| Summary: | The Cross River Igbo area of Southeast Nigeria has a wide range of masquerade cultural practices which has attracted several academic investigations. The most cited and popular performance is the Akpoha-Afikpo Ọkụmkpọ́ masquerade. Scholars have engaged with the Ọkụmkpọ́ masquerade phenomenon from varying perspectives, including its thematic preoccupations, the sociopolitical functions, the aesthetic dynamics, the ritual underpinnings, and the dramatic, sociological, and anthropological connotations, as well as the mask typologies. As far-reaching as these enquiries have been, however, there has been hardly any effort to investigate this performance within African theatricality, or to treat individual participants as individual performers. This article examines the processes involved in Ọkụmkpọ́ masquerade ritual as a theatrical performance. The research is based on participant observation, in-depth interviews and closed-group discussions. As a study that sets out to investigate the visual and kinetic spectacles of a particular Igbo satiric and didactic performance, ethno-poetics and performance analysis are the theoretical frameworks adopted. The article concludes that the production of Ọkụmkpọ́ masquerade follows the principles of play production: from scripting, auditioning, casting, rehearsal, directing, dress, and technical aspects, to the actual performance in both the village and the market square.
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