Winner of 2021 The Arojah Student Playwriting Prize (TAPPS) and semi-finalist, Jack Grape Poetry Prize, Abuchi Modilim’s has published his newest play The Brigadiers of a Mad Tribe.
The 88-page play published by newcomers Ututu Publishers, in Awkuzu, Anambra, explores the themes of corruption, hypocrisy, and man’s propensity for selfishness in the face of pressure.
Set in contemporary south-east Nigeria, a British institute, The Phoenix Black Science Organization calls for a competition that will award the best group of African witches and wizards a cash prize of 100,000 pounds and residency in the UK. The competition aims to work with the winning group in creating a Brain Cloud Facility, in order words a juju functioning app. In the race to the prize, by a group of young teacher friends, they lose out of the race to greed, corruption and hypocrisy.
The absurdism of the plot which fed its humorous dialogue and the author’s ability to visualize human’s leanings to self-preservation in the face of pressure, and the very Nigerian spirit to jump on the bandwagon on a thing of value till it becomes valueless, is heartbreaking but worth the read.
To qualify for publication, a play ideally must undergo three staged/playreading, and staged thrice to iron out whatever kinks that might be an obstacle to its staging.
Brigadiers of a Mad Tribe had its first staged-reading at the Professor Ola Oloidi Art Gallery, Nsukka on January 23, 2023, a second reading at the Paul Robeson Building, Department of Theatre and Film Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) by Pentagram Pictures on January 28, 2023; and a third playreading at the Center for Memories, Museum, Enugu on February 18, 2023.
The absence of institutional and corporate sponsors for theatre and rising playwrights, and the eight-month long strike University posed serious obstacles to the play’s staging within and outside the academic environment.
Modilim won the TAPPS 2021 as a final year student of UNN. He was longlisted for the 2022 James Ene Henshaw Foundation Playwriting Competition, nominated for the 2022 Best Small Fictions and the curator of Enyo: An Anthology of Contemporary African Plays. His works have featured in international literary magazines and journals as No Tokens Journal, Jellyfish Review, Kalahari Review, Abandon Journal, Samjoko Magazine, the State University of New York’s Praxis: Journal of Gender and Cultural Critiques, Goatshed among others. He majored in English and Literary Studies with a minor in Theatre and Film Studies.
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