Republic of the Congo / All works
Theatre
La Marmite de Koka-Mbala
Not translated into English
Guy Menga · 1969
Synopsis
In Koka-Mbala, capital of a small kingdom of the Kongo, the laws are merciless and the judges unbending: a man must not raise his eyes to a woman, and women lower their heads before men. Under King Bitsamou, Bobolo, first counsellor and great fetish priest, holds the city through fear of a pot in which the spirits of the ancestors are said to rest, and young people are sentenced to death for minor offences. The young Bitala, sixteen, accused of having looked at the fetish priest's wife, is sentenced in turn; Queen Lemba takes the side of the youth.
Context
The play, a drama in two acts, was staged in 1966 at the first World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, then was selected by the theatre competition organised by French radio. It appeared in 1969 in Paris in the competition's series, with a preface by Jacques Scherer, of the Institut d'études théâtrales of the Sorbonne, then in Yaoundé in 1976, published by Clé, followed by a comedy by the author. Translated and performed in Spanish, it is still staged, in Metz among other places, by student companies.
Who it is for
A short play, of about seventy pages, in French. It is useful to know the weight of the elders and the healers in the order of the village.
Prizes and reception
Listeners' Prize at the 1967 inter-African theatre competition; the press regards it as a classic of French-language African theatre.
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