This is a dramatic excerpt titled "The Shadow of the Ancestor," written in the tragic, ritualistic style of Wole Soyinka. It mirrors the heavy lyrical prose, the tension between cosmic duty and earthly hesitation, and the intervention of colonial "order" found in Death and the King’s Horseman.
The Shadow of the Ancestor
CHARACTERS
ELISIN-AGBA: The King’s Soul-Bearer. A man of immense vitality, now tasked with following his King into the afterlife.
Olohun-iyo: The Praise-Singer. The voice of the ancestors and the goad to Elisin’s conscience.
IYALOJA: Mother of the Market. The guardian of tradition and the collective womb of the community.
DISTRICT COMMISSIONER WATKINS: A British official, firm in his "civilizing mission."
SARGEANT AMUSA: A local constable caught between two worlds.
SCENE ONE: THE MARKETPLACE
(The sun is setting, casting long, bloody streaks across the sky. The marketplace is emptying, but the air is thick with the scent of indigo, dried fish, and impending transition. ELISIN-AGBA enters, dressed in rich, flowing damask. He dances with a heavy, rhythmic grace. Behind him follows the PRAISE-SINGER, keeping pace with a talking drum.)
PRAISE-SINGER:
The moon has seen the sun to bed, Elisin. The world holds its breath. Do you feel the ancestors pulling at your hem?
ELISIN-AGBA:
(Stopping, his eyes wide with the intoxicant of his own importance)
I feel them, Olohun-iyo. They are like thirsty travelers at a well. But the well is full! My blood is rich, my heart is a drum that has beaten for a King, and now it seeks the silence of the Great Vault.
PRAISE-SINGER:
The passage is narrow. A man must be light to pass through the needle’s eye of the universe. Are you light, Elisin? Or is your belly still heavy with the choice morsels of the living?
ELISIN-AGBA:
Do not mock the stallion because he lingers at the clover! I have lived as a man among men. I have tasted the honey of the earth so that I may carry the sweetness to the King. Would you have me greet him with a dry tongue?
IYALOJA:
(Emerging from the shadows of the stalls)
The sweetness of the earth can become a clog in the throat, Elisin. We have draped you in the finest silks. We have given you the final dance. But remember—the silk is only a shroud that hasn’t met the earth yet.
ELISIN-AGBA:
(Laughing, a booming sound)
Iyaloja! Even at the edge of the abyss, you pull at my sleeve like a nagging wife. Fear not. The King waits. The ancestors sharpen their flutes. Tonight, the shadow and the man become one.
(The drumming intensifies. Elisin begins the Dance of Death, a slow, hypnotic movement that seems to pull the very light from the air.)
SCENE TWO: THE DISTRICT COMMISSIONER’S BUNGALOW
(In stark contrast, the scene is lit by harsh, artificial lamps. Gramophone music—a tinny Strauss waltz—plays in the background. COMMISSIONER WATKINS is writing at a desk. SARGEANT AMUSA stands at attention, looking deeply uncomfortable.)
WATKINS:
For heaven’s sake, Amusa, stop fidgeting. It’s just a bit of native drumming. They’ve been at it since noon.
AMUSA:
Sir… it is not just drumming. It is the Night of the Great Exit. Elisin-Agba… he is to commit the ritual suicide tonight. To follow the late Alake.
WATKINS:
(Sighing, putting down his pen)
Suicide? We’ve been over this. It’s barbaric. It’s murder by another name, wrapped up in some muddled metaphysical nonsense. I won’t have it on my watch. It looks bad in the reports to London.
AMUSA:
Sir, if he does not go… the sun will not rise for our people. The world will fall into the void.
WATKINS:
The sun will rise at 6:12 AM, Amusa, because the British Empire and the laws of physics say it will. Get the men. We’re going to the market. We shall "save" this Elisin from himself, whether he likes it or not.
SCENE THREE: THE THRESHOLD
(The Market. Elisin is deep in a trance. He is swaying, his eyes turned inward. The community is gathered in a circle of silence. The PRAISE-SINGER’S voice is now a whisper.)
PRAISE-SINGER:
The bridge is forming, Elisin. The King calls your name from the bank of the river of stars. Can you hear him?
ELISIN-AGBA:
(Faintly)
I hear… the gallop of white horses. I see the King… he holds a staff of light…
(Suddenly, the harsh glare of flashlights breaks the ritual circle. WATKINS and AMUSA burst in with armed guards.)
WATKINS:
Stop! In the name of His Majesty the King, I command this nonsense to cease! Elisin, stand up. You are under protective custody.
IYALOJA:
(With icy disdain)
You seek to protect a man from his own soul, White Man? You are a child playing with a thunderstorm.
WATKINS:
I am preventing a death. That is the law of civilization.
ELISIN-AGBA:
(Waking from his trance, looking around in horror)
What is this? The thread… the thread is snapped! I was almost there! I was at the gates!
PRAISE-SINGER:
(Wailing)
The world is broken! The horseman has fallen from his mount, and the King wanders lost in the dark! The stars will lose their way!
ELISIN-AGBA:
(Looking at his hands)
I am still here. My skin is warm. Oh, the shame of the living! I have been pulled back from the heights into the mud of your "salvation."
IYALOJA:
(To Elisin, her voice like a whip)
You lingered too long at the market, Elisin. You gave the stranger time to catch your heels. Now, the burden of the world’s collapse sits upon your shoulders alone.
(Elisin falls to his knees, weeping, as the handcuffs click shut. The PRAISE-SINGER begins a dirge, not for the King, but for a world that has lost its center.)
[CURTAIN
The blogger ibikunle Abraham laniyan in this also original play laden with Yoruba proverbs attempts to idolize proverbs.
This scene moves away from the plot of Death and the King’s Horseman but keeps the Soyinka-esque tension, focusing on the clash of ego and destiny through heavy use of Yoruba-inspired proverbs.
(AKANNI, a man of high titles, stands at a fork in the road. He wears a heavy agbada. A WITCH-MOTHER, ageless and draped in white, sits by a dying fire.)
AKANNI:
The night is too long, Mother. My feet are heavy with the dust of ten kingdoms. Why must the elders summon me now, when my granary is full and my wives are content?
WITCH-MOTHER:
(Stoking the embers)
The dog that will get lost does not hear the hunter’s whistle. You have grown so fat on your own success, Akanni, that your ears have closed like a rusted gate. Do you think the crown is a hat to keep off the sun? It is a burden that reshapes the skull.
AKANNI:
I have served! I have built walls and fed the hungry. Surely a man deserves to taste the fruit of his labor without the ancestors pulling at his sleeve.
WITCH-MOTHER:
A man may be the master of his house, but he is never the master of the ground he walks upon. You talk of fruit? The fruit that falls from the tree does not rot far from the roots. You are trying to fly, Akanni, but your wings are made of stolen wax.
AKANNI:
(Bristling)
My wealth was earned! My hands are clean!
WITCH-MOTHER:
The hand of the king is always clean, but the water he washes in is red. You forget that no matter how big a bird is, it must eventually come down to the earth to find a grave. You have ignored the warnings. You have forgotten that a river that forgets its source will surely dry up.
AKANNI:
What would you have me do? Abandon my riches? Walk naked into the forest?
WITCH-MOTHER:
It is not the nakedness of the body that shames a man, but the nakedness of his character. You chase shadows and call it progress. But remember, Akanni: the eye that sees the nose is not a common eye. You are looking at the horizon, but you are tripping over the pebble at your feet.
AKANNI:
(Quietly, defeated)
The pebble is my pride.
WITCH-MOTHER:
Pride is a horse that gallops fast, but it always throws its rider at the edge of the pit. The village is waiting. The drums are calling. Whether the moon shines or not, the sun will eventually claim the sky. Go. Face what you have built.
(The WITCH-MOTHER blows on the fire, and a cloud of ash obscures her. When it clears, Akanni is alone at the fork, the sound of a distant, mournful drum beginning to beat.)
[CURTAIN]
SCENE: THE CROSSROADS AT MIDNIGHT
(The sound of the drum grows closer, sharp and accusing. From the shadows of the left fork emerges TUNDE, Akanni’s son, dressed in a crisp, Western-style suit that looks out of place in the shifting dust of the crossroads.)
TUNDE:
Still talking to the wind, Father? The elders sent me to find you. They say the village heart is skipping beats because you are standing still at the fork.
AKANNI:
(The child who tries to carry the elephant’s head will find his neck shortened.) You walk with the stride of a giant, Tunde, but you forget that the earth beneath your polished shoes belongs to the silent ones.
TUNDE:
The "silent ones" don't build bridges or power the mills. We are tired of living in the shadow of graves. You talk of destiny; I talk of the clock. The world doesn't wait for a man to find his soul at a crossroads anymore.
AKANNI:
(A man who rushes to the sound of the drum often forgets the song it is playing.) You want to lead, but you do not know how to follow. You think because you have mastered the white man’s tongue, you have silenced the ancestors' throat? (The tongue can lie, but the heartbeat tells the truth of the lineage.)
TUNDE:
Then let the heartbeat stop! If the tradition requires you to wither away for a King who is already dust, then the tradition is a parasite. (A dead tree cannot support a climbing vine.) We are the vines, Father. We want to reach the light, not be dragged into the soil with you.
AKANNI:
(The young leaf thinks it is greener than the forest, but it is the forest that gave it color.) You call me a dead tree? Look at yourself. You are a bird with clipped wings, singing in a cage of your own making. You think freedom is a suit and a briefcase? (A goat that follows a leopard will only find its way to the leopard's belly.)
TUNDE:
(Gesturing to the road)
The road to the city is open. The elders are old men clutching empty gourds. Come with me. Leave the ritual to the fire and the ash.
AKANNI:
(He steps toward the right fork, the path of the ritual)
The masquerade that dances too close to the fire will soon smell of burnt cloth. I cannot leave, Tunde. If I do not walk this path, the bridge between yesterday and tomorrow will snap, and you—you will be left floating in a void with no name to call your own. (No matter how long the log stays in the water, it can never become a crocodile.) You are of this soil. To deny me is to bury yourself alive.
(A heavy, rhythmic chanting begins off-stage. The light shifts to a deep, bruised purple.)
AKANNI:
(The chameleon does not change its skin to please the grass; it changes to survive the hunter.) Tonight, I am the chameleon. But the hunter is time itself.
(Akanni begins to strip off his agbada, revealing a simple white cloth beneath. He hands his beaded fly-whisk to Tunde.)
AKANNI:
(The king's horse dies so the kingdom may breathe.) Hold this. If you cannot follow me into the dark, at least remember the weight of the hand that held it.
[CURTAIN]
TUNDE:
Is there no middle ground? Must it always be the blood or the bank?
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(The sound of the ritual drums—the Bàtá—shifts from a steady heartbeat to a frantic, stuttering pace. The WITCH-MOTHER emerges from the shadows of the crossroads, not as she was, but draped in a veil of indigo so deep it seems to swallow the moonlight.)
SCENE FOUR: THE DEBT OF THE EARTH
WITCH-MOTHER:
(The river that claims to be greater than the ocean has forgotten that the ocean is the mother of all waters.) You stand here, Akanni, peeling off your wealth like dead skin. But (is it the cloth that makes the masquerade, or the spirit beneath it?) You can strip to your bones, but if your heart is still locked in a counting-house, the ancestors will find no room to sit.
AKANNI:
I have given the whisk to the boy! I have stood naked before the wind! What more does the earth demand?
WITCH-MOTHER:
(The earth does not eat gold; it eats the truth of a man’s journey.) You think you are doing us a favor by dying? (A man who dies to escape a debt has only moved his creditors to the next world.) You are not dying for the King, Akanni. You are dying because you are afraid to live with the shame of what you have become.
TUNDE:
(Clutching the fly-whisk, his voice trembling)
Let him be, Mother. He has chosen his path. (A bird that decides to fly into a storm cannot blame the wind for its broken wings.) If he wants the dark, let the dark have him!
WITCH-MOTHER:
(The fire you run from is the same one that cooks your food.) Without this flame, you are just a cold ember blowing in the white man’s wind.
(A group of ELDERS enters from the right fork. They are shadows in motion, their faces obscured by carved wooden masks that represent the transition between life and death—half-human, half-beast.)
FIRST ELDER:
(The moon has reached the center of the sky. The owl has finished its song.) Akanni, the gate is groaning on its hinges. (One does not use a small pot to cook the head of an elephant.) Is your soul large enough for this night?
AKANNI:
(He drops to his knees, his forehead touching the dust)
(The needle that sews the king's shroud does not fear the cloth.) I am ready.
WITCH-MOTHER:
(Screeching, a sound like a hawk)
Then go! But remember, Akanni: (The road to the ancestors is not paved with silver; it is paved with the promises you kept when no one was looking.) If you falter, (the sun will not only refuse to rise—it will burn the world to ash just to find your hiding place.)
[The Elders surround Akanni. The drums reach a deafening crescendo. The light turns a violent, pulsing red, then snaps to total blackness.]
[CURTAIN]
WITCH-MOTHER:
(Turning on Tunde)
And you! (The chick that watches the hawk eat its mother and says "at least I am safe" is a fool; the hawk is only sharpening its beak for the next meal.) You hold that whisk like it is a toy. That whisk is the hair of a thousand years. (The weight of a crown is not felt by the head, but by the neck that must stay straight.) Your neck is made of butter, boy. You want the city’s lights because you are afraid of the fire that burns within your own blood.
TUNDE:
I am not afraid! I am awake! (The man who sleeps in a burning house is the only one who thinks he is at peace.) This "tradition" is the fire. I am trying to lead my father out of the flames!
SCENE FIVE: THE BITTER DAWN
(The red pulse of the night has faded into a grey, sickly dawn. The crossroads are empty of the Elders and the Witch-Mother. Only TUNDE remains, slumped against a gnarled tree. He still clutches the fly-whisk, but his suit is torn and stained with the red dust of the earth.)
TUNDE:
(To the empty air)
Father? The sun is climbing the back of the hill, yet the air feels like a cold grave. (The cock crows to wake the living, but who wakes the man who has slept into eternity?)
(A rustle in the tall grass. SARGEANT AMUSA enters, his uniform rumpled, looking like a man who has chased a ghost through a thicket.)
AMUSA:
Young Master... you are still here? We searched the groves. We searched the riverbank. The District Commissioner is calling for a census of the living, but the names are slipping through his fingers like dry sand.
TUNDE:
(The white man counts the heads, but he does not know who owns the hearts.) My father is gone, Amusa. He walked into the dark to mend a bridge you and your masters tried to burn.
AMUSA:
(The lizard that fell from the high Iroko tree said if no one praises him, he will praise himself.) Your father was a stubborn man. But tell me—did he cross? Or did he stumble on the threshold?
TUNDE:
(Holding up the fly-whisk, which now seems to vibrate with a faint, rhythmic thrum)
Look at this. (The wood is dead, but the spirit within it is panting like a runner.) He reached the gate, but the gate was locked from the other side. (One does not knock on the door of the ancestors with empty hands.) He gave them his life, but they wanted his pride.
TUNDE:
(Standing up, his voice hardening with a sudden, ancient authority)
No. (The forest does not die because one tree has rotted.) My father failed because he tried to carry the past on his back while keeping his eyes on his reflection in the water. (A man who looks at his own shadow forgets the pit at his feet.)
(He looks at his Western suit, then begins to rip the sleeves off with his teeth.)
AMUSA:
What are you doing? The Commissioner is waiting for your report!
TUNDE:
(The dog that follows the hunter must eventually learn to bark.) Tell the Commissioner that the report is written in the dust. (The ink of the white man cannot record the sighs of the earth.)
TUNDE:
(The son is the arrow shot by the father’s bow.) He missed the mark, so I must become the wind that carries the arrow home. (The stream may wander, but it never forgets the sea.)
AMUSA:
(Backing away in fear)
You are talking like them now... like the old ones.
TUNDE:
(The ear that refuses to hear the proverb will feel the weight of the stone.) Go, Amusa. Tell your master that the sun has risen, but it has risen with a new face. (The moon is gone, but the stars have left their fire in my hands.)
(Tunde raises the whisk high. The sound of a single, thunderous drum-beat echoes across the plains. The screen fades as Tunde begins to chant in a deep, guttural Yoruba that shakes the very leaves of the trees.)
[FINAL CURTAIN]
The cycle is complete—the son has taken up the burden the father dropped.
AMUSA:
Then we are all lost. (When the big tree falls, the birds must find a new forest.)
(Tunde begins to move in a slow, circular pattern, echoing his father’s dance from the night before. The fly-whisk catches the first true ray of gold light.)
continue
EPILOGUE: THE RUINS OF ORDER
(The interior of the District Commissioner’s office. It is midday. The heat is oppressive. WATKINS is frantically packing files into a crate. The ceiling fan turns slowly, clicking like a metronome. Outside, the sound of the drums has not stopped—it has only grown more rhythmic, more settled.)
WATKINS:
(The fly that settles on a dead body thinks it has found a home, until the shovel falls.) This heat, Watkins... it’s not just the sun. It’s the air. It’s gone thick. Where is that boy? Where is Tunde?
AMUSA:
(Standing by the door, his eyes fixed on the floor)
He is no longer a boy, Sir. (The cub has tasted blood; he does not remember the milk of the bottle.) He is at the crossroads, wearing the dust of his father.
WATKINS:
Don't start with that metaphorical rot. I gave that lad an education! Oxford! I gave him a ton
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