‘<i>When Drama becomes too much</i>’ : Postdrama as agency and praxis in Nigerian stand-up comedy

Abstract

Stand-up comedy has evolved to become staple escapism in Nigeria today, avidly patronized by millions; with the form vivaciously enacted to induce laughter, yet retaining a substantial clout of critical social commentary on its immediate society. While this may have been possible because archetypal stand-up comedy depends on live performance of satiric mimicry; its socially conscious undertone couched in the subversive pursuit of mirth happens to be located within a far-reaching performance convenience warranted by conventional Drama‘s logistic and epistemological requirements, and grounded in a tactic that facilitates the circumvention of such encumbrances. Stand-up comedy‘s character is decisive: staged showing, single
performer, unscripted act, a tactical reduction to superfluity of the habitual encumbrances of costume, set, props and the likes, a required slash of audience participation, recent employment of multimedia technology. And by these features, it implicates a re-negotiation of what constitutes 'proper drama' : script, cast, the fourth wall, scenic detail, full character delineation and plot of a certain magnitude.
The present study interrogates the socio-cultural reality, performative rationale, and theoretical implications of such a form that thrives, mostly by re-processing dramatic convention. 'Postdrama‘ is here used to critique how stand -up‘s demotic strategies reconfigure material from the performance canon, and is proposed as the agency and praxis that can be woven to account for the especial performance condition of Nigerian stand-up comedy. The critique will be inhabited under these especial discourses: the political economy of dramaturgy in Nigeria, the reality of multimedia interface, and the conceptual im plication of the 'post‘ in postdrama.