Theatre
Fable: The Comedy of Animals
Fabula : Yawreoch Commedia
Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam · 1921
Synopsis
The play puts animals on stage, through whom it satirises the corruption and backwardness of the Ethiopian court. It is drawn from the moral fables the author had written for the instruction of the young prince Lij Iyasu, in the manner of Aesop, La Fontaine and Krylov.
Context
The fables from which the play is drawn date from 1912; the play was performed in 1921 at the Hotel Terrasse in Addis Ababa, all the roles being played by boys. Empress Zewditu had its performances banned and its copies seized, a ban lifted around 1930. Critics hold the work to be the founding text of modern Ethiopian theatre, and a thesis of Addis Ababa University saw it in 1981 as the first play in Amharic. Belayneh Abune translated it into English in 2010, from a second edition kept at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies.
Who it is for
For discovering an animal satire of the Ethiopian powerful, at the beginning of Amharic theatre, readable in English.
Prizes and reception
Jane Plastow sees it as probably the first original African play to have been both written and performed.
Sources for this page 8
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