This paper consider how Somali theatre developed uniquely from the 1950s, not within a particular national or colonial framework, but as a form that developed simultaneously and travelled extensively throughout Somali speaking communities; particularly in Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti and southern Ethiopia, but also affecting Somali-speaking peoples in Yeman and northern Kenya. I will be particularly concerned with how the form was able to appeal across national, class and gender boundaries to become the pre-eminent artistic form in the region between the mid-1950s and 1991.
I will argue that there were three particularly important factors that enabled Somali theatre to be so loved and so important - credited with significantly helping governments into power and subsequently toppling them. The first concerns the irridentist aspirations of Somali theatre throughout this period, consistently appealing to the desire to unite Somali speakers in Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, southern Ethiopian and north-west Kenya in a single nation; hence the five star flag of the Somali republic. The second looks at the perrenial concern of the theatre to debate aspects of indigenous culture and 'modern' imports and how these often conflicting values might be negotiated. The third concerns the unique form of Somali theatre, drawing on the national love of aliterative poetry to create a form that centred around 7 or 8 poetic songs which often aquired an afterlife of their own, making the singers international stars and carrying the concerns of the plays into cafes and homes where they would be recited and played - even being shared today in the Somali diaspora.