Death and the King’s Horseman at the Stratford Festival

The successes and challenges behind the production of one of Nigeria’s most iconic theatre works on a Western stage.

In the summer of 2022, I visit the City of Stratford twice. To see Death and the King’s Horseman in early September, and before that, to hear Professor Wole Soyinka speak in July. Both events were billed as a part of the Stratford Festival, an annual theatre festival originally set up to showcase plays by William Shakespeare. Founded to revitalize the Ontario town of Stratford’s struggling economy in 1952, by playing on Stratford, Ontario’s name—a nod to Shakespeare’s birthplace—the festival has since gone on to train generations of Canada’s theatre professionals and been featured in the biographies of some of Canada’s greatest actors. A major cultural force in Canada, the festival has an international reputation as North America’s largest classical repertory theatre company. It generates over $140 million and draws almost half a million people to Stratford each year. And in 2022, it was featuring a play by Soyinka, a Nigerian playwright whose outsized influence in African theatre and initials (W.S.) often prompts Shakespearean comparisons, as one of it principal draws.  

I’d seen the ads for the play while riding the subway as Toronto turned from winter to the softer rains of spring. In many ways spring that year felt pregnant with tentative hope. There were intimations that the solitariness the pandemic had forced upon us might be easing with governments perhaps erroneously rushing to declare the agony of that global moment long behind us. There was as well a litany of promises from institutions in response to global Black Lives Matter protests, following the televised murder of George Floyd by the police, whose cheques were beginning to come due. I imagine for many, other than myself, the pictures featuring a largely Black cast in traditional Yoruba attire as prime billing on such an iconic stage, represented something new and tinged with cautious optimism.  

Still, it was in Stratford, and I had no car which meant the journey there would be a hassle. And so, I put it out of my mind, till a friend posted about someone willing to carpool interested Nigerians to Stratford to hear Soyinka speak. I immediately sent off a message and, I was introduced to Isi Bhakhomen, an actor in the production, whose dad was driving up and had space in his car. On the ride to Stratford, I recognized landmarks through Etobicoke till we were past Mississauga, and then less as the car trundled past acres of farmland and towns with Bible verses on billboards and hollowed out industrial sites. We were not the only Nigerians, I noticed on our arrival. Cars disgorged uncles and aunties kitted out in ankara and sandals. A few geles bobbed about. Outside, some passersby paused to stare at the descent of the Nigeria diaspora onto Stratford. I took pictures on my film camera, but in the end, I missed the shot I most wanted. The signature white Afro disappeared quickly into the crowd, and beyond them into the theatre...

This essay features in our print issue, ‘The Enduring Voice of Wole Soyinka’ and is only available online to paying subscribers. To continue reading register for a free trial and get unlimited access to The Republic for a week!

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