Chuck Mike conceived an ambitious theatrical collage, drawing together scenes from some of Soyinka’s greatest dramatic works into a single performance that celebrated the playwright through his own imagination.Today, the production itself has disappeared. The video recording was destroyed in a devastating flood that also claimed recordings of several productions from that remarkable period of Nigerian theatre. What remains are memories, eyewitness accounts, and Hakeem Shitta’s photographs.
Lead Photo: Felix Okolo , Adagun and other actors in a scene in Chuck Mike’s A Toast For Soyinka 1991 SAAND Production. Photo by Hakeem Shitta. Restored by HSPACA. All Rights Reserved
THERE are productions, and there are productions. Some entertain, some challenge, and some become part of theatre history. Professor Chuck Mike’s A Toast for Soyinka belongs to the last category.
Created to celebrate Professor Wole Soyinka’s Nobel Prize in Literature, it was unlike any theatrical tribute staged before or since. It was neither a biography nor a conventional adaptation of a Soyinka play.
Tunde Euba in a scene in A Toast for Soyinka. Photo by Hakeem Shitta, Restored by HSPACA. All rights Reserved.
Instead, Chuck Mike conceived an ambitious theatrical collage, drawing together scenes from some of Soyinka’s greatest dramatic works into a single performance that celebrated the playwright through his own imagination.Today, the production itself has disappeared. The video recording was destroyed in a devastating flood that also claimed recordings of several productions from that remarkable period of Nigerian theatre. What remains are memories, eyewitness accounts, and Hakeem Shitta’s photographs.
They are among the few surviving visual records of a production that deserves to be remembered as one of the great achievements of Nigerian experimental theatre.
Even the title invites reflection.
In everyday English, we are accustomed to hearing “a toast to someone.” Professor Chuck Mike chose instead to call his production A Toast for Soyinka.
That choice can be read as distinguishing the work from an ordinary tribute. A “toast to” is often a gesture of praise directed at its subject. A “toast for,” however, can be understood as something fashioned for an occasion or for the person being honoured.
Read in that light, Chuck Mike’s title seems especially apt. This was not simply a salute to Professor Wole Soyinka’s Nobel Prize. It was a theatrical work created for Soyinka — one that celebrated him in the language he knew best: the stage. Instead of speeches or encomiums, the production became a living collage of his own plays, with Soyinka himself serving as the thread that united them.
A Celebration Born at Ife
When Professor Wole Soyinka became the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, celebrations took place across Nigeria and beyond. Professor Chuck Mike chose to honour the occasion not with speeches or ceremonies but with theatre.
A former student of Professor Soyinka at the University of Ife, Chuck Mike created A Toast for Soyinka, first staging it at Ife as a celebration of his teacher’s extraordinary achievement.
Rather than presenting one of Soyinka’s plays, he devised a work that travelled across the playwright’s dramatic landscape, revealing the richness, humour, political courage and theatrical brilliance that define Soyinka’s writing.
Soyinka as the Through-Line
The production’s central idea was deceptively simple and brilliantly executed. The character of Professor Wole Soyinka served as the through-line of the entire performance. As the production unfolded, Soyinka journeyed through excerpts from his own plays, transforming into the unforgettable characters he had created over decades.
He became Kongi from Kongi’s Harvest, the bombastic ruler intoxicated by power.
He became the irrepressible Brother Jero from The Trials of Brother Jero, exposing hypocrisy with wit and satire.
He entered the terrifying world of A Play of Giants, portraying one of its dictators and confronting audiences with Soyinka’s searing critique of authoritarianism.
A cell scene in Chuck Mike’s A Toast For Soyinka. Photo by Hakeem Shitta. Restored by HSPACA. All Rights Reserved.
Through these transformations, Chuck Mike demonstrated that the best way to understand Soyinka was through the characters who embodied his ideas, his politics, his humour, and his unwavering commitment to justice.
It was a theatrical concept of remarkable originality.
Recreated for SAAND ‘91
Chuck Mike later recreated A Toast for Soyinka as one of the major productions of SAAND ‘91 — Season of African, American and Nigerian Drama, the landmark festival he designed and curated under the banner of Collective Artistes.
SAAND was an ambitious celebration of theatre across continents, bringing together African, African-American and Nigerian performance traditions in a vibrant programme of plays, workshops and artistic exchange.
A Toast for Soyinka stood proudly at its centre.
The production retained its distinctive structure: a collage of excerpts from Soyinka’s plays connected by the character of Soyinka himself, who moved fluidly from one dramatic world to another.
The role of Soyinka in the SAAND production was performed by Felix Okolo, a fact confirmed by both Professor Chuck Mike and Felix Okolo. It was an extraordinarily demanding performance, requiring one actor to embody Soyinka while transforming seamlessly into several of the playwright’s iconic characters. Okolo’s performance became one of the defining features of the production.
The Photographs That Endure
Like all theatre, A Toast for Soyinka existed most powerfully in the moment of performance.
Fortunately, photographer Hakeem Shitta documented the production with a remarkable series of photographs.
Today those images have become invaluable historical documents. They preserve expressions, movement, stage composition and moments of transformation that can no longer be witnessed on stage.
For scholars of Nigerian theatre, they offer a rare glimpse into one of Professor Chuck Mike’s most imaginative productions.
The Flood That Erased an Era
The greatest tragedy came long after the final curtain.
A devastating flood destroyed the video recording of A Toast for Soyinka, together with recordings of numerous productions from the Collective Artistes era. The loss extended far beyond a single production. It erased unique performances, directing choices, acting styles, and physical interpretations that did not exist anywhere else.
For Nigerian theatre history, the destruction of those recordings remains one of the most significant archival losses of its generation.
Why A Toast for Soyinka Matters
A Toast for Soyinka was an act of theatrical scholarship and artistic celebration of a Nobel Prize.
Chuck Mike found a way to celebrate Professor Wole Soyinka not by recounting his life to audiences, but by inviting audiences into the landscapes of his imagination.
Chuck Mike did not tell his story; he allowed the playwright to walk through the extraordinary universe of characters he had created (Kongi, Brother Jero, the dictators of A Play of Giants), and others whose voices continue to resonate across African theatre.
This unique approach allowed the playwright to remember his characters, to encounter them, to argue with them, to laugh with them and, through them, to reflect on the ideas that have shaped one of Africa’s greatest literary careers.
Although the performance itself has been lost, its legacy survives through the memories of those who witnessed it, and the testimony of the artists who created it, and through HSPACA.
Some productions deserve applause and some others preservation.
A Toast for Soyinka deserves both.
*****
Acknowledgments & Editorial Disclosure
Special thanks to Professor Chuck Mike, Jahman Anikulapo and Felix Okolo. This article is based on original research assisting with the Hakeem Shitta Photography and Cultural Archive (HSPACA). AI assistance was utilized as an editorial tool to polish prose and refine grammatical flow.
- https://medium.com/write-your-world/a-toast-for-soyinka-the-lost-masterpiece-of-chuck-mike-aedbcf4da552
