Mischievous Tradesmen and A Raging Epidemic

By Patrick Adaofuoyi Ogbe

Naughty Tradesmen and a Raging Pandemic is a play about coffin makers in Okurugbe community who despite their best-efforts still struggle to make a living from their wood crafting trade. Then, things suddenly change, and strange deaths begin to occur, causing the coffin crafters’ business to boom. On the other hand, the Chief and Native Priest as custodians of the customs of the land, struggle to find the best solution to bring the raging pandemic to an end.

The ensuing travails, ludicrous incidences, mingled with communal life show the ironies of life and how when some people mourn, others are laughing and making merry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paperworth Books
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9780463829653

Patrick Adaofuoyi Ogbe

Ogbe Patrick Adaofuoyi hails from Benue State but was born in Kaduna State.He holds two degrees in Theatre Arts from the University of Jos.He is a keen lover of the Arts and prolific writer, writing extensively in newspapers and magazines. He has published some of his works in The Standard Newspaper, The Champion Newspaper, Daily Times Newspaper, and the now defunct, Post Express Newspaper, Newswatch Magazine amongst many others.He is the author of Poems of Awakening (2007) and Cantankerous Passengers (2012). Mischievous Tradesmen and A Worrisome Epidemic is his third publication.Mr Ogbe is currently a public servant in one of Nigeria’s notable Parastatals in Abuja where he lives with his family.

Book preview

Mischievous Tradesmen

And A

Raging Epidemic

Copyright 2020 Ogbe Patrick Adaofuoyi

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CONTENTS

Characters

ACT 1

ACT 2

ACT 3

ACT 4

ACT 5

ACT 6

ACT 7

ACT 8

ACT 9

ACT 10

ACT 11

About the Author

Cast of Characters

AJUNWA – male, middle-aged customer of the coffin shop.

ALOCIOUS – male, coffin maker.

ALOY – male, coffin maker.

ALPHONSUS – male, coffin maker.

ANGELINA – AJUNWA’s sourly and saucy tongued younger sister.

CHIBUZOR – Timothy’s friend.

CHIEF AGAMA ORNE-LOHI - traditional ruler of Okurugbe community.

COMRADE NICHOLAS – coffin seller.

MAMA SALOME – middle-aged canteen owner.

MARGARET - Mama Salome’s maid.

MONICA - ALPHONSUS’s wife.

OLD MAN.

NATIVE PRIEST.

MIDDLE-AGED MAN.

PALACE ATTENDANTS AND AIDES.

SENATOR REUBEN AGBENU – Senator representing Okurugbe community.

TIMOTHY - customer at MAMA SALOME’S shop.

YOUNG LADIES.

SIX TO SEVEN RESIDENTS OF OKURUGBE COMMUNITY.

ACT 1

Scene 1

A low-income earners’ living space. It is close to the break of a new day. Intermittently, the crow of cocks and roosters are heard distinctly in the background. The stage is dimly lit and gets brighter as the scene plays out, and the day entirely breaks.

A cock crows again, distinctly, at length. Then eventually, ALPHONSUS shuffles on to the stage, clad in a rumpled trouser and singlet. Still drowsy and yawning, exaggeratedly.

ALPHONSUS: Another morning. AAHH! It is time to venture out into the day. How I wish the nights were longer so I can indulge in the rest which sleep has to offer a ceaselessly labouring man like me. (He yawns again and then calls out.) MONICA! MONICA! (There is no immediate response. Then infuriated, he stills calls out, this time more loudly.) MONICA!

MONICA: (Responding from offstage.) What is it, eh? I say, what is it?

ALPHONSUS: Come out here, woman! I am calling you, and you are there replying with questions. Who is your mate in this house, eh?

MONICA: (Coming on stage.) You are the one who is my mate in this house. I am your wife, and by virtue of that, your mate in this house.

ALPHONSUS: Is that how to respond to me your husband when I call? Eh, woman?

MONICA: Why won’t you allow me a minute’s rest in this ramshackle place called a house eh ALPHONSUS? Am I the only woman that is a wife in the house of her husband?

ALPHONSUS: (Speaking to the audience) That is women for you. You only know their true colours when you marry them, and they snuggle their feminine complexities into your home. (Turning to his wife) You MONICA, that was as shy and timid and soft-spoken like a household cat before I married you, have now metamorphosised into a wild tiger!

MONICA: If you must know, adverse marital conditions can make a woman with the hitherto mild disposition of a cat to become wild and unfriendly like a tiger. The leisure and rest which I was enjoying in my father’s house before you married me, ended when I came into your home as a wife. Every second, every minute, every hour, every day; you persist in shouting out to me, calling my name loudly and asking me to carry out one chore or the other for you. I am tired, ALPHONSUS. I am tired! Do you hear me? I am your wife, and not your housemaid! I am a housewife for God’s sake, not a domestic machine. I don’t like the way you treat me.

ALPHONSUS: And how do you want me to treat you, eh? In my opinion, all women who are wives, are household properties of the individual men that married them and paid their dowries.

MONICA: Even if a wife is a household property; learn to give such a household property ample time to rest. The demands which you make of me in this house are too many! I can’t bear them anymore.

ALPHONSUS: What demand or demands have I made of you this particular morning, woman Eh? All I did was to call you out.

MONICA: To carry out a particular household chore for you, not so?

ALPHONSUS: Your sourness this morning amazes me, woman. All I was calling you for, was to ask that you boil some water for my bath so I can go to work. Have I gone beyond my matrimonial privileges as a husband, to make such a little demand from you? Eh?

MONICA: You annoy me, ALPHONSUS! You won’t let me rest. I remember, just yesterday evening after you returned from work, you asked me to wash your dirty clothes for you, which I did. Then you told me to prepare yam porridge refusing the meal of eba and okra soup I had earlier prepared. By the time I was through with all of that and was exhausted, you still wouldn’t allow me to sleep peacefully.

ALPHONSUS: (Unrepentantly) Is that all?

MONICA:(Angry) What do you mean, is that all? I am trying to point out instances of spousal abuses in our marriage, meted by you towards me, and you are unrepentantly saying, Is that all?

ALPHONSUS: How did I abuse you? A married man asks his wife to help him carry out one or two needful household chores, and you call that, abuse? Eh, woman?

MONICA: I have not finished with my complaints yet, husband, ALPHONSUS. Even after I had carried out all your requests, you still insisted that I carry out my marital conjugal responsibility to you. And then this morning, even when my eyes were still heavy with sleep, and my entire body still aching with tiredness, you began to call me out to arrange for hot water for you to have a bath. Haba! Why all these stresses? Eh? The weather is not even so cold! Do you need to bath with hot water before you go to work? Even if you want hot water to bath, couldn’t you have done that yourself? Must you interrupt my well-deserved sleep? I am a human being, not a machine. I am a housewife, not a domestic household personal effect which can perform ceaselessly without requiring rest.

ALPHONSUS: But I am your husband. I married you. I paid your dowry,