A review of Dul Johnson's Melancholia.

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Melancholia.

A play by Dul Johnson.

Sevhage, 73pp,2014.

Dul Johnson started writing plays in 1976, with radio plays for Rima radio, Sokoto.  He wrote many television plays for NTA in the 80s and 90s. He writes across the genres and has published two collections of short stories, Shadows and Ashes (1998) and Why women who make it to heaven (2003) and a novel Deeper into the night (SEVHAGE, 2014).

 Melancholia was first performed as a class production workshop by 200 level students of the department of theatre and cultural studies, Nassarawa state university, on March 6^th, 2014.

In the play Mumude a presidential aspirant of the progressive front party wants to be the next president and invested one hundred and sixty billion in his campaign. He said to his uncle Dangiwa‘‘I’ve borrowed a lot of money from the banks and from friends; my political  associates. I’ve also sold off, or should I say, mortgaged ten of my buildings in the state and five in the Federal Capital, which I hope to get back on becoming the president.

The play was written in two acts and the author used both situational and verbal irony in the two acts. In Act one, the author used realism to highlight the play and at the end of the act he withholds information that is important to move the play forward.

In Act two, the author used psychological realism and at the end we are asked a good question, who is the African Politician? This book can be acted on by Literature students in secondary schools because it’s funny and educative.  I recommend this book to everyone especially the aspiring politician.