‘Ife Confab is to help promote playwriting enterprise’

Femi Osofisan
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com

Femi Osofisan is a playwright, poet, literary theorist and Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of Cultural Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State. The foremost Africa dramatist, who has written and directed over 50 plays across the world, recently organised a playwrights’ confab in collaboration with OAU to arrest the crisis of generating quality plays in the country. In this interview with Omiko Awa, he bares his mind on the confab.

WHAT inspired you to call the Confab?

There is no mysterious thing about it. I just felt playwrights have not been meeting; yet to me, we have a crisis at the moment in the area of playwriting, particularly with the younger ones. I have been teaching playwriting for a while, I know there are problems, serious problems; so, I thought maybe a few of us could meet rack our brains and come out with some initiatives that would help us promote the act of playwriting.  Maybe get some organisations to fund workshops and something like that. That was what I was thinking about when I summoned the Confab. Though, I called it a confab, because I was thinking of a small thing really; once I began to discuss it, the news started getting to people and many more people started to come, so it became very big, I realised the fact that people have been waiting for it; I didn’t real know this. A lot of people were really waiting for the opportunity. Perhaps, it was good I didn’t think of doing it in a big way, maybe it wouldn’t have held because I would be searching for fund to take care of the people. But as soon as I realised that a lot people were interested in coming, I had to work out modalities. We didn’t have funding, so I made it voluntary, despite that, many people from far north, Bayelsa, Cross River and other states still made it to the event. Despite this large number, many people still called me to say they didn’t know of the gathering.

With a Union of Playwrights in the making, what would be the prospect, and how do you intend to sustain it?

Well, Mallam Shehu Sani was one of the first people to suggest this; he, in fact, gave a substantial personal amount towards the funding of the confab, unfortunately he did not come, which was a bit disappointing for me. Well, I didn’t want it to look as if I am searching for another empire to rule or something like that. I certainly wasn’t looking forward for any other kind of association, but as I said it was just to discuss ideas and see what we could do to galvanise that expressive part of the industry. But the people started calling for association, the confab’s decision took a wind of my idea, but then; I said if people demand for association, then we have it.  But I am not going to be an officer and still will not be an officer, if we have that kind of an association.

How about now that you have been made the Interim president?

No, you can’t say that because no association was really formed. They only said I am the GM, general mobiliser; or GO, general overseer and things like that. There was no clear duty really assigned to us; definitely we will help in facilitating future meetings and I know what we did to host the past meeting. The local organising groups were actually helpful; they really impressed me and if we can get the committee going, that would be fine. I just saw that maybe to keep it going it was necessary I should continue to play a role; I would not mind being a Patron, but I don’t want to take up any administrative duty of organising playwrights association. However, whether an association is formed or not, it looks like the playwrights do want to meet regularly and, now, we have the biennial going, it’s going to be a little bit tricky because I only have a year contract with Obafemi Awolowo University, the host university. But that is the more reason I took it on because I need somebody who would still remain here to coordinate the meeting.

People are agitating for training and mentorship; do you think the union can achieve these?

I have a separate plan anyway. I have a plan, which I have given to the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan. It is to sponsor a yearly festival of new plays. I have been trying to work out the modalities alone, but with what I have just seen, I will ask all those that are interested in the project to partner with me to host a weeklong festival, where new plays by younger or any aspirating playwrights would be presented. It may hold in Ibadan or Ife. It’s going to serve as a platform to experiment new plays; however, you need people to produce the play and somebody help read it through and offer advice. Apart from that we intend to organise workshops; we were not thinking of workshops when we conceived the confab, but the demand came and we had to squeeze it in at the first day of the event because that was the only time we could put it. We could see from the enthusiasms that people want it. We will be happy to see people sponsor the workshops and it’s going to be a residence thing.

How do you feel with the number and quality of the attendees?

I am very happy, but the important thing is that people came and expressed their delights and were satisfied with the meeting. It is like a little dream expanding and beyond what I had expected. We didn’t really know there were so many playwrights in the country. However, I am a bit disappointed, because we thought we would be able to bring out the directory, showing who is who in the industry. But again, not many people responded to the letter we sent out; I am a bit exasperated by that and I have written again to many of the playwrights to summit their details to enable us publish it. We have already got a publisher that will do that for us, but we can’t do it when we have only 60 people, which is the reason we have extended the submission of final list by two weeks. This will enable us know the sizeable number of playwrights in the country and we can use that to ask for sponsorship and help from different organisations. For when these organisations see the book, they will know it is an important organization and then you will see help coming to the playwrights.

Were you not surprised at some of the agitations raised on the floor?

No, because I didn’t have any planned agenda; the confab was mainly to open up discussions. Personally, I planned it in such a way that we have to adhere strictly to the time, so that we would have many voices air their opinions, particularly during the discussions, but we started late because of the environmental sanitation, and then people would not keep to time. But we got quite a number of people talking, but I had wanted more to talk, so that we would have more opinions and ideas.