Theatre And The Metaphysics of Consciousness In Okpokam’s Ngun: Calibrating Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty And Heidegger’s Notion of Being
Published
July, 2018
ISSN
2408-6800
Bassey Nsa Ekpe
Department of Performing Arts, Akwa Ibom State University, Nigeria.
Email: mailbassey@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper seek to correlate the search for self and knowledge in Okpokam
Ngun with Antonin Artaud’s articulated idea of a philosophical theatre
calibrating it with Martin Heidegger’s critique of consciousness. Artaud’s vision
of the ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ provides an inquiry into consciousness in that he saw
theatre as a way of uncovering Being. He stressed a radical return to experience
in artistic practice. For him, this was also the overcoming of metaphysical
thinking. While for Heidegger consciousness is not even the right word for
human existence and experience of the world. He asserts that the task of
philosophy is to investigate the meaning of Being. Thus suggesting an alternative
methodology to the scientific model of understanding consciousness, a
methodology founded in experience. Okpokam concedes to Artaud and
Heidegger’s notion by presenting in Ngun a comprehensive re-examination of the
journey to self though played out in the confines of man’s imitation of life. Ngun
projects a theatre that creates a metaphysics of gesture, and expression, in order
to rescue it from its servitude to psychology and human interest; all these done
with some kind of real metaphysical inclination, an appeal to certain unhabitual
ideas, which by their very nature cannot be limited or even formally depicted.