Towards a feminist theatre in Nigeria: Julie Okoh’s Closed Doors examined

Abstract Okoh is a prolific playwright whose feminist inclination is not anyway in doubt. In her plays, especially Closed Doors, she addresses issues bordering on the woman question. Such issues include generally sexual injustices against women such as pedophilia, rape, female genital mutilation, forced abortion and unrequited love. Closed Doors focuses on the psychological crises of subaltern women whose lives have been vexed by a complex array of disturbing and thwarting personal relationships, particularly their relationships with their ‘treacherous’ lovers. The play is an expose on the vulnerability of women as a result of unbridled patriarchal arrogance. The main aim of this study is to situate Closed Doors as a feminist theatre. To achieve this, the salient characteristics of feminist theatre shall be teased out to serve as a tapestry against which this study shall posit whether Closed Doors is or is to become feminist theatre. The literary and sociological methodical approaches are adopted here; sociological because the point is established here that there is a dynamic and complex relationship between a work of art and the social realities under which it is produced.