ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the scenography of contemporary Ghanaian theatre by examining the spatial and narrative aspects of Mohammed ben Abdallah's Song of the Pharaoh, which premiered at the National Theatre of Ghana in 2013. The theatrical design of this play reveals some of the multiple influences that come together in making contemporary West African theatre. More specifically, it shows how modern Ghanaian drama codifies the improvisational aspects of storytelling and popular theatre traditions through spatial ordering, narration techniques, and embedding multiple genres in a performance. In this style of staging, theatrical time-space shaped around a storytelling idiom reflects debates about historical time. The tale's action is regularly interrupted and taken on playful detours by mboguo songs and musical interludes and comic interjections from storytellers and audience members. National theatre aimed to unite disparate linguistic and "cultural traditions" separated under colonialism within the modern frame of a Pan-African state.
