‘Musueming’ the Theatre for History and Heritage Preservation: Israel Wekpe’s Production of Idia as Paradigm

Abstract

Besides edutaining its audience, the theatre is also an effective means for historical and heritage preserva tion. This, however, is partly dependent on the thea tre director whose job involves manipulating the spatial medium and arts of the theatre to project a playwright’s message. Although museums are pri marily established to preserve cultural heritage and some part of history, they also entertain in their own unique way. Drawing on this, the museum and the theatre could serve similar functions in society, even though they seem to have been cast apart from each other to function independently. In a concrete way, therefore, both the museum and the theatre can achieve greater results if creatively merged to com plement each other. It is within this context that this paper adopts the historical-analytic, participant ob servation and literary methods to investigate ‘mu seuming’ the theatre for historical and heritage preservation, using Israel Wekpe’s theatrical pro duction of Idia that was staged on 26th December, 2020, at the SIO Events Centre, Benin City, as para digm. The article argues that the museum and the theatre have similar intents and should be made to complement each other whenever it is artistically possible; that one (the museum) can be used to pro mote the other (the theatre) and vice versa, if re sourcefully manipulated for cultural communica tion. It concludes that the creative and artistic com bination of both would not only make history and heritage preservation easy but also entertaining and interesting. It recommends that theatre directors should use realistic artefacts to establish their spa tial setting whenever they encounter a historical play to direct, and not to hesitate to visit the museum as that can be a source of inspiration that could be resourcefully deployed.