Theatre
Teqem Yalebel Chewata
Not translated into English
Yoftahe Nigussie · 1930
Synopsis
King Solomon decrees the marriage of Faith and Fortune, and it is around this union that the play unfolds its allegory. The lines are interspersed with quotations from Scripture, references given in the text, and with double-meaning formulas inherited from the art of the qene; each character bears the name of a virtue or a condition rather than a proper name. It ends with the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, read in Ge'ez and then in Amharic.
Context
The play was staged in 1930 for the coronation of Haile Selassie. Writing and performing plays had been forbidden since the Fabula of Täklä Hawaryat, and the practice resumed on the eve of the Italian invasion; this play is one of only two by its author to have been printed. Theatre then had no roots in the country's tradition: the characters stand for social types rather than individuals, and the action remains rudimentary. Its author did, however, show how forms inherited from Ge'ez could pass into modern Amharic poetry.
Who it is for
In Amharic, with passages in Ge'ez. It is best to know that qene is an art of the double-meaning formula, and that the play is addressed first of all to a court able to hear it.
Prizes and reception
Counted among the very first printed Amharic plays, and retained by histories of Ethiopian theatre as a starting point of the genre.