Ben Abdallah's The Song of Pharaoh

The Song of Pharaoh Ben Abdallah's latest play,  The song of  Pharaoh , which started last night at the National Theatre, Ghana, immediately reminds one of Abdallah's penchant for using drama to negotiate black Africa's history. Emerging one of Ghana's most engaging playwright and dramatist after Efua Sutherland, Abdallah has since theorized this historical insight, which he labeled abibigoro, as consisting of a departure from Sutherland's more folkloric tradition. The song of Pharaoh therefore demonstrates Abdallah's consistent exploration of the empires of ancient Africa for dramatic presentations. However, this play should have been more appropriately titled "The Song of Osagyefo". For  it is much less pharaonic than Ghanaian. The terrible failing being the obscurity of transition from Ancient Egypt to Ghana in a narrative that ambitiously attempts multicultural experimentation. But for the scenographic construction and  costuming, Pharaoh's Egypt is  lost in Ghana's obsessive and often ubiquitous traditional agbaza and  kete dances and drumming. Whatever is left of Egypt dissipates in the litany of numerous Akan and Ewe songs which noisily echo back to the audience. The actors' screeching microphones complete this obfuscation.