The Libation Scene
The community cultural festival committee has commissioned a 25-minute play called The Return, based on a son who wastes his inheritance and is welcomed home by his father. The director sets it in a fishing village and uses a funeral dirge, white cloth, and a 40-second scene in which an elder pours water and names ancestors before the family meal. A local pastor demands that the libation be cut, arguing that it promotes ancestor worship. Traditional elders say removing it would insult custom and make the play dishonest. The cast includes Christian and Muslim pupils; some are uncomfortable, and one parent withdraws a child. Festival rules forbid 'worship' on stage but permit 'artistic depiction of religious practice'. The audience will include primary pupils, and a recorded version will be posted online. The committee must decide whether the scene stays, changes, or goes.
1. Explain how the funeral dirge, white cloth and libation function as religious and moral symbols in the play, and why the meaning is not fixed for every audience member.
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Symbols and meanings
The dirge signals loss, transition and communal mourning; it frames the son's return as a kind of death-and-rebirth. White cloth is polyvalent: in many Ghanaian contexts it can mark mourning, purity, victory or festivity, so its meaning depends on the scene, the actor and the audience's own tradition. The libation is the most contested sign: for many traditional worshippers it is prayer, gratitude and a link with ancestors; for the pastor it signals worship of ancestors; for a secular theatregoer it may be heritage or symbolism. The play's title and plot add a moral theme of repentance, forgiveness and welcome, which can be read religiously or humanly.
Why meaning is not fixed. A symbol does not carry one meaning regardless of context. The same gesture can be depiction, quotation, or actual ritual. Framing matters: programme notes, a narrator, the actor's intention, whether the audience is invited to participate, and whether the performance is live or clipped online. Primary pupils may not distinguish portrayal from endorsement, and an online clip can circulate without the programme note. The committee should therefore judge the scene by its likely reception and safeguards, not only by the director's intention.
2. Recommend whether the libation scene should stay, change, or be cut. Justify using at least two criteria and address the pastor's and elders' concerns.
Read the worked answer
Recommendation: keep the scene, but frame it as depiction.
Criteria:
- Non-coercion and non-worship. No pupil or audience member is required to participate; the actor does not invite the audience to pray; the programme states that the scene is a dramatic representation. This meets the festival rule.
- Respect for both communities. Cutting the scene would treat traditional practice as shameful and would ignore the elders' concern; keeping it without explanation would ignore the pastor's. A pre-show note and a short post-show discussion can name the disagreement respectfully.
- Safeguarding and artistic integrity. Brief primary pupils beforehand; keep the scene short; offer a supervised alternative activity for any child whose parent objects; do not film close-ups that make the gesture look like an instructional ritual.
Addressing objections. Tell the pastor the scene is not an act of worship and no one is asked to join; invite him to a preview and to respond in the discussion. Tell the elders the scene is not being cut, but it is being framed as theatre, not as the school's religion. If the company cannot accept these safeguards, the fallback is a stylised pour with no spoken invocation. The committee should record its reasons.