Gauging the Taste Buds of a Fastidious Postmodern Audience in Nigeria

Abstract

Theatre, from its profound outset to today’s complex period, has always centred its creative activities on audience which attends the theatre for different purposes. The audience has always maintained its pride of place in the theatre despite the purported death of ‘author’, ‘character’ or ‘critic’. The theatre spectator has never been consistent in his/her desires about theatre performances, and he/she has never hidden such a fact. Playwrights and directors have displayed huge resilience and ardency in a bid to satisfy the somewhat unstable, volatile or even vaulting desires/needs of audiences of several generations in the theatre. Postmodern audiences have posed a great challenge to playwrights in a sense that connotes an attack or protest on modern traditions. This paper looks into the attitudes of postmodern audiences in Nigeria with the aim of making suggestions that could aid in the recovery of theatre’s lost gusto. Key considerations have been given to postmodern terms like bricolage, pastiche, parody, and consumerism; glibly, attention has been paid to globalization as factors which have set the tone for the lack of steadiness in audience’s behaviour or sense of taste. This paper deploys a psychological approach in its analysis of issues. The paper can be of help in providing a panacea to the dwindling theatre audiences in Nigeria.