Written and first performed in 1960 as part of the national celebrations of Nigeria’s independence from Britain, A Dance of the Forests features a unique combination of classically European dramatic elements and traditional Yoruba masquerade traditions which make the play resistant to both staging and traditional Western criticism. Since 1960, few attempts have been made to perform the play, due to its complexity and ambiguity. A Dance of the Forests presents an allegorical criticism of the political condition of postcolonial Africa and of the recurring political patterns in Nigeria. The play, considered iconoclastic upon its debut, criticizes Nigerian history in order to satirize the political elite of the newly independent Nigerian government and resists nationalistic notions of a historical or future Golden Age in Nigerian history. The playwright, Wole Soyinka, also resisted the popular African literary and philosophical movement of Negritude, a movement he criticized for overly glorifying Africa’s pre-colonial past. Soyinka was the first sub-Saharan African author to be awarded a Nobel Prize (1986) and is recognized today as one of the most respected Nigerian authors. In addition to his work as a playwright, Soyinka has been active in Nigerian politics for several decades, including advocating for Nigeria’s independence, and he was imprisoned in solitary confinement for two years during the Nigerian civil war (1967-70), after a military coup following increased political tensions as the federal government took control of indigenous Yoruba land. After his release, Soyinka continued to publish poetry, drama and political criticism prolifically and today remains an outspoken political activist. Soyinka's other well-known works include The Swamp Dwellers (1958), The Lion and the Jewel (1962), and Death and the King's Horsemen (1975).

Plot Summary

A Dead Man and a Dead Woman are summoned to a tribal gathering by the deity Aroni. Instead of inviting more illustrious ancestors to the festival, Aroni chooses the dead couple because they were wronged by the previous incarnations of several of the play’s living human characters. These characters—Demoke, Rola, Adenebi, and Agboreko—meet and reject the dead couple and argue about political corruption before being led off into the forest by Obaneji, who is really the chief Orisha (or god), the Forest Head, in disguise as a human.

Meanwhile, strife brews between the gods Eshuoro and Ogun. Ogun is Demoke the carver’s patron god, and Eshuoro is angry that Demoke carved Oro’s (another Orisha) sacred tree into an idol for the festival, and because Demoke killed his assistant Oremole, who was also a devotee of Eshuoro. The Orisha and the dead plan to gather with the living in the forest to redress the wrongs of the past.

In Part 2 of the play, The Forest Head turns back time eight centuries, shifting the setting to the Court of Mata Kharibu, when the dead couple lived. Mata Kharibu wishes to wage war for a frivolous cause. The Dead Man, known as “the Warrior” in the past, refuses to lead his soldiers into battle for such a cause. For his defiance, the Warrior is castrated and enslaved and his pregnant wife, who is the Dead Woman from Part 1, dies soon after. Demoke, Rola, Adenebi, and Agboreko’s ancestors (the Court Poet, Madame Tortoise, the Court Historian, and the Soothsayer, respectively) all play a part in the fate of the Warrior and his wife.

In the present, deep in the forest, the humans are put on trial for their previous lives in a masquerade presided over by the Forest Head, Aroni, and the other forest spirits. The pregnant Dead Woman is finally able to give birth to her baby, who is called the Half-Child. Eshuoro interferes with the ceremony, attempting to kidnap the Half-Child; he is thwarted, and Demoke rescues the Half-Child, giving him back to his mother. The Forest Head laments to himself that he doubts that the intended lesson has sunk in, and fears that the humans are doomed to repeat the sins of the past. The Orisha, the dead, and the forest spirits disperse.

Eshuoro forces Demoke to climb the village idol as an unwilling sacrifice. Eshuoro sets fire to the idol and Demoke falls but is rescued by Ogun. When he regains consciousness, Demoke is confronted by his father and Agboreko. When they ask Demoke what happened to him and what he learned of the future, Demoke is unable to give a sufficient answer.