Madmen and Specialists | |
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Written by | Wole Soyinka |
Characters | Dr. Bero Old Man Mendicants Si Bero Iya Agba Iya Mate |
Date premiered | August 1, 1970 |
Place premiered | Eugene O'Neill Theater Center |
Original language | English |
Subject | Nigerian Civil War |
Setting | Dr. Bero's surgery and the space before it, Nigeria, 1969 |
Madmen and Specialists is a play by Wole Soyinka, conceived in 1970 during his imprisonment in the Nigerian Civil War. The play, Soyinka's eighth, has close links to the Theatre of the Absurd.[1] Abiola Irele (in the Lagos Sunday Times) called it "a nightmarish image of our collective life as it appears to a detached and reflective consciousness". It was published in London 1971 by Methuen and in New York in 1972 by Hill & Wang.
Madmen and Specialists is considered Soyinka's most pessimistic play, dealing with "man's inhumanity and pervasive corruption in structures of power".[2] The plot concerns Dr. Bero, a corrupt specialist, who imprisons and torments his physician father.
Works by Wole Soyinka | |
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Plays |
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Screenplay | |
Novels |
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