SOURCE: "Rituals of Destiny: John Pepper Clark," in Long Drums and Cannons: Nigerian Dramatists and Novelists, Macmillan, London, 1968, pp. 77-96.

In the following excerpt, Laurence provides an overview of Ozidi, with special emphasis on Clark's use of traditional material and the play's relationship to his earlier works, particularly Song of a Goat.

Ozidi is based upon an Ijaw epic, one of the masquerade serial plays which were told in seven days, accompanied by dance, music and mime. Clark made tape-recordings of this masquerade series and also filmed it. He later did a translation of the entire epic into English. His own verison is an adaptation which nevertheless adheres fairly closely to the original play cycle, at least in the action.

The series is in five parts, and the masquerade opens with an invocation to the water spirits. In the first scene, the elders of the ancient town of...