Death and the King's Horseman Tickets

The Olivier at the National Theatre is the stage for Death And The King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka. Regarded as his best play, this look at colonial Nigeria during British rule is based on the true events surrounding the prevention of a ritual suicide of an important chief’s Horseman.  It questions the horseman’s decision to commit such an act and causes the community to recoil in horror as a ritual seen as so important to them is condemned as barbaric by the British authorities.

The plot of the play brings us to Elesin, the King’s horseman of the title.  He is part of the Yoruba people, whose traditions mean his suicide when the Chief himself dies. For the Yoruba the Chief cannot ascend into the afterlife unless his Horseman’s spirit helps him through. Without the Horseman, the Chief’s spirit is forced to roam the Earth and cause great harm to the Yoruba people. When Mr Pilkings, the local British colonial ruler, steps in to put a stop to it, the tribe fears that their future is in jeopardy. The play deals with the tribe’s blame and how there scorn falls on Elesin as well as Pilkings, saying that he is too attached to the Earth and as such it is interfering with his obligations to the Chief and to the tribe.

Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, considered by some as Africa’s best. In 1986 he was honoured with the Nobel Prize in Literature and over the years has played an active role in politics, being very critical of Nigerian administrations and other corrupt officials from other nations (such as Zimbabwe’s Mugabe regime). It was these actions that led to his imprisonment during the Nigerian Civil War in 1967. This time was productive however, and he was able to write poetry that would later be published under the title Poems From Prison. He also wrote a book chronicling his experiences called The Man Died: Prison Notes. He has taught at many academic institutions over the years, but currently he is at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where his position is the Elias Ghanem Professor of Creative Writing in the English department. He is also the Institute Professor in Residence at Loyola Marymount University in LA.

Death And the King’s Horseman is directed by Rufus Norris, with design by Katrina Lindsay, lighting design by Paule Constable and sound design by Ian Dickinson. It is at the Oliver National Theatre from Thursday 9th April 2009, currently booking until Thursday 23rd April 2009.