Carving out a Niche

Leveraging on the scholarly iconic personality of Duro Oni

Abstract

Theatrical enactments over time, have witnessed the input of craftsmen. The craftsman (Maitre de jeu) has always been at the epicentre of all theatrical performances bringing his personal vision to bear. Duro Oni is a director cum lighting phenomenon in Nigeria in the mould of Adolphe Appia, Richard Wagner, Richard Forman, Robert Wilson and Dexter Lyndersay. Oni is a highly sensitive director cum lighting designer who displays humongous authorial aesthetic skills in varied theatrical performances and pedagogy. He has had good training which involved wide reading and excellent exposure to theatre practice and education at home and abroad which, invariably, are salient apparatus of a good director cum lighting designer. This paper takes a look at Oni’s immense service to humanity as a builder of budding and great minds, his exposure of some directors’ poor packaging of productions, attempting a historical survey of theatre practice in Nigeria, unearthing the problems bedevilling theatre practice and study and offering a recipe for revamping same as well as a look at Oni’s enigmatic and charismatic frame as a prodigious aesthete.