SUMMARY
This essay has explored the contributions of folkloric materials such as proverbs, songs, story-telling, and ritual performance to the development and dramatic excellence of Ukala’s plays. The plays selected for study are rich in folklore and their significance is unequivocally relevant to society. The pivotal role of proverbs in expressing the themes in the plays has been examined. Themes such as childlessness, caution, persistence, polygamous rivalry, deception and futility with overlapping and interconnecting matrices. Significant in both plays is the issue of barrenness and the quest for a heir in both kingdoms depicted in the plays. Specific proverbs are deplored to expouse the themes. As a result of the childless situation, the husbands in both texts are quick to take irrational steps. Hence, the playwright caution them and expressed the virtue of perseverance in the face of unparalled rivalry while deceptive schemes are crafted to outwit one another. In the end, the characters discover the futility of their actions. In all these, the overriding expressive power of proverbs help to organize the plays in order to expose their thematic relevance. Also significant in Ukala’s plays is the deployment of songs and storytelling mechanisms to enrich the plays and reveal how they contribute to their dramatic development. Song performance are useful in providing entertainment, but the essay focuses on how they help the reader to come terms with the 39 dramaturgy. The songs for example are used to resolve the conflict in the play. In one instance, they heighten suspense and intensify the conflict. Regarding the story-telling especially the role of formulaic expressions and the role of audience participation which are common to them are explored in the plays as they show how the playwright is indebted to traditional African folktale style to carry the audience along. The audience form a part of the acting group and help the narrator achieve his dramaturgical purposes. Ukala also employs ritual performance to depict the aesthetic quality of the plays. Ritual, as used in the essay, refers to repetitive actions which define the people’s way of life. They include ritual cleansing, ritual oath or swearing and ritual incantations or invocations. These materials constitute the source of aesthetic pleasure in the plays of Ukala. Overall, Ukala’s plays rely on folklore for their thematic relevance, dramatic development and aesthetic appreciation. Therefore, their contirbutions to Ukala’s theatrical artistry cannot be over-empahsised. They will continue to attract attention. Playwrights, who wish to attain national relevance as Ukala has done, will need to emulate the poetics of Ukala’s dramatic presentation.
