权力和暴政的历史展演--索因卡“权力戏剧”评析

Historical Performance of Power and Tyranny: An Analysis of Soyinka’s“Power Play”

索因卡创作"权力戏剧"的时间达半个多世纪,是对非洲大陆政治暴政的历史化书写。这些作品以"含泪的笑声"的讽刺艺术,批判了"权力醉汉"式的非洲独裁者对权力的滥用。权力戏剧提出"内部殖民"以及如何建立有效而公正的权力结构的问题,指出非洲内部的"殖民贵族"与少数社会精英结成权力集团,他们复制了前殖民主义的霸权模式,同时吸收了传统社会的"威权主义"的政治机制,把"食人主义"的权力观渗透到公众、宗教以及国家权力意志等各个领域,是导致非洲社会政治腐败的根源。"权力戏剧"秉持了索因卡利用非洲的艺术形式及时回应现实政治事件的戏剧创作理念,体现了索因卡戏剧艺术的先锋实验性和激进的政治实践性。

For over half a century,Soyinka has been working on his "power play"of historical fiction of political tyranny on the African continent. With the satire of "laughter with tears",he criticizes in his works the abuse of power by African dictators who are"power drunks". Power play discloses the problem of "internal colonization",and discusses how to set up an effective and rightful power structure,pointing out that the political corruption in African society is rooted in the power group composed of the African "colonial aristocrats " and a few social elites. These oppressors replicate the hegemonic model of pre-colonialism while absorbing the"authoritarianism"of the traditional society,permeating"cannibalism"into various fields,such as the public,religion and will of state power. Soyinka gives quick responses to real life political events through African art forms,and power play is a result of that practice,which expresses the experimentalism and radicalism in Soyinka’s drama creation.