‘Lion and Jewel’ opens at Intwasa

Now in its second year, the “Lion and the Jewel”, which is a Form Four set book, is a play about two men, the schoolteacher Lakunle and the village traditionalist, Baroka, who are both eyeing a beautiful village belle Sidi, a role that was played by high school student, Charmaine Mdawu.
The two men, who are informed by different ideologies, use their wealth of expertise in worldly matters to try and lure the naive but beautiful village belle, into courtship, and eventually marriage.
Despite Lakunle’s “enlightening though an idealistic modern way of life”, which he tries unsuccessfully to convince Sidi with, she eventually falls for the cunning, selfish and manipulative 62-year-old villager and  traditionalist, Baroka, who eventually lures her to his bed, getting her hand in marriage.
His earlier words are vindicated when he eventually beds Sidi against all odds, and when she least expected it.
“A man’s bedroom is free to any woman who wanders around aimlessly. I tend to change my wrestlers when I began to topple them, and I also change my women, when they become to tire me,” he had earlier boasted in Sidi’s presence.
When Wole Soyinka was writing the play, he was advocating for the African way of life against modernity, an idea that Lakunle tried unsuccessfully to sell to the whole village. It is for that reason that Soyinka, made Baroka, the hero, who despite his age, succeeds in winning a girl’s heart, who is barely 17, persuading her to join a polygamous union.
But going through the play, you can’t help but feel that Soyinka oversexualises the play. Through Baroka, Soyinka says age is nothing but a number, and it was for that reason that Baroka’s grandfather at 63, could still bear children, while his great grandfather “fathered twins” at 67.
Soyinka also perpetuates the ideology that women are an extension of men’s ego.  Although Baroka and Lakunle are different in their approach to win Sidi’s heart, they eventually arrive at the same point, that a woman’s contribution anywhere else is useless, unless it is in the home.
Supported by Plan International Zimbabwe, the play was well done and will assist O-Level  literature students who will be writing their examinations in a few weeks’ time.