Comparative Analysis of A Dance of the Forests and Crossing

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COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF A DANCE OF THE FORESTS AND CROSSING
Introduction
The paper aims to compare the dramatic techniques used in the two plays namely A
Dance of the Forests and Crossing by Wole Soyinka and Reza de Wet respectively. The paper
will first provide a brief summary of the two plays and then explain the dramatic techniques
used. Further, the essay will compare the two works and find the similarities between the two.
Discussion
Wole Souinka’s A Dance of the Forests is set in the 1960s in the post-independent
Nigeria portraying a complicated interaction between mortals, gods, and the dead. In the play,
Soyinka uses the dramatic elements like music, song and dance to portray the past and the
present of Nigeria along with the bleak future. The story revolves around the celebrations and
feasts after Nigeria’s independence where the living souls invite two of their ancestors to
participate in it. Aroni, the God explains that the two ancestors – the captain (the Dead Man) and
his wife (the Dead Woman) were chosen because of the torture they had received at the hands of
the four living souls during the past life. These four living souls were Rola, Demoke, Adenebi,
and Agboreko. These four mortals ostracize the dead and Aroni takes them under his wings. As
the play unfolds, the audiences could clearly visualize that the past (the dead souls) and the
present (the four mortals), both have a dark past. In their past lives, the four living souls had
tried to enslave the Dead Man. In the end, it is seen that while performing the Dance of Welcome

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and the Dance of Half-Child, the tribe learns about the future through the living souls’ dance.
They find that similar to the past and the present, the future too would be dark.
With the help of the dramatic theme of life and death Soyinka attempted to represent the
socio-political situation of Nigeria post-independence and show it as continuation of the past.
While the dead souls represented Nigeria’s past, the living souls represented both the past and
the present. With the four mortals, Soyinka tried to establish a continuation of the past to the
present. Throughout the play, the audience could visibly see the use the dramatic theme of life
and death that demonstrate the futility of the past, the hopelessness of the present and more
importantly, the dangers of the future. The celebrations for independence involved dances for
different occasions through which the present exposes the past and reveals the hopeless future.
In Crossing, Reza de Wet tells the story of two sisters, Hermien and Sussie who live in a
cottage across a fast-flowing river offering refuge to travelers and cautioning them about the
river. Hermien is severe while Sussie is beautiful but has a humped back. They also recover and
bury the bodies of those who fall into the river after neglecting their warnings. They do so
because the restless souls haunt them at nights. The two other major characters of the play are
revealed as the Maestro and Ezmerelda, who met similar fate twenty years ago when they did not
pay heed to the sisters’ warning and died by failing into the river. The Maestro is a hypnotist
who makes Ezmerelda work from his on shows for the rough community of miners or diggers.
While journeying for one of their shows, the Maestro and Ezmerelda come across the two sisters.
They warn the Maestro about the rising flood in the river but he neglects and moves on in search
of fortune. Twenty years later, the sisters find the bodies of the two and perform séance. Hermien
appears as Ezmerelda and narrates the way they died. The Maestro also appears as the dead and
inspires Sussie by stating that her hump is nothing but closed wings and that she was born to fly.