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Conteh-Morgan, John, and Tejumola Olaniyan, eds. 2004. AFRICAN DRAMA AND PERFORMANCE. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 274 pp. $ 21.95 (paper).
In 1999, Indiana University Press published a special number of Research in African Literatures edited by John Conteh-Morgan and Tejumola Olaniyan and devoted to drama and performance. The title showed an appropriate awareness of the increasing recognition of the importance of performance studies when looking at African creativity, and marked a significant shift from the title of Conteh-Morgan's 1994 publication, Theatre and Drama in Francophone Africa. The issue was well received, and five years later the same publishers, and the same editors, brought out African Drama and Performance. The final paragraph of their introduction begins:
This volume contains all the articles in the special number except Soyinka's, which has since been committed elsewhere. It has, however, gained immensely in both depth and breadth by the addition of seven new contributions. . . . Judging from the enthusiastic public response to the journal volume, we hope this expanded book version would [sic] be an even more invaluable teaching tool and scholarly resource for both students-undergraduate and graduate-and instructors. (7)
Moving between the journal and the book format requires editors to adjust perspective and ambition. Different time-scales and different expectations are involved; some sections (reviews) are lost, and other sections (such as an index-patchy in this instance-and a composite bibliography) are gained. A...