Catherine M cabbage Indiana University Press.

Catherine M cabbage Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2001 196 pp 24 b/w photos, 3 maps. $5295 hardcover, $2195 softcover

Catherine M Cole's of recent origin book is an extensive overview of the history and growth of the Ghanaian concert party, a theatrical form that uses humor and music to compute stories conveying moral lessons; in his article "Comic Opera in Ghana," E J Collins characterized it as "a slapstick musical comedy containing a prominent moral tone, performed in the Akan language" (African Arts, January 1976 p 50) The author herself provides the best description of her book: "[It] is the first reflection of West African popular theatre to be wholly historical, with an empirically detailed portrait of the changing social, political, aesthetic, and economic circumstances of Ghana's agreement theatre during the colonial and early postcolonial era" (p 3) cabbage successfully accomplishes this task and greatly more. One would think that an adequate discussion of the vital aspects of similar a dynamic performance art would require dimensionss but instead Ghana's Concert Party Theatre is a concise and engaging read that provides not alone a history of the genre however also a sense of performance theory.

The musical entertainment party is unique in that the intended audience has always been ordinary Ghanaians rather than the elite. To appeal to the masses, its participants and creators have borrowed from a wide range of disciplines, dramatic forms, and civilizations The concert party has survived nearly fifty years in Ghana, continually evolving and transforming itself in order to accommodate ever-changing social issues. As the author explains, British and American influences were important in shaping it into its present-day form. While early practitioners appropriated conventions from these brace cultures, they also incorporated Ghanaian values and themes. cabbage examines some of these themes as they pertain to adages and situations that occur in everyday life. She also goe into great detail about the social standing of the attendees and to what extent it has changed over time. Initial performances "drew a socially stratified throng ... from lawyers, district commissioners, scribes and teachers to semi-skilled laborers, merchants, and' small traders" (p 55) Today plot parties also appeal to middleclass families and Western visitors.

cabbage discusses such sensitive topics as female impersonation and minstrelsy in order to deconstruct and elaborate onward the many nuances of the plan party theater. She quickly dispels the argument that putting in succession blackface derives purely from Western theatrical performances, and she expands forward the various ways in which the performers she spoke with view blackface. While minstrelsy has extremely specific racial connotations in the United States, this is simply not the case for many Ghanaians, who regard blackface as a comical device or just another means of carcass alteration. According to some of those interviewed, the use of black and white face paint signifies racial harmony. The author gives another reading: many west African nations enhance the body through paint and ornament forward ritual occasions, and she cites united man who associated blackface with "Ghanaian puberty rites, annual festivals, and ritual practices performed by dint of priests and priestesses of traditional religion" (p 28)

cabbage discusses modernity and postcolonial theory as they apply to not solely the concert party but also perceptions of Africa. "A central argument of this work is that concert parties helped colonial Ghanaians re-invent modernity with a critical difference" (p 6) cabbage uses a more Ghanaian-specific definition of modernity, the same that replaces the typical European framing of the issue in terminuss of the primitive/civilized binary opposition; instead she speaks of modernity as "a proces of conscious, well considered choices of inclusion and exclusion" (p 6) The concord party creators, then, constructed performances that incorporated or omitted certain aspects of other agricultures and practices in order to "reinvent" what they thinked to be modern.

Ghana's contrive Party Theatre is a groundbreaking work that underscores the ne for additional studies that await closely at specific aspects of African improvement The performing arts are frequently left out of "academic" discussions, which give little attention to "non-textual expressions in so-called indigenous languages of the formerly colonized world" (p 7) Cole's research remind ofs that both the written and the parole word have important places in academia. In other words, she calls forward scholars and readers to chase one of the concert party proverbs: Ohia Ma Adwennwen--"Use your gumption!"

REAGAN M way is currently completing her thesis to receive her M.A. in African area studies at UCLA.

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