Esu’s crossroads and Ogun’s crossing over: Intercultural creativity and postcolonial futurity in the theater of Femi Euba

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this essay, I define Femi Euba’s theater in respect to his multifaceted career as an actor, playwright, and critic. As I narrate Euba’s artistic trajectory, I keep Wole Soyinka in sight, reflecting on the ways his mentorship and collaboration opened pathways in theater, creative writing and criticism that Euba, as a prominent member of Soyinka’s circle, utilized and took in new directions. In discussing Euba’s theory of Drama of Epidemic, his acting performance of Colonel Moses in Òpèrá Wónyòsi (1977), and his play The Gulf (1991), I argue that Euba’s theatrical works are defined by the crossroads, a flexible paradigm that informs intercultural creativity, as well as temporal transgressions. I argue that multitemporality in Euba’s works creates a postcolonial futurity, which aligns agency over processes of becoming with an ongoing struggle in the present to make sense of the aftermath of slavery and colonialism.