MIGRATING FROM STAGE TO SCREEN: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

Ola–Koyi, S. Joseph Bankola

Department of Performing Arts

Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago Iwoye

Email: sundayolakoyi@yahoo.com

Abstract

It is on record that theatre arts had survived over the ages due to its capacity to reinvent by embracing, new tool and languages, new style and form.  It is a fact that when a discipline reinvent its techniques of impartation and training in line with modern demands, the standard of performances is enhanced and the quality of the practitioner is tremendously improved.

Over the years, Nigerian theatrical performances had gone through many stages (i.e. ritual, court/church, traditional travelling theatre, professional travelling theatre, academic drama, radio drama, television drama, celluloid film, and video film), reinventing itself in order to keep up with the requirement of each era.  

In reviewing the essence/spirit of the 50 years of Theatre in the African academy through the University of Ibadan experience, which our eminent and erudite Professor Olarinle Bamide is an integral part of, one could not but to wonder why a film school has not developed out of the old Ibadan school of drama. Or question why the central mode of training the theatre artistes in academia stocked to the stage despite the various innovations that had taken place over the years.  

Using a post modernist theory within an historical perspective and a participatory observation approach, the paper explored the challenges and prospects of migrating from stage to video screen in academic training cum practices and offers plausible solutions to some of the identified problems.