ABSTRACT
In 1989, up-and-coming Malagasy playwright Jean-Luc Raharimanana wrote an award-winning, biting satire of political and religious leaders who lead their people through lunacy and to destruction. Since gaining independence from Europe in the 1950s and 60s under the guidance of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, many African nations have struggled to negotiate new cultural, institutional and national hybridities that emerged from their interactions with the European colonial powers. Jean-Luc Raharimanana emerged as a vibrant playwright in the 1980s. Throughout the play’s text, the allegorical representations of the post/colonial state and religion revel in destruction. Interestingly, the final image of the play (The Madwoman cradling her mutilated baby) poses a series of questions concerning the future. The mere history of its censorship provides one more critical prompt for potential players and audiences to consider identity and place in a post/colonial world.
