Book Title: Our Wife Has Gone Mad
Author: Bode Ojoniyi
Year of Pub: 2017
Pages: 60
ISBN: 978-978-142-917-0
Reviewer: Atoyebi Oluwafemi Akinlawon
Bode Ojoniyi lends his voice to the progressive and cumulating issues around sexualities and gender politics in theatrical/dramatic style when he wrote Our Wife Has Gone Mad in 2017. The play enters into the trajectory of gender/sexuality provocative corpus of African drama when it won SONTA-Olu-Obafemi Play Competition in the year 2017; perhaps, due to the evocative and dynamic stance it maintains against the tropes in the plays: Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again by Ola Rotimi and Our Wives Have Gone Mad Again by TraiceUtoh-Ezeaghu. Indeed, the play can be seen as an “intertext”, which is defined as “the site of an intersection of numberless other texts, and existing only through its relations to other texts.” (Kristeva cited in Orr, 2011).
For this review, the critical issues in the play start from its title, which shares semblance with the two existing plays that are earlier mentioned. Though relatively, the title is a shock to the apprehension of the knowledge that sees a ‘wife’ as a private spouse to a man as it is preceded by ‘our’, making it read as a legal spouse to several men – polyandry. As it were, the reality projected in the play is more a ‘culture shock’ and plausibly, ‘future shock’; especially, to African sociological practices where any woman who practices polyandry is condescended and treated with disdain. Perhaps, this inclination informs one of her husbands’ statements, ‘Our Wife Has Gone Mad’ which became the contentious clause by which the play is titled. Again, from the author’s note in the play, Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again has laid some critical issues around polygamy. And, to ‘Bode Ojoniyi, the author of Our Wife Has Gone Mad, Tracie Utoh-Ezeajugh’s Our Wives Have Gone Mad Again has refused to address the issues raised in Ola Rotimi’s play. Consequently, he responded to both plays with his’ but, most especially, Ola Rotimi’s play by presenting a play where polyandry is projected as not only plausible but also applauded.
As an ‘intertext’, Our Wife Has Gone Mad can be seen as a form of reaction to the evolving issues of sexualities and gender politics played in Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again through Lejoka Brown, a polygamous man who arbitrarily wields his hegemony by marrying three wives. He, however, plans to divorce one of them, Sikira, after the purpose for which he marries her is accomplished. Likewise, he plans to ease Iya Rashida, his inherited wife, from the marital vow to him as dictated by tradition, in order to remain with Elizabeth, his White educated wife. In essence, Ola Rotimi through his play succeeded in portraying women; especially, African women as the lowly of gender order in a society that seems to place premium on the rule of men. Against this projection therefore, ‘Bode Ojoniyi raises a counter narrativity with Our Wife Has Gone Mad to deconstruct the stereotype placed on African women as victims, to portray them as potential oppressor, victimizer or dictator in their relationship with men even, in a society that seems to be more patriarchal tuned. Again, in response to Our Wives Have Gone Mad Again by Tracie Utoh-Ezeajugh, the play, Our Wife Has Gone Mad deconstructed the stereotype of women as unrepentant evil by bringing Daniela, the main character, a nonconformist to cultural dictates, to reflect on her inauthentic live as unreasonable and, thus, accepts her limitation to enjoy her peace without necessarily submitting to the tyranny of culture confinement.
The play opens to a serious dilemma in a hospital where a woman, Daniela is admitted, sequel to her involvement in a fatal motor accident. At her admission, three men; Alhaji Sule, Elder Dominon Akpan and Chin-Chung come at different time as spouse to Daniela. During this time, she is still lying unconsciously on the bed. Apparently, the claim of these three men became a burden to the Nurses and Matron Haywire -they could not apprehend how a woman could get married to three men at a time. It is obvious the truth of her life remains a secret to each of them even as her life is precious to each of them. The men’s lamentation could attest to their love and concern for her when they visit and see her lying helplessly on her dying bed. The knowledge of the Nurses and Matron to Daniela’s secret lives with her three husbands became a crisis they could not manage. Consequently, they could not relate their shock and challenge to any of the men. While waiting for her to regain consciousness, they express their credence to her personality applauding her as a valiant woman; perhaps, an archetype of a feminist per excellence who takes pounds of flesh from arrogant masculinists that often pride in owning women as their private property.
The plot of the play gets to the climax when Daniela wakes up to add to the surprise of the Nurses and Matron Haywire by confirming the possibilities of her husbands’ presence while she is unconscious. The reason for her perfect precision could not be understood but, it throws her caregivers to the light of what seems unbelievable. Apparently, they are apprehensive of what could be the fallout of the men coming to the knowledge of one another as husbands to one woman. The resolution is achieved in the play when Daniela engages Matron Haywire in dialogue to relate her experiences and the reasons for her actions. All her explanations put Matron Haywire in fear of how she has been living wild. And, worst still, her demand to bring the three men into the room in order to expose her secret makes the play stunning and a must to read for all play lovers and critics. The reaction of the men and the eventual fate of Daniela is no doubt a provocation for future plays that may eventually contribute to gender politics and power relation.
Works Cited
‘Bode Ojoniyi, Our Wife Has Gone Mad, Lagos: Malthouse Press Limited. 2020
Orr, M. Intertextuality: Debates and Contexts. Cambridge: Polity. 2003
Ola, R. Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again. Ibadan: University press. 1999
Utoh-Ezeaghu, T. Our wives have gone mad again. Calabar: Calabar University press. 2001
Atoyebi Oluwafemi Akinlawon works as a researcher for Centre for Performing Arts and Film Studies in Education. He holds a M.A degree in English (Literature) from University of Ibadan having bagged his B.A in English and International Studies at Osun state University, Osogbo. He has several academic publications in both local and International journals and magazines. He lives in Osogbo with his wife and son.
