Jos Int’l Festival of Theatre ends with Henrik Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’
By Godwin Okondo
JOS International Festival of Theatre, organised by the Dr. Patrick-Jude Oteh-led Jos Repertory Theatre, ended on Tuesday, May 20 2025 at the premises of Alliance Francaise, Jos, Plateau State with the premiere performance of the staged reading of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts which had been adapted into Pidgin English as Spirit.
The festival recorded a very good audience attendance comprising theatre enthusiasts, diplomats, policy makers, politicians, students, teachers and actors including those who had participated in the festival plays. The five days festival opened with pre-festival performances for some select students and teachers on Wednesday, May 14 at 9.00am and 1.00pm. These performances were designed to run two of the festival plays for audiences not in any way connected with the rehearsals process. This also served as a technical rehearsals of sorts for the actors.
The festival opened with Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge which is the migration story of two Italian brothers gone sour on love’s wings. It is also a deeply disturbing psychological story. A View from the Bridge is based on a real life incident that occurred in Brooklyn, New York involving Italian illegal immigrants. Set in Red Hook, a thriving port in the 1940s but now home to troubled housing projects, Eddie, a longshoreman, is married to Beatrice and Catherine, her niece, lives with them. Beatrice’s cousin’s Marco and Rodolpho are newly smuggled ashore from Italy and they join the household. Soon Rodolpho fixes his attention on Catherine very much to the displeasure of Eddie whose predicament is a deeply felt but dangerously unacknowledged desire for Catherine. Eddie reports the two cousins to the authorities. They are arrested and released on bail with part of the calculation being that Rodolpho will become a legal migrant once he marries Catherine. Marco’s own predicament has no immediate solution as he has a family starving in Italy and plans to return after working illegally for several years. They face imminent deportation and, in a final confrontation, Marco kills Eddie who has truncated his American dream.
Coretta David Fom as Hata in Uvie Giwewhegbe’s This was How the Day Ended
Mark Musa’s I do (Do I?) directed by him explores the vagaries of getting old in a marriage with its attendant challenges and situations over the years. A seemingly ordinary conversation between Eric and Iddy quickly escalates into a deeper exploration of their relationship. Iddy expresses her feelings of invisibility and neglect, revealing that Eric has never truly listened to her or considered her dreams and aspirations. Eric, on the other hand, is oblivious to Iddy’s concerns and believes that he has been a good husband and provider. As the conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that Eric and Iddy have been living separate lives, with Eric pursuing his own dreams and ambitions while Iddy feels trapped in a life that is not of her choosing. Iddy’s frustration and resentment simmer just below the surface, waiting to erupt.
Uvie Gowewhegbe’s play This Was How the Day Ended, which she also directed, was written with the typical couple in mind who have issues with communication. It address the consequences of neglect among partners. The goal of the play, according to the playwright, “is to inspire better communication among all people especially couples as well as create better relationships.”
Vaclav Havel’s Protest was the most controversial of the plays featured during the 2025 festival. Set as an autobiographical play on Havel himself, and told through his alter ego, Vanek, the play continues the relationship between two old ‘friends’ dating from the Audience story. Vanek is just out of prison and he has been invited by his old friend, Stanek to visit him at home but the visit was a two edged sword especially to help him stimulate a protest to free his son-in-law from detention. The Nigerian premiere, directed by Patrick-Jude Oteh, was set in Stanek’s study. He had retired to a life of growing flowers but his eyes are still set on government affairs. Attended by a team led by the Czech Ambassador to Nigeria including the political and economic counsellor, the play is set in pre-independence Czech Republic during the communist era when relationships were determined by undefined friendships and political affiliations. The play examines how individuals, through various strategies, either adapt to the system or resist it, highlighting the dangers of conformity and the importance of personal responsibility. The play, often described as a “play of the conscience,” delves into the complexities of “living in truth” within a repressive society. It was well received with the intellectual discussions of the two characters stimulating comparisons with the Nigerian society and how easy it is for societies to evolve into police states.
The Nigerian premiere of Ibsen’s Ghosts in Pidgin English ended the festival. Set in Pidgin English and re-christened Spirit, the play Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th-century morality. Because of its subject matter, which includes religion, venereal disease, incest, and euthanasia, it immediately generated strong controversy and negative criticism. Since then, the play has come to be considered a “great play” that historically holds a position of “immense importance”. Theater critic Maurice Valency wrote in 1963, “From the standpoint of modern tragedy, Ghosts strikes off in a new direction… Regular tragedy dealt mainly with the unhappy consequences of breaking the moral code. Ghosts, on the contrary, deals with the consequences of not breaking it.” There are striking similarities with current Nigerian society, especially on the religious and economic levels and by the time Ejiro (Oswald) demands for the sun from his mother, the die is cast that something in his mental state has gone terribly wrong.
The 2025 festival in collaboration with USGEAAN (US Government Exchange Alumni Association of Nigeria), Plateau State chapter, was supported by DeVos Institute of Arts and Non-Profit Management, Washington DC, and an array of other supporters, including Jos Business School, Zmirage Multimedia and Maisie Pearl House. Individuals including Inaju U. Inaju, Hon. Nicholas Kemi Nshe, Osasogie Efe Guobadia, Mr. Ezekiel Gomos and Hon. Chidi Duru also lent their support.
According to the festival organisers, the festival is set to become bigger with the next edition as preparations have started for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Jos Repertory Theatre, Nigeria.
Emmanuel Onoja (left) as Vanek and Federick Obed as Stanek in Vaclav Havel’s Protest
