<P> Modern theatre in Ghana emerged in the early 20th century . It emerged first as literary comment on the colonization of Africa by Europe . Among the earliest work in which this can be seen is The Blinkards written by Kobina Sekyi in 1915 . The Blinkards is a blatant satire about the Africans who embraced the European culture that was brought to them . In it Sekyi demeans three groups of individuals: anyone European, anyone who imitates the Europeans, and the rich African cocoa farmer . This sudden rebellion though was just the beginning spark of Ghanaian literary theater . </P> <P> A play that has similarity in its satirical view is Anowa . Written by Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo, it begins with its eponymous heroine Anowa rejecting her many arranged suitors' marriage proposals . She insists on making her own decisions as to whom she is going to marry . The play stresses the need for gender equality, and respect for women . This ideal of independence, as well as equality leads Anowa down a winding path of both happiness and misery . Anowa chooses a man of her own to marry . Anowa supports her husband Kofi both physically and emotionally . Through her support Kofi does prosper in wealth, but becomes poor as a spiritual being . Through his accumulation of wealth Kofi loses himself in it . His once happy marriage with Anowa becomes changed when he begins to hire slaves rather than doing any labor himself . This to Anowa does not make sense because it makes Kofi no better than the European colonists whom she detests for the way that she feels they have used the people of Africa . Their marriage is childless, which is presumed to have been caused by a ritual that Kofi has done trading his manhood for wealth . Anowa's viewing Kofi's slave - gotten wealth and inability to have a child leads to her committing suicide . The name Anowa means "Superior moral force" while Kofi's means only "Born on Friday". This difference in even the basis of their names seems to implicate the moral superiority of women in a male run society . </P> <P> Another play of significance is The Marriage of Anansewa, written in 1975 by Efua Sutherland . The entire play is based upon an Akan oral tradition called Anansesem (folk tales). The main character of the play is Ananse (the spider). The qualities of Ananse are one of the most prevalent parts of the play . Ananse is cunning, selfish, has great insight into human and animal nature, is ambitious, eloquent, and resourceful . By putting too much of himself into everything that he does Ananse ruins each of his schemes and ends up poor . Ananse is used in the play as a kind of Everyman . He is written in an exaggerated sense in order to force the process of self - examination . Ananse is used as a way to spark a conversation for change in the society of anyone reading . The play tells of Ananse attempting to marry off his daughter Anansewa off to any of a selection of rich chiefs, or another sort of wealthy suitor simultaneously, in order to raise money . Eventually all the suitors come to his house at once, and he has to use all of his cunning to defuse the situation . The storyteller not only narrates but also enacts, reacts to, and comments on the action of the tale . Along with this, Mbuguous is used, Mbuguous is the name given to very specialized sect of Ghanaian theatre technique that allows for audience participation . The Mbuguous of this tale are songs that embellish the tale or comment on it . Spontaneity through this technique as well as improvisation are used enough to meet any standard of modern theatre . </P> <P> In his pioneering study of Yoruba theatre, Joel Adedeji traced its origins to the masquerade of the Egungun (the "cult of the ancestor"). The traditional ceremony culminates in the essence of the masquerade where it is deemed that ancestors return to the world of the living to visit their descendants . In addition to its origin in ritual, Yoruba theatre can be "traced to the' theatrogenic' nature of a number of the deities in the Yoruba pantheon, such as Obatala the arch divinity, Ogun the divinity of creativeness, as well as Iron and technology, and Sango the divinity of the storm", whose reverence is imbued "with drama and theatre and the symbolic overall relevance in terms of its relative interpretation ." </P>

According to the text who are the originators of western theater