WITHER POPULAR THEATRE? REVOLUTIONARY WEAPON, DOMESTICATING TOOL, OR MERE ACADEMIC EXERCISE

The term popular theatre and its activities is a relatively new genre of theatre practice sweeping most African and in fact developing countries of the world today. It is a form of theatre which started as a praxis for offering challenges to oppressive structures so that human beings can achieve dignity, self expression and self-realization, especially in societies that have suffered heavy fragmentation and class divisions, and thus.offer the rural man new ways of looking at development, new ways using available tools and materials for greater productivity and progress. This paper takes a look at selected areas, few as they are, where popular theatre has been practised or is being operated with a critical evaluation of such experiments, bearing in mind its supposed ideological leaning and how successful this ideological pursuit vis-a-vis the practice has fared. The paper, ultimately, the writer opens up a few questions as to which of these three ideological nomenclatures (revolutionary, domesticating tool or mere academic exercise) popular theatre really belongs, where, why and which way forward. Where should the emphasis of popular theatre in African lie - within the cave of ideological christening or a move towards creating avenues for the development of the popular through soft-pedaling