Modern Artificial Religion Royal Giovanni College

Trials of Brother Jero is a one-act satirical play that is divided into five scenes written by playwright, poet and essayist, Wole Soyinka. Soyinka is a multi-award winning playwright and the first African to be awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature. In December of 2017, he was awarded the Europe Theater Prize that was in the special achievement. Despite these and much more of his achievements, Soyinka grew up in Nigeria in an evangelical household, where his suspicions towards religion developed. Both the middle and working class Nigerians were engulfed in an ever-increasing superstition around religion. Soyinka’s attitude towards exploiting religion for economic, social, moral and even political advantage is arguably what pestered him into crafting this play.

Brother Jeroboam, shortened to brother Jero, is the main character of the play, who is a self-proclaimed “man of God” and an evangelical prophet practicing his manipulating art along a beach in Lagos. Jero is opportunistic and knows that the people want money, power, and respect, and by preying on this, he gives the people compelling “prophecies” just to reaffirm their desires so that they may truly believe in him. The only person who sees Jero for who he really is,...