What do you think?
Rate this book
Madmen and Specialists: A Play
An African playwright reveals his thoughts on man's betrayal of his vocation for power in this drama
118 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
15 people are currently reading
404 people want to read
About the author
Wole Soyinka
226 books1,233 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan, and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England. After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route". Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.
In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ifẹ̀. With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus. While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991 and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale, and was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.
In December 2017, Soyinka was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category, awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category.
Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan, and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England. After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years, for volunteering to be a non-government mediating actor.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian (and African at large) governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it". During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–98), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria on a motorcycle via the "NADECO Route". Abacha later proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation.
In Nigeria, Soyinka was a Professor of Comparative literature (1975 to 1999) at the Obafemi Awolowo University, then called the University of Ifẹ̀. With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, he was made professor emeritus. While in the United States, he first taught at Cornell University as Goldwin Smith professor for African Studies and Theatre Arts from 1988 to 1991 and then at Emory University, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Soyinka has been a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has served as scholar-in-residence at New York University's Institute of African American Affairs and at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Yale, and was also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Duke University in 2008.
In December 2017, Soyinka was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize in the "Special Prize" category, awarded to someone who has "contributed to the realization of cultural events that promote understanding and the exchange of knowledge between peoples".
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 13, 2019
Madmen and Specialists is a multi-layered, intense, and difficult play. The main themes are depravity, corruption, and usurpation. But that is not all, unlike the bulk of Soyinka’s plays, and despite the pattern of a classical tragedy from the western tradition, the play uses language in the conventions of absurdist theater. We therefore have a juxtaposition of two modes of theater playing along with each other. The overall effect leaves the reader overwhelmed. I cannot even imagine what a performance experience would be like. And yet, despite this complexity, there is much to like in the play, and the message is a necessary one.
It was a play written during (or as a consequence of) Soyinka’s imprisonment, as Gibbs summarizes: ‘Madmen and Specialists was an act of exorcism, a self-purging of the bitterness and bile which had built up during the months in detention.’ What makes it an uncomfortable play is the harsh reality depicted as a result of the civil war in Nigeria, the starvation of the Biafrans and the demise to cannibalism.
The play explores this theme from different angles, from Bero and his father (the Old Man), the four Mendicants (Afaa, Goyi, Blindman, Cripple), and its effect on Si Bero (Bero’s sister). As Gbadamosi explains in his analysis, ‘Bero and the Old Man have experimented with cannibalism, and taught it to the Mendicants’ because ‘the war has come home and is inside the house.’ But the focal character, if one can say such a thing in this play, is Si Bero who is a timid, hard-working, and stubborn woman, worried about her father’s absence. She does not know that her brother has him captive in the ‘surgery’ down below in the house, until he reveals this to her. But first she has to learn a horrible truth about her brother (he is after all the specialist):
And so, after the priest’s departure, Si Bero learns further of her brother’s indulgence in cannibalism. She realizes ‘she can no longer seek the security of the house or her place within it, any more than she can be sure of what her brother, Dr Bero, the specialist is capable of’ (Gbadamosi).
But it is easy to get stuck on the surface layer of this play and the shock-factor of cannibalism, with all the possibilities that it was a likely occurrence during that awful, trying time in Nigeria’s history. The main point though, the driving force behind this, is well explained by Gibbs: ‘the Old Man had opposed the war: he had challenged the war-mongers […] with the argument that if you can justify war you can also justify cannibalism.’ Having read The Man Died and several articles on Soyinka’s protest to the war and his efforts to try and bring both sides to the table at the outset, before his imprisonment, I feel like this is his mind projecting the same argument: the war is so wrong, so unjustified, so unnecessary, it is equivalent to cannibalism. What could possibly be more depraving than that? The issue of cannibalism is the failure of all that is good to prevent/stop the war.
However, as mentioned at the outset, there is more going on in this play. The wordplay, of the Mendicants and the Old Man especially, is creative and engaging. The dialogue sometimes falls into a pattern where characters riff off one another and often end up in a song, and sometimes it is more of a monologue where, Afaa especially, blabbers on and on, based on the ethos of As; an ethos developed by the Old Man: ‘As Was in the Beginning, As is, As Ever shall be.’ This refrain pops up throughout the play and changes and manifests itself into the characters speeches, reminding us that there is a central absurdist theme underlying all that is said and done.
Despite the absurdism, this exchange is loaded with subtext. One has to simply consider the ethos of As as the justification of war, the flea as a soldier, and the blind-sidedness of not accepting a choice, i.e. an alternative to war.
All in all, the play is impressive in its complexity and layered meanings. But it really is hard work to decipher it, and that in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but with so much going on simultaneously, it is, textually, too much. It could be that in performance, with the right set up, the right actors, and the right direction, it would fare much better in coming across. What I do appreciate is Soyinka’s incredible control of the text and the progression. I leave you with my favorite outburst:
References:
Gbadamosi, G. ‘Madmen and Specialists’ published in Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal (1994) Heinemann Educational Publishers, pp.116-127
Gibbs, J. Wole Soyinka (1986) Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
It was a play written during (or as a consequence of) Soyinka’s imprisonment, as Gibbs summarizes: ‘Madmen and Specialists was an act of exorcism, a self-purging of the bitterness and bile which had built up during the months in detention.’ What makes it an uncomfortable play is the harsh reality depicted as a result of the civil war in Nigeria, the starvation of the Biafrans and the demise to cannibalism.
AFAA: (posing) In a way you may call us vultures. We clean up the mess made by others. The populace should be grateful for our presence.
The play explores this theme from different angles, from Bero and his father (the Old Man), the four Mendicants (Afaa, Goyi, Blindman, Cripple), and its effect on Si Bero (Bero’s sister). As Gbadamosi explains in his analysis, ‘Bero and the Old Man have experimented with cannibalism, and taught it to the Mendicants’ because ‘the war has come home and is inside the house.’ But the focal character, if one can say such a thing in this play, is Si Bero who is a timid, hard-working, and stubborn woman, worried about her father’s absence. She does not know that her brother has him captive in the ‘surgery’ down below in the house, until he reveals this to her. But first she has to learn a horrible truth about her brother (he is after all the specialist):
PRIEST: […] Strange man, your father, very strange. You didn’t run into him out there, did you? I’m really anxious to know if he still intends to legalize cannibalism.
BERO: He does.
PRIEST: I knew it. A stubborn man, once he gets hold of an idea. You won’t believe what he actually said to me, I’m going to try and persuade those fools not to waste all that meat. Mind you he never could stand wastage, could he? I remember he used to wade into you both if he caught you wasting anything. But human flesh, why, that’s another matter altogether.
BERO: But why, Pastor. It’s quite delicious, you know.
PRIEST: Just what I say. It’s … what did you say?
BERO [reaches out and pulls the Priest’s cheek.]: This. Delicious.
And so, after the priest’s departure, Si Bero learns further of her brother’s indulgence in cannibalism. She realizes ‘she can no longer seek the security of the house or her place within it, any more than she can be sure of what her brother, Dr Bero, the specialist is capable of’ (Gbadamosi).
But it is easy to get stuck on the surface layer of this play and the shock-factor of cannibalism, with all the possibilities that it was a likely occurrence during that awful, trying time in Nigeria’s history. The main point though, the driving force behind this, is well explained by Gibbs: ‘the Old Man had opposed the war: he had challenged the war-mongers […] with the argument that if you can justify war you can also justify cannibalism.’ Having read The Man Died and several articles on Soyinka’s protest to the war and his efforts to try and bring both sides to the table at the outset, before his imprisonment, I feel like this is his mind projecting the same argument: the war is so wrong, so unjustified, so unnecessary, it is equivalent to cannibalism. What could possibly be more depraving than that? The issue of cannibalism is the failure of all that is good to prevent/stop the war.
However, as mentioned at the outset, there is more going on in this play. The wordplay, of the Mendicants and the Old Man especially, is creative and engaging. The dialogue sometimes falls into a pattern where characters riff off one another and often end up in a song, and sometimes it is more of a monologue where, Afaa especially, blabbers on and on, based on the ethos of As; an ethos developed by the Old Man: ‘As Was in the Beginning, As is, As Ever shall be.’ This refrain pops up throughout the play and changes and manifests itself into the characters speeches, reminding us that there is a central absurdist theme underlying all that is said and done.
AFAA: Where is he? Where is he? As is everywhere.
CRIPPLE [picking a flea from his rags.]: Got him!
SI BERO [ turning sharply. ]: What!
CRIPPLE [throwing it in his mouth.]: A fat one.
GOYI: Greedy beggar.
AFAA: Did you choose it?
CRIPPLE: It chose me.
BLINDMAN: Chose? An enemy of As.
AFAA: Sure? Not a disciple.
BLINDMAN: An enemy. Subversive agent.
AFAA: Quite right. As chooses, man accepts.
Despite the absurdism, this exchange is loaded with subtext. One has to simply consider the ethos of As as the justification of war, the flea as a soldier, and the blind-sidedness of not accepting a choice, i.e. an alternative to war.
All in all, the play is impressive in its complexity and layered meanings. But it really is hard work to decipher it, and that in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but with so much going on simultaneously, it is, textually, too much. It could be that in performance, with the right set up, the right actors, and the right direction, it would fare much better in coming across. What I do appreciate is Soyinka’s incredible control of the text and the progression. I leave you with my favorite outburst:
… you cyst, you cyst, you splint in the arrow of arrogance, the dog of dogma, tick of a heretic, the tick in politics, the mock of democracy, the mar of marxism, a tic of the fanatic, the boo in buddhism, the ham in Mohammed, the dash in the criss-cross of Christ, a dot on the i of ego an ass in the mass, the ash in ashram, a boot in kibbutz, the pee of priesthood, the peepee of perfect priesthood, oh how dare you raise your hindquarters you dog of dogma and cast the scent of your existence on the lamp-post of Destiny you HOLE IN THE ZERO of NOTHING!
References:
Gbadamosi, G. ‘Madmen and Specialists’ published in Wole Soyinka: An Appraisal (1994) Heinemann Educational Publishers, pp.116-127
Gibbs, J. Wole Soyinka (1986) Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
May 26, 2016
Dear Soyinka, you've articulated hypocrisy with so much fun and in the end, the play's genre is what humans are; absurd.
August 26, 2020
مسرحية من ما بعد الحرب من الادب اللامعقول او العبثي اي مجرد كلام وثرثرة .فالمسرحية غنية برمزيتها ولا نعرف من كلامهم العبث من الحقيقة
March 21, 2021
This was brilliant.
But I'm never reading it again...
Once was already one time too much.
Dunno why...but the feeling I got from reading this was the same that from Han Kang...
But I'm never reading it again...
Once was already one time too much.
Dunno why...but the feeling I got from reading this was the same that from Han Kang...
Read
February 6, 2021I don’t know a thing about Soyinka, the Nigerian civil war, or the Theatre of the Absurd, so at times this felt like being an undergraduate again. Which isn’t entirely a bad thing. Probably due partly to my many levels of ignorance (I also don’t read much drama) this felt mysterious on many levels, even though it was also clearly powerful and grappling with huge matters of morality, agency, and meaning. I need to track down some more reviews. And read around the issues a bit more to help fill in some of the blanks.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 6, 2025
as is, was, ever shall be
April 6, 2019
تهتم هذه المسرحية بحال البشرية ما بعد الحرب ( الحرب النيجيرية الأهلية )
مرضى ، معقدين ، متخلفين ، مجانين ، متغطرسين ، أشرار
مس من الجنون و الهذيان يصيب شخوص الرواية ، ثرثرة كلام غير مفيد ، بعض التفاهة ، لحظات مجنونة غريبة
وكأن كل واحد منهم بمحاولة لإثبات وجوده و رأيه و لو كان تافهاً .
تحتمل مسرحية سوينكا رمزيات كثيرة فشخصية بيرو الطبيب الاختصاصي الذي ترك مهنته واتجه للمخابرات العسكرية و تنصل من كل مبادئه تمثل بشكل واضح الحكام الأفارقة المتغطرسين و المستبدين و بالمقابل تمثل شخصية العجوز والده ماتبقى من الإنسانية والقيم التي اهترئت و مرّ عليها الزمن ولذلك حاول بيرو حبس والده في القبو بمحاولة للتخلص منه لأنه يذكره بطيبه ويشعره بالضعف .في حين العجوزين اللتين اعتقدتا أنهما أمهات البشرية والأرض لمجرد نجاتهما من الحرب الطاحنة ومقاومة التغيير ، و أما الرهبان الأربعة والذين أصابتهم عاهات مستديمة نفسية و جسدية هم مخلفات الحرب . مسرحية هستيرية ثقيلة بعض الشيء جافة برغم قصرها مليئة بالثرثرة والجنون حاول الكاتب خلال الشخصيات وضع بصمة الفوضى و الخراب و الدمار النفسي و التخلف الذي يحل علينا مابعد الحروب . أروع ما في الكتاب المقدمة و التي أغنت فكري وعقلي بمعلومات دسمة عن الأدب الإفريقي و سماته وعن حياة وول سوينكا .
وول سوينكا من رواد الأدب الإفريقي له إنتاج أدبي غزير على مدار عشرين سنة مابين مسرحيات و دراسات و مقالات و من بعض مؤلفاته : سكان المستنقعات ، الأسد و الجوهرة ، رقصة الغابات ، حصاد كونجي ، أغنية الماعز .
أول تجربة لي مع الأدب الإفريقي و لكن لم أحبها وهذا لاينقص من قيمتها الأدبية لكنها مليئة بالمعاناة ولست بحاجة المزيد 💔😐
كتابي الثاني عشر
مرضى ، معقدين ، متخلفين ، مجانين ، متغطرسين ، أشرار
مس من الجنون و الهذيان يصيب شخوص الرواية ، ثرثرة كلام غير مفيد ، بعض التفاهة ، لحظات مجنونة غريبة
وكأن كل واحد منهم بمحاولة لإثبات وجوده و رأيه و لو كان تافهاً .
تحتمل مسرحية سوينكا رمزيات كثيرة فشخصية بيرو الطبيب الاختصاصي الذي ترك مهنته واتجه للمخابرات العسكرية و تنصل من كل مبادئه تمثل بشكل واضح الحكام الأفارقة المتغطرسين و المستبدين و بالمقابل تمثل شخصية العجوز والده ماتبقى من الإنسانية والقيم التي اهترئت و مرّ عليها الزمن ولذلك حاول بيرو حبس والده في القبو بمحاولة للتخلص منه لأنه يذكره بطيبه ويشعره بالضعف .في حين العجوزين اللتين اعتقدتا أنهما أمهات البشرية والأرض لمجرد نجاتهما من الحرب الطاحنة ومقاومة التغيير ، و أما الرهبان الأربعة والذين أصابتهم عاهات مستديمة نفسية و جسدية هم مخلفات الحرب . مسرحية هستيرية ثقيلة بعض الشيء جافة برغم قصرها مليئة بالثرثرة والجنون حاول الكاتب خلال الشخصيات وضع بصمة الفوضى و الخراب و الدمار النفسي و التخلف الذي يحل علينا مابعد الحروب . أروع ما في الكتاب المقدمة و التي أغنت فكري وعقلي بمعلومات دسمة عن الأدب الإفريقي و سماته وعن حياة وول سوينكا .
وول سوينكا من رواد الأدب الإفريقي له إنتاج أدبي غزير على مدار عشرين سنة مابين مسرحيات و دراسات و مقالات و من بعض مؤلفاته : سكان المستنقعات ، الأسد و الجوهرة ، رقصة الغابات ، حصاد كونجي ، أغنية الماعز .
أول تجربة لي مع الأدب الإفريقي و لكن لم أحبها وهذا لاينقص من قيمتها الأدبية لكنها مليئة بالمعاناة ولست بحاجة المزيد 💔😐
كتابي الثاني عشر
December 16, 2013
I was interested in trying something by an author other than Chinua Achebe on post-colonial Africa, so I got a hold of Madmen and Specialists by Wole Soyinka. It is an "absurdist" work and not a period of history in Nigeria that I know well, so I'm sure I missed some meaning along the way, but it was still well worth reading. I think it is a play that should be seen in order to catch more of the more subtle nuances and the "truth" of the varied characters. For example, the beggars cannot be taken at face value. Neither can the returning doctor turned politician (and cannibalism supporter). Soyinka won the Nobel Prize (I was glad to see that task pop up this morning!) for his activist political protest against the horrors occurring in his country and his literary work. I did have a few "laugh out loud" moments and some favorite phrases like "the end shall justify the meanness". I would recommend the play to theater lovers and those familiar with the history of Africa.
September 30, 2019
Beckett in Nigeria? You could say so but Wole Soyinka's absurdist tragicomedy has something else going on as well. A political parable about a doctor who comes home from the wars as an indoctrinated despot confronting a cult of misfits led by his off-kilter father and a pair of healer-elders with whom his sister has learned a trade, "Madmen and Specialists" has a sense of menace and mysticism underlying its battle-fatigued tale of damaged survivors. Is it funny, freakish, fearsome? One can imagine it being performed in a variety of ways.
April 30, 2013
I really didn't get it. I found the characters and conversations confusing, just couldn't figure out what it means.
But there's one quote I really like:
"Your mind has run farther than the truth. I see it searching, going round and round in darkness. Truth is always too simple for a desperate mind."
But there's one quote I really like:
"Your mind has run farther than the truth. I see it searching, going round and round in darkness. Truth is always too simple for a desperate mind."
Currently reading
August 5, 2020No review
Want to read
February 26, 2024One can not even download it, why?
June 21, 2025
4.1/5
February 10, 2023
I wanted to read Death and The King’s Horseman this week. But my work library only had Madmen and Specialists. Thank god, because this play is bananas when you sit back and replay it through your head.
The play opens with four mendicants playing dice. These bums are wagering the only things they possess, their body parts. Which isn’t very much, seeing as how the necropolitics of a Nigerian war has already marked them with disfigurement. You’re probably thinking, “that’s pretty fucking crazy to be blind, crippled, or limbless and trying to use someone else’s eyes, legs, or arm’s. Don’t worry these dudes would totally agree with you. But they’re not your average madmen. They’re members of The Cult of As.
They also work for Bero, a physician specialist. who’s returning home from war not as a doctor, but as an intelligence officer, and he ain’t exactly coming home to resume his practice. This man is power hungry and is trying to crack the code of As, to overthrow the leader of the cult, the old man. Who is also his father, newly imprisoned by Bero, and watched over by his own occult mendicants…… Did I mention that his dad convinced them to be cannibals. Dude has a serious grip on the practical applications of crazy.
If you had the patience to read any of that, did you catch that a man is trying to possess the power to control people he already has control over. But he’s still senselessly choosing to pursue a path of violence? That’s why this play is frightening, the way any intelligent specialist can try to transition to positions of power. Positions they may be entirely unqualified for. Just to possess something they don’t even understand or have the experience to identify. Bero can’t even figure out why the cult has the name, “As”. He’s completely incompatible with his desire and can only react to it with force. That’s why he believes true power is the ability to bend nature to his will. Intelligent individuals are cursed with minds that run further than the truth. Searching, going round and round in darkness. Truth is always too simple for a desperate mind.
But any tree huggin' herbalist hippie (for which there are two in this play) will tell you, that you must give back what you take, and more. You’ve got to nurture the good and bad. It’s all got a place. In my opinion, trying to control something just because you’re entitled, doesn’t make you a madman or a specialist. You’re just a dick.
The play opens with four mendicants playing dice. These bums are wagering the only things they possess, their body parts. Which isn’t very much, seeing as how the necropolitics of a Nigerian war has already marked them with disfigurement. You’re probably thinking, “that’s pretty fucking crazy to be blind, crippled, or limbless and trying to use someone else’s eyes, legs, or arm’s. Don’t worry these dudes would totally agree with you. But they’re not your average madmen. They’re members of The Cult of As.
They also work for Bero, a physician specialist. who’s returning home from war not as a doctor, but as an intelligence officer, and he ain’t exactly coming home to resume his practice. This man is power hungry and is trying to crack the code of As, to overthrow the leader of the cult, the old man. Who is also his father, newly imprisoned by Bero, and watched over by his own occult mendicants…… Did I mention that his dad convinced them to be cannibals. Dude has a serious grip on the practical applications of crazy.
If you had the patience to read any of that, did you catch that a man is trying to possess the power to control people he already has control over. But he’s still senselessly choosing to pursue a path of violence? That’s why this play is frightening, the way any intelligent specialist can try to transition to positions of power. Positions they may be entirely unqualified for. Just to possess something they don’t even understand or have the experience to identify. Bero can’t even figure out why the cult has the name, “As”. He’s completely incompatible with his desire and can only react to it with force. That’s why he believes true power is the ability to bend nature to his will. Intelligent individuals are cursed with minds that run further than the truth. Searching, going round and round in darkness. Truth is always too simple for a desperate mind.
But any tree huggin' herbalist hippie (for which there are two in this play) will tell you, that you must give back what you take, and more. You’ve got to nurture the good and bad. It’s all got a place. In my opinion, trying to control something just because you’re entitled, doesn’t make you a madman or a specialist. You’re just a dick.
September 23, 2012
Wole Soyinka's play Madmen and Specialists have made me think twice about this genre. This is the first book I can boldly say 'it went over my head. I never got it.' Perhaps it was the mentality I carried into the book: I went into the book knowing that Soyinka's plays have deeper meanings other than its superficial mirth he creates with verve, which burdened me so that after three days of labouring through a 77-page book, finally turning over the last page, I still could not put the various issues together to create one coherent idea. This play, which was written when the author was in prison during Nigeria's Civil War, is sad and gloom, unlike The Lion and the Jewel.
continue here http://freduagyeman.blogspot.com/2012...
continue here http://freduagyeman.blogspot.com/2012...
May 31, 2017
It was actually nice to read a play after such a long time. A multitude of layers of meaning are hidden in the pages of this work - the Old Man could be God, or the Dictator, or the Village wiseman. The herb women remind me of Macbeth's three witches and the Mendicants, well could they be the Three Kings...so much escapes me. However, the play was written in 1971, just after the end of the Biafra war in Nigeria and the theme of loyalty, corruption, betrayal, death to say the least conjure up confusion and fear in the reader...there is a build up of tension till the very final act. The son pitted against the father. Biafra against the rest of Nigeria. I would love to read more specialised reviews on this to see what other meanings have been attributed to this work.
August 1, 2014
Soyinka is something of a Nigerian Beckett, so needless to say I had virtually no idea what was going on in this play. By the end I began to sense something commendably critical underneath the veneer of nonsense, but some heavy intellectualizing and, of course, understanding of Nigerian history would be required to mine it. Wish I saw it performed rather than experiencing it on the page, too. Intrigued enough to pursue Soyinka further, hope other works aren't too slick and esoteric for my brain.
December 25, 2022
A brilliant, experimental play with echoes of Heidegger, Beckett and Ionesco, it's a work about erosion of human conscience and meaningless, and mechanisms of evil perpetrated by Doctor Bero. A brilliant contribution to the Theatre of Absurd genre.
April 17, 2012
Powefulluy evocative, full of manipulative powers and weired characters.
December 28, 2018
Sometimes it’s good to come out of our comfort zone and read beyond our immediate comprehension of the work. This play is in the style of the theater of the absurd, where the parody of the Nigerian war in 1970 is played out in a very obscure and complex form. It is a window to an unknown world that allows me to expand my exposure to inhumanity.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews