BOUESTI JOURNAL OF PERFORMING ARTS

Theatre over the years has been an efficient tool for the propagation of ideas and opinions. The flexibility of theatre as a tool endears it to the heart of many people. In pre-colonial Nigeria era, theatre exemplified itself as an efficacious platform for protest to counter domination and subjugation efforts by the British colonisers against Nigerians as evidenced in the works of Hubert Ogunde and other theatre artistes of the era. It is against this background that this paper ective which has not been specifically looked at before, to unravel how it functions as a platform of protest within the circumference of contemporary Nigerian situations. Using the qualitative research approach which entails documentary observation method, content analysis and the reader-response theoretical framework, this paper examines the play under study as a vehicle for protest in Nigeria. It is realised in this paper that protest theatre is an important kind of theatre that fosters social growth as exemplified in the playtext Maybe Tomorrow. Therefore playwrights should try to embed social messages in their plays based on the valuable contributions to the society that such messages offer.

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