Drama group performs Shakespear's Othello to students

Award-winning drama group, National Troupe of Nigeria as part of efforts to encourage reading and creative expressions dramatised Shakespeare's Othello to students in Abia state.

As part of effort to dramatise the play for secondary school students throughout the nation, the National Troupe of Nigeria in collaboration with Agwu Nsi players, brought the play to Abia state.

The opular play centered on love, race, jealousy, hate and betrayal is in the West African Examination Council's (WAEC) syllabus for 2016 to 2020.

Mr. Akinsola Adejuwon, the Artistic Director of the Troupe told Vanguard Newspaper that "the whole essence of this project is to ensure that the play is made easier for the children to understand. It is also to help reinvigorate interest in literature. As it is now, most students do not have the desired appetite to do or offer literature in WAEC anymore. For these reasons and more the Troupe has begun to embark on the stage performances of those plays in the syllabus that otherwise pose serious challenge to the children.

When the play was staged at the Bishop Nwedo Pastoral Centre, Umuahia, Abia State, penultimate week, it was to encourage the students to see how the plot, the theme, the characters and the moral messages in the play relate to their immediate environment. It was to draw their attention to the innate values of stage plays, set in Venice in the 16th century but which is still relevant in the contemporary Nigerian setting."

Adejuwon said it is to expose the children into the nuances of literature on time. "It is a project we are taking round the country. It is the turn of the South-East now," he concluded.

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