pari and
Temilolu Fosudo’s Another Episode of Trauma with the view to interrogate how both Playwrights
have dramatized enraged voices and social realities in their selected play-texts. The study reveals
that both Playwrights address the various social realities in Nigeria from the dialecticalmaterialist and historical materialist perspectives, addressing in the process, issues relating to
religion, politics, space, territorialism, corruption, among others. The study concludes that,
critical and socially applicable narratives can be used to combat the different shades of social
dysfunctionality as evident in the analysed plays.