Madmen and Specialists
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| Madmen and Specialists | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Wole Soyinka |
| Characters | Dr. Bero Old Man Mendicants Si Bero Iya Agba Iya Mate |
| Date premiered | August 1, 1970 |
| Place premiered | Eugene O'Neill Theater Center |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | Nigerian Civil War |
| Setting | Dr. Bero's surgery and the space before it, Nigeria, 1969 |
Madmen and Specialists is a play by Wole Soyinka, conceived in 1970 during his imprisonment in the Nigerian Civil War. The play, Soyinka's eighth, has close links to the Theatre of the Absurd.[1] Abiola Irele (in the Lagos Sunday Times) called it "a nightmarish image of our collective life as it appears to a detached and reflective consciousness". It was published in London 1971 by Methuen and in New York in 1972 by Hill & Wang.
Madmen and Specialists is considered Soyinka's most pessimistic play, dealing with "man's inhumanity and pervasive corruption in structures of power".[2] The plot concerns Dr. Bero, a corrupt specialist, who imprisons and torments his physician father.
References
[edit]- ^ Hans M. Zell, Carol Bundy, Virginia Coulon, A New Reader's Guide to African Literature, Heinemann Educational Books, 1983, p. 171.
- ^ Liukkonen, Petri. "Wole Soyinka". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 2 February 2015.
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