Performing Yan Daudu and transvestiting in selected acting experiments of ABU Studio Theatre

This article re-appropriates the idea of Yan Daudu , a Hausa word for ‘men who act as women’, to actor training in Nigerian college theatre. The term does not only refer to males who play the roles of women in Hausa community but also men who have sexual relations with other men. In another sense, men who cook and perform traditional roles reserved for women in traditional Hausa community are also referred to as Yan Daudu . Within the context of this study, Yan Daudu is deployed as ‘transvestite (cross-dressing) men who perform women's roles’. This study therefore examines the crosscurrents and vortexes of first, cross-dressing and acting, to becoming the woman character, and then playing the woman character in ways that effectively blur the identity of the male actor, and create believability. In this article, we argue against the frame that the body of male actors is a palimpsest and that this is conditioned by cultural norms and beliefs. By this, we mean that the body of male actors, although an empty slate capable of diverse re/inscriptions, may be inhibited by diverse cultural taggings (body shaming) and perceived taboos as with the idea of Dan Daudu or what in general Nigerian lingo is called woman wrapper (an effeminate man). We analyse one of two yearly experimental acting workshops from the Ahmadu Bello University Studio Theatre to argue that the traditional Hausa sense of self, role-playing and relating to the epistemic other places constraints on how men (can) perform women a la acting. We contend that there is a carryover of masculine psyche in playing the woman character and that this is manifested in the actor’s movements and frame. The article finds that there is an ambivalent dis/connection between actors’ dialogue and movements in performing women and that the actors’ frame and awareness of be-ing a character – a woman – infiltrates into the performance, thereby affecting the character roles and believability. We conclude that the male actors in Nigeria must first and foremost resolve his own conflict, both bodily and psychical, before he can effectively play the female or woman character.