SYNOPSIS
Surely!, gods have their hands in the affairs of men. The desperation and alacrity of Queen Odosun to rise from a chambermaid to a Queen comes to pass. The maverick Queen Odosun mannouvers to make her child enthroned to be King following the mysterious disappearance of her step child Prince Omagbemi, another eligible heir to the throne. The aftermath of the coronation, calamity and pestilence besieges the land until Majebi appears to unravel the secret and claims the throne ,confirming the oracle that “the king must dance Naked”.
PLOT
The failure of King Omajuma the 10th to produce an heir to the throne causes unrest among the people as they demand for the King’s removal. The king however sees this as a conspiracy even for a chief priest Afinotan to make the people believe that the king’s childlessness is the cause of the famine and pestilence that has befallen the land. The weight of this calamity is so grievous that indigenes like Ololo and Alero couldn’t stand but to share their experience to the king and his Ogogbiri on how the famine has affected them drastically. This same calamity has affected commercial activities as people migrate to the cities in search for greener pastures including some of the chiefs, leaving the palace practically empty.
A flashback sets in where the genesis and genealogy of the present king Omajuma the 10th is revealed. The previous king Omajuma Ogodogome the 9th is shown. Queen lube, wife of Omajuama scolds a chambermaid ,the King expresses her displeasure to the queen on how the chambermaid is treated by queen adding that no one knows what fate might metamorphose the slave girl into tomorrow ,lest should be treated well, the Queen however becomes suspicious of how the king rallies her support behind a common slave of no rank.
She later also expresses her resentment and nags to the prime minster oh how has been rejected and not cared for in her ailment as a queen while matters still remains the their priority when the prime minister comes to announce to the king that the gods done it and harvest has been bountiful again after a plague. The latter sympathizes with her.
The king later gets an affair with the chambermaid and she becomes pregnant. The King marries her rising her status from a slave to Queen Odosun.Following her pregnancy, she gives birth to twins( a boy and a girl) but the oracle pronounces that girl be sacrificed to the gods lest grows into a wild flower becomes King .The queen faces psychological stress and community opposition, but determined to confront the oracle and shame the community she manipulates and schemes the release of one of her male child to the messengers of death for the sacrifice to be done. After the sacrifice, the remains of the child’s body is washed ashore, accompanied by a boulder, a sign that their sacrifice has been rejected. Out of fear and ignorance, the people consult Afinotan who declares that the rock is a messenger of gods and should worship and feed and the people obey hoping the ancient rock ” will bring them peace”. Ololo rather takes advantage of the circumstance and feeds on the food meant for the gods as he claims he has found a permanent cure to hunger.
As time goes by, the King Ogodogome passes on and the throne becomes vacant , Queen Odosun orders the guards to send Prince Omagbemi son of her senior Queen lube away and be wasted in the fair away land but the Prince mysteriously survives .
Odosun succeeds and secures the throne for her child after a fierce battle between the king makers. Unfortunately ,After the coronation she dies after visiting the rock where her other twin child was sacrificed and the rock moves and falls on her.
The story now gets back to present time , King Omajuma the 10th, offspring of Odsun is queried by the people to explain the pestilence and the produce of the rock which disappeared mysteriously after Odosun’s demise. There is a great tension as the King accuses the chiefs Atseburuku of conspiracy for stealing the rock and questions him to produce the rock. Atseburuku on the other hand airs that he doesn’t know the whereabouts of the rock and has no time to steal it because of his tight business schedule in the city. Tempers continue to rise until Afinotan is consulted, He claims the rock has moved in search of water to drink ,but it shall return , but before the King dances naked in the presence of the four elders as sacrifice. As an abomination for a king to dance naked, Afinotan is asked to reconsult the oracle but refuses. The king orders that Afinotan be hanged for blasphemy but he is saved by the timely intervention of a young man who is brought in by the Guards.The young man confesses that he has stolen the rock and thrown it into the ocean. He claims that the King is his mother and that He(majebi) is the rightful heir of the throne and there shall be no peace until his mother gives him the throne. Everyone becomes confused by his revelations and pronounces him to be a lunatic. But he again claims that his mother , who is the present King, stole the throne from Prince Omagbemi who is the King’s half brother through her grandmother Odosun’s evil machinations . He also recounts how his mother, the present king ironically had an incentiouss affair the his half brother unknowingly to produce Him(majebi) and how his mother betrayed her womanhood and sent him away from the sight of people in order to remain a man in people’s sight and that he has come to claim the throne under his mother’s false image. He challenges the king to deny and calls on the gods for justice. It now becomes clear that Queen odosun gave out the twin boy to be killed instead of the female which grew to become the wildflower(She king Omajuama the 10th ) against the oracle’s wish thus causing the long aged -pestilence on the land. The She- king now accepts and concedes defeat and calls in the drummers and dances naked to fulfill the oracle and vacates the throne for her child majebi.
PLOT STRUCTURE
Exposition: This is said to the portion which introduces important background information to the readers or audience. This includes the setting, events occurring before the main plot, characters background and relationship with one another and others. At the beginning of the play we are exposed to the setting to be dilapidated buildings depicting signs of drought. The timeless narrator recounts his experience and the criteria for king pronounced by the oracle and practiced by the people where no woman was allowed to rule . This exposition continues to introduce characters like the King the 10th and his empty palace.
Rising Action: This is when the story gets more intense,this is said to be the most important part because it is through this that conflict is developed. In the play, The rising action takes place when the unrest sets in and the people begin to demand for the king’s removal for his inability to produce an heir to the throne. The people have been made to believe that the king’s childlessness is the cause of the famine and pestilence on the land. This inciting incident causes the king to challenge Afinotan’s divination which says the king is the cause of the catastrophe and apportions blame on Atsebruku.
Conflict: this is where the story reaches the point of tension between the protagonist and antagonist . The king suspects and accuses Chief Atseburuku of stealing the rock to consolidate his position as future and orders that the chief be hanged. Tension also boils up when Afinotan pronounces the rock is in exile and will return but before that the king must dance naked, the priest also faces the same hanging strategy for his pronouncement.
Climax: This is the turning point , the point of no return. the tension has risen to the highest point and it said to be the most interesting part. In the play Majebi appears and confesses that he has stolen the rock to spite the king and he has thrown it into the sea . He reveals the king’s true identity.
Falling Action: The story shifts to action that happens as a result of the climax. This is where the She-King is revealed and how Odosun schemes stole the throne and made her child seen as a man in the sight of men.
Resolutions: This is where the conflict is resolved. Either the protagonist succeeds or fails . This where the she-king concedes saying ” This is the end of my end, i shall dance naked. She calls the drummers and dances naked.
Denouement: this is the ending part of the play,it is mostly applied in tragedies . In the play , this takes place where the king dances naked and majebi shields himself from her sight saying “she was my mother” in the final part of the play.