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Plot Summary of A Play of Giants
A Play of Giants by Wole Soyinka is a political satire that examines the grotesque nature of dictatorial power and the international complicity that sustains it. The play revolves around a gathering of four tyrannical African heads of state. The author explicitly models these characters after real-life 20th-century dictators. Benefacio Gunema represents Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Emperor Kasco represents Jean-Baptiste Bokassa of the Central African Republic, General Barra Tuboum represents Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo Kinshasa, and the central character, Field-Marshal Kamini, is a direct parody of Idi Amin of Uganda.
The play unfolds entirely within the lounge of the Bugaran Embassy to the United Nations in New York. The first act opens with Field-Marshal Kamini and two other dictators, Emperor Kasco and Benefacio Gunema, stiffly posing for a life-sized group portrait being created by an English Sculptor.
The session is interrupted by the Chairman of the Bugara Central Bank, who arrives to inform Kamini that the World Bank has refused to hand over a $200 million loan directly. It has offered instead to fund specific projects. An enraged Kamini orders the Chairman to return home and simply print more currency. When the Chairman tries to explain that unbacked currency is worthless, Kamini considers this a treasonous insult to his “sovereign currency” and orders his guards to repeatedly force the Chairman’s head into a flushing toilet. The sounds of the gurgling toilet periodically punctuate the rest of the play.
Kamini’s Ambassador then brings news that the entire Bugaran delegation has fled the embassy out of fear of Kamini, escaping through a lavatory window while a tape recorder played to trick the guards. The fourth dictator, General Barra Tuboum, arrives and boasts about ruthlessly crushing a rebellion in his own country with his elite “striped leopards.” Shortly after, the Mayor of Hyacombe and Professor Batey arrive to present Kamini with the key to their city, but are flustered to find four massive dictators instead of one.
While the leaders are at lunch, the Sculptor complains to Gudrum, a sycophantic Scandinavian journalist, that the sculpture was originally commissioned as a single figure for Madame Tussaud’s “Chamber of Horrors” in London, not a group display for the UN. Offended, Gudrum informs Kamini. When Kamini returns, he toys with the Sculptor, forces him to squat on the floor, and subsequently has him violently beaten by his guards offstage.
The UN Secretary-General arrives and is horrified to discover the massive size of the group sculpture. He explains that the UN International Gallery only accepts small busts. This prompts outrage from the dictators who refuse to back down. The Sculptor returns to finish his work, but is now wrapped head-to-toe in bandages like a mummy; Kamini mockingly claims he “fell off ladder.”
Two Russian delegates arrive to evaluate the statue. Speaking in Russian, they present Kamini with a Babushka doll while openly insulting him, calling him a “buffoon,” a “cretin,” and a “butcher.” However, Professor Batey, who speaks Russian, exposes their insults to Kamini and reveals he has a hidden tape recording of their conversation. When the Russians try to leave, Kamini violently detains them. He declares that they are subject to “Bugara law.”
A guard brings Kamini a telex left by his Ambassador, who has also just fled. The telex reveals the play’s climax: Kamini has been overthrown in a coup in Bugara. Kamini loses his grip on reality. He orders his Task Force Specials to seal the embassy gates, break open the armoury, booby-trap the doors and windows, and bring heavy artillery, which include machine guns and a rocket launcher, onto the balcony. The rocket launcher displaces the terrified Chairman in the toilet.
The other three dictators attempt to leave to secure their own regimes, but Kamini refuses to let them go. He holds them hostage alongside the Russians, newly arrived American delegates, and the Secretary-General. Kamini demands that the diplomats force the World Bank to deliver the loan in cash and manipulate the UN into recognising him as Life President. He threatens to blow the UN building to rubble if they refuse.
Outside, sirens wail as a massive crowd of Bugaran exiles gathers to protest, chanting “Out, out, out, Kamini” and “assassin.” As the crowd throws objects through the embassy windows, Kamini orders his guards to open fire with machine guns and rockets. The play concludes with a deafening barrage of explosions and screams, while Kamini stands aiming his sub-machine gun directly at his terrified hostages.
Background of A Play of Giants
Wole Soyinka’s personal activism and observations of political hypocrisy form the core background of A Play of Giants. As the Secretary-General of the Union of Writers of the African Peoples and editor of the journal Ch ‘Indaba, Soyinka was involved in mobilising opposition to the tyranny of Idi Amin’s regime. During this time, he was deeply disturbed by how “monsters” are able to remain entrenched in power, supported not only by global superpowers like the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, but also by intellectuals who rationalised their barbarity.
The play highlights, among other things, the complicity of the international community and intelligentsia. Soyinka noted that many intellectuals and politicians defended Amin as a “misunderstood nationalist” and applauded his anti-imperialist rhetoric, wilfully ignoring the mass disappearances and the destruction of Uganda’s productive elite. The Organisation of African Unity even honoured Amin with the chairmanship of its body, remaining deaf to the cries of Ugandan survivors.
Soyinka drew heavily from his own personal experiences, such as his interactions with Robert Serumaga, a Ugandan intellectual who initially defended Amin’s coup and prospered under his regime. Soyinka vehemently disagreed with Serumaga and fired him from the editorial board of his journal, a move that ironically saved Serumaga’s life when Amin’s security forces intercepted the termination letter. Serumaga eventually fled into exile to join the liberation movement after realising that under Amin’s terror, “what saved you yesterday turns out to be your death-warrant today.”
As indicated earlier, the play’s characters are explicitly modelled after specific 20th-century autocrats: Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Jean-Baptiste Bokassa of the Central African Republic, Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo Kinshasa, and primarily Idi Amin of Uganda. The play is dedicated to Byron Kadadwa, a real-life Ugandan theatre director. Shortly after Kadadwa led his troupe to the Festival of Black and African Arts in Nigeria in 1977, he was dragged from rehearsals by Amin’s notorious State Research Bureau and murdered, a fate also suffered by his successor Dan Kintu and the playwright John Male.
As to the literary inspiration of the play, Soyinka used Jean Genet’s play, The Balcony, as a structural model to figure out how to put such a massive “gallery of Supermen” onto a single stage.
Setting of A Play of Giants
The action of A Play of Giants takes place entirely at the Bugaran Embassy to the United Nations in New York. The time period is specified by the author as “a few years before the present.” Within the embassy, the specific physical setting is a lounge on the ground floor that has been temporarily converted into an artist’s studio for the Sculptor. Key architectural features of this room include a wide, sweeping stone stairway leading to an upper landing where heavy, throne-like chairs are positioned for the dictators to pose; a curving gallery that functions as the upper floor’s balcony, featuring framed portraits and an opulently gold-gilt railing; windows on the balcony that overlook a park, revealing the United Nations building in silhouette across the way; and a toilet room located through a door leading off the balcony, which Field-Marshal Kamini frequently uses to violently torture the Chairman of the Bugara Central Bank.
About the Author
Wole Soyinka is a renowned Nigerian playwright, poet, novelist, and essayist widely regarded as one of Africa’s most influential literary figures. His writings combine traditional Yoruba cultural elements with modern political and social commentary. Soyinka was born on July 13, 1934, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. He grew up in an intellectually vibrant environment that shaped his early interest in literature and social justice. His childhood experiences in a mission compound later inspired his famous memoir, Aké: The Years of Childhood, which provides insight into his formative years and the cultural influences that shaped his worldview.
Soyinka received his early education in Abeokuta before proceeding to Government College, Ibadan, and later University College Ibadan. He continued his studies at the University of Leeds in England, where he earned a degree in English Literature. Over the years, he has also received numerous honorary doctorates from leading universities around the world in recognition of his contributions to literature and scholarship.
He has produced an extensive body of literary works across drama, poetry, fiction, and essays. Some of his most celebrated works include Death and the King’s Horseman, The Lion and the Jewel, The Trials of Brother Jero, The Interpreters, and Idanre and Other Poems. His writing is known for its intellectual depth, dramatic intensity, and strong engagement with themes of power, tradition, identity, justice, and human freedom.
In 1986, Soyinka achieved international distinction when he became the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, a milestone that firmly established his place in world literary history. Beyond literature, he has been actively involved in political and human rights advocacy. He was imprisoned during the Nigerian Civil War after attempting to promote peaceful dialogue between opposing sides.
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