The Phantom by El Osas Iyalekhue : A Dramatic Magnification of Woes of Thespian Gentlemen and Women…
In painting the images that came alive in my recently staged play, The Phantom, I had set out to say many things, but I ended up saying many more things. My play The Phantom takes shape through Marxist Ideo-aesthetics, but the virtue caught in the text is not of a struggle between the rich and the poor or conflict born out of class struggle as a result of wealth distribution. No, I went further to place the personality of the Theatre artist as the underprivileged class whom society continues to subjugate, out of pessimism against what it can yield or a total lack of understanding of what theatrical artistry stands to represent. My inspiration was born out of my experience during my undergraduate years in University of Jos, where a mention of oneself as a student of dramatic arts made the asker recoil as if something was mortally wrong with being a Theatre artist. A confused many, see Theatre professionals as a set of non-achievers. More pitiable is the fact that Theatre