Cinema
My Father's Burden
Segun Olusola · 1960
Synopsis
Few characters, an almost bare stage, the action carried by music, dance and mime, with flashbacks. At the centre, a father convinced that money buys everything, and a young man, Onya, who sets out to show him that he is wrong. When a relative accepts from this father what is called a present, Onya sees a bargain in it and says so out loud.
Context
The first television channel on the continent, opened in Ibadan in 1959, broadcast the play on Saturday 6 August 1960 at 8.45 p.m., live from its own studios, a few weeks before independence. Its author, Wole Soyinka, had returned from England and gave, the same year, his play for the independence celebrations; he wrote a second play for the same channel, broadcast in November 1961, and three others for the national radio the same year.
Who it is for
In English, and practically inaccessible: the channel broadcast live and no copy is known. The play is known through studies, which quote a few lines.
Prizes and reception
The first full-length play produced by Nigerian television, itself the first in Africa, and the first text written for television by a future Nobel Prize winner.