THIRD SEMESTER

Legon hall. A chilly might. Elva was sitting on a sofa bed going through arduously an autograph copy of the play. To the drama studio which they will present on stage the next day. Julius was sitting on his desk engrossed in his study. Elva stood up with the manuscript in her hands and stood at the back of Julius and placed her right hand on his shoulders. Julius looked into her charming eyes and was speechless. Elva understood his bewilderment. She decided to break the silent but felted.

Elva: I believe tomorrow would be a great day.

Julius: (looking at her too with a lewd smile.) You do.

Elva: o Julius! I just cannot contain my excitement. I feel exalted, elevated to the sublime! I am fascinated by my part. But Julius don’t you think you drag on the bitter reality on my part. It was a bit poignant.

Julius: but you know our conscience will not suffer us to remain reticent in such appalling circumstances. You know that the stage must mirror society. In times of crisis and disillusionment and despair and cant, a lone voice is inevitable to emerge, a lone voice must howl on the void and refused to be consoled. (Elva sat down in the desk somewhat dulled by Julius message she started abruptly.)

Elva: is Michael coming with us tomorrow?

Julius: (he placed his on Elva’s lap). He promised to go with us tomorrow. But if he doesn’t show up, I will get prince to do it. It is just the prologue, but I will be happy if Michael could do it: because of it intensity and poetic depth. Prince can do it all the same. But I fear it will lose its poetry. Prince you know is a facetious guy. It will do all the same only that it will be tinged with humor.

Elva: I can detect some change, his behavior has suddenly altered. Degeneration will be a strong word.

Julius: Michael you know is a philosopher. And in this our era of chaos and anarchy, of misunderstanding and conflicts of untruths and hypocrisy of injustices and destruction, there is more things to gnaw the heart of the wary, and grave issues to occupier the thoughts of a discerning mind.

Elva: but I think it has to do partly with the letter Julia wrote him that she could not continue with the relationship because she wants to devote more time to her studies.


Julius: (reflective) the bare fact is that she was unfair with him. However, all has to do with Michael’s understanding of love. To him, love has to do with more than carnal pleasure. And he supposed to have realized that the youth of today does not understand love in the intellectual sense of the word. To them, love is merely a satiation of physical desires. You can trust human beings. But my Elva is exempted.

Elva: (smiling) I know you. You will intentionally

Elva: (holding his hand fondly) I think in a way, Julia is right. You can’t sacrifice your education for love. Instead of studying your textbooks you spend your precious time at the university reading love letters of infatuation.

Julius: there must be a limit to your cant, I mean such angelic talk and stuff like that we may be pretenders after all.


Elva: (languidly) I just spoke my mind.



Julius: I suspected something of that sort but I wouldn’t hasten a judgment here. Last week, Michael told me that he had just finished a story which those who like works suffused with the charms of the macabre and the grotesque will find appealing.

Elva: something strange?

Julius: it was the story of a morbid poet, who had barely enough to eat, clad in tatters, and any money that came his way, “another book.” This young poet with spiritual truth was deserted by his love and his friends and was one day asked by his mother to leave the house to go and find work and do.

In the night there was a violent storm and the neighborhood had a blackout. The whole town was plunged into impenetrable darkness. The young poet plunged into the Storm fraught darkness, he was never seen again.

Elva: it is strange and harrowing than I had thought.

Julius: I was startled by it.

Julius: when we grope in the darkened vault of the subjective, we eventually come to the world of objectivity.
(just then Michael entered. He looked cheerful, his gloomy visage has disappeared but the taint on his personality was visible. He placed his books on top of the desk.)

Michael: Julius (tapping him on the shoulders). Hi Elva, how is life?

Elva: Not bad really.

Michael that is what we all anticipate. Move through this labyrinthine maze of academic life and reaching our destination final (abruptly) let me go inside and come. (He disappeared into the inner room).

Elva: (relieved) I think, he will go. He looks triumphant, happy and confident.

Julius: I will persuade him if he comes.

Elva: that will be better. (Michael enters)

Michael: do you have your manuscript here?

Julius: which one, the drama?

Michael: yes.

Julius: (he took it and gave it to him) I think I can make it tomorrow.
Julius: that is nice of you. We thought of prince. We knew he will be on unfavorable alternative, though.

Michael: I am to present the prologue?

Michael: (he sees a ling introduction to the play). You just wrote it?

Julius: I wrote it last night. But it is not introduction per se, I wrote it merely to show what inspired it.

Elva: can I have a look of it?

Julius: you mean you have not seen it.

Elva: I saw it, but I thought it was unrelated to the drama. (Michael gave it to her). It is rather long Julius. (She begins to read it).



Radio universe. The time was five o’clock pm. Julius, Michael and Elva were sitting on a low bench waiting for martin and his crew. They were speaking in undertones. Julius will occasionally demonstrate something with his hands. Elva was flurried. She appears splendid and elegant tonight. Pepsi’s manner was gay; Michael is trying hard to maintain his equanimity. Martin and Stephen appeared and were met by the presence of Julius and his friends. Martin was in a frenzied mood. He put his file in his left hand and uttered abruptly.

Martin: (enraptured) hello Julius! You are already here? (to the others) you are welcome.

Julius: a bit too early.

Martin: oh no! I am happy you came early. It presupposes that we will have a preliminary discussion before we begin with the real show.

Julius: where is Stephan, martin?

Martin: I think he has gone inside the studio. So you will be performing tonight at the drama studio?

Julius: yes: and these (pointing and others) are some of the actors (to Elva). Elva meet martin, the best.

Martin: Elva, you are welcome to our studios.

Elva: (resplendent) thank you.

Martin: I was charmed by your sensitivity last … was it last week?

Elva: last week.

Martin: yes!

Elva: thank you:

Julius: (pointing to kwame) kwame

Martin: welcome

Nana Kwesi: thanks

Julius: and Michael:

Martin: welcome

Michael: thank you. (Stephan came out)

Julius: Stephan!

Stephan: (giving him his hands) long time.

Julius: you know we were busy last week with the campus walk.

Stephan: (jokingly) I think you didn’t bring anything strange?

Julius: (laughing) no, no, may be it will appear strange to some, you know it is not easy dealing with issues of a great institution like legon. I think one must present the genuine facts, no partiality.

Stephan: but I hope it will entertain us

Julius: well, those who like the truth are charmed and entertained by it. Eh, Stephan, you brought social commentary?

Stephan: yes and it is about drama, life is a stage.

Julius: and all of us mere actors. Everyone playing his part: and what part is the devil going to play, asked taban lo li young.

Stephan: that is anti Shakespeare sentiment.

Julius: but the taban identified himself with caliban somewhere. No wonder then that he would assume a hostile stance.

Julius: exactly. (teddy and Maximus entered)

Teddy: hello guys, (to Elva) how are you?

Elva: I ‘m fine.

Martin: (to Elva). They are part of the crew.

Elva: is that so? I see.
Maximus: (to Julius) can we be able to have it perform in this studio?

Julius: you do it. That will be next week. Maximus, you know I am in line of your tradition.

Maximus: “to the drama studio, it is rather evocative.”

Julius: (no! stoically) I think your Tingitingi must be produced again. I have always being intrigued by the word Tingitingi, at first, I thought it sounded naïve until you explained it in your drama.

Maximus: it commission coincided with a violent eruption of hostilities in a town in Kenya. So it was named after it.

Julius: interesting.

Maximus: thinking of Tingitingi is production again; well I will give it a second thought. But what about me giving up and starting with something new, like pentagon or something else.

Julius: I think that would equally do.

Teddy: we have five minutes to go. (Martin stood up)

Martin: we can go now. (They all stood up and went inside the studio) Now Julius, you avowed commitment to literature is legendary and outstanding. You said one time that literature is the conscience of the society. Society would be reformed if they regard literature not as a mere stories to entertain but that of the voice of the seer. Inherent in what he says is salvation because the words he utters has a mythical properties. Now let’s come to your work.

They went into the studio. It was a low ceiling and air condition room. Well furnished with modern equipments. They sat down and martin gestured to the producer. Teddy go on air. He glanced through a paper on the table and spoke into the microphone.

Martin: (fixing his eyes on Julius). Now Julius, what was the inspiration? Why a whole drama, and what do you expect it to do, what impact do you want your play to have on legon students and others. What message are you carrying across with this play? Tell us

Julius: I think my salient theme was hinted at or echoed it you like at the prologue. That is what is vital in our age must be reflected on the stage. It is incumbent on us to speak out loud and clear when things are moving on in a wrong direction. I believe everybody can speak out loud and clear but the ultimate voice must be that of the seer, the intellectual. Now things have degenerated and a kind of reconstruction, reforms is needed urgently. I believe the drama can bring that reform. The inspiration for writing this play is the deterioration and worsening situation of Legon, the chaos and anarchy prevailing on campus.

Martin: that is rather strong. But tell us something about the title “to the drama studio.”

Julius: thank you: Legon students, let me say we are fascinated by drama people troop to the drama studio hoping to be entertained by witches and the destruction of empires and marriage ceremonies and Ananse, But they misunderstand the whole concept of drama. They fail to recognize that, the stage is a reflection of themselves. Their mistakes, weaknesses, frailties that the reason why a particular drama is staged. It is intended to bring about reform. So we are going to the drama studio for new meaning of drama.

Martin: aren’t you looking at the entertainment aspect of drama.

Julius: we have comedy and tragedy. Funny incidents are the main ingredients of the comedy. It makes us laugh at our own follies. Tragedies are also there to purge our emotion. But it is not necessarily a presentation of a horrifying story in which we have a surfeit of dead bodies on stage, but what I s happening on campus now I will say the greatest tragedy that ever destroyed the soul. But comedy and tragedy, the age long battle between good and evil is very present in them, joys and happiness, love, beauty, and pains, sorrows greed, avarice, hypocrisy are still vividly evoked on stage. This is just an inevitable presentation of tragedy which some have identified and others want to gloss over.

Martin: what part are you going to play?

Julius: I will represent institute of African studies. Because I personified most of the important structures on campus, and made abstract things appeared real. (by way of conclusion.) in man’s greatest intellectual age, sometimes called mythopoeic, he gave eyes, mouths, eyes etc. to inanimate things.

Martin: thank you Julius. Now let me turn to the others.

Elva: tell us what you will play.

Elva: the spirit of legon, or mother legon in the play, my sons are central cafeteria, legon hall, institute of African studies etc.

Martin: interesting. So it means that nana kwesi, Michael and others will act either as representatives of a hall or a lecture hall. (To Julius) so from two hours from now you will begin the play.

Julius: yes!

Martin: I think that is what time will permit us, we thank you, all of you for coming.

All: you all welcome.