"But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms"
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The provocation here is that theater isnt just public-facing; its structurally communal. Soyinka isnt praising stagecraft as a fancy delivery system for a script. Hes arguing that the form itself is engineered for social contact: bodies in a room, language colliding with gesture, spectacle, music, and now screens and sound design. The list - text, images, multimedia effects - reads like a reminder that theater has always been hybrid, long before "multimedia" became a grant-friendly keyword. That hybridity is the point: multiple channels make meaning harder to privatize.
Soyinka is also quietly disputing the prestige hierarchy that treats the novel or painting as the pinnacle of serious art because they appear solitary and "pure". Theater, in his framing, wins not by being more refined but by being more porous. It invites the audience into a feedback loop: laughter, silence, discomfort, even restlessness become part of the event. Communication isnt metaphorical here; its literal, immediate, and often unmanageable.
Context matters. Soyinka comes out of performance traditions where drama is entangled with ritual, politics, and public argument, and where the stage can be a civic space - sometimes a dangerous one. Under authoritarian pressure, theater becomes a technology of gathering, a way to say things collectively that are risky to say alone. Calling it "the most social" is less a compliment than a claim about power: theater is art that cant help but negotiate with the crowd.
Soyinka is also quietly disputing the prestige hierarchy that treats the novel or painting as the pinnacle of serious art because they appear solitary and "pure". Theater, in his framing, wins not by being more refined but by being more porous. It invites the audience into a feedback loop: laughter, silence, discomfort, even restlessness become part of the event. Communication isnt metaphorical here; its literal, immediate, and often unmanageable.
Context matters. Soyinka comes out of performance traditions where drama is entangled with ritual, politics, and public argument, and where the stage can be a civic space - sometimes a dangerous one. Under authoritarian pressure, theater becomes a technology of gathering, a way to say things collectively that are risky to say alone. Calling it "the most social" is less a compliment than a claim about power: theater is art that cant help but negotiate with the crowd.
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| Topic | Art |
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