The Steeple and the Palm-Wine Shack: Wole Soyinka and Crossing the Inter-cultural Fence

The opening pages of the text of Wole Soyinka's play The Rooif are taken up with several projects of introduction, offering the reader alternative ways into the work's mysteries. There is a note Tor the Producer' explaining the mask-idiom of the Agemo cult which is this work's central ritual model. There is 'Alagemo', a poem also centering on the 'Agemo' cult. Thirdly, there is a detailed description of the work's stage geography. I want to begin this paper by noting this de-scription exactly: