Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition
Long Live the King! Er, Wait…
Elesin Oba is a Yoruban chief and, until recently, the king's horseman. However, the king recently died, and Yoruban tradition demands that Elesin follow his king to the great beyond. So, when the play opens, he is enjoying one final day before he fulfills that duty. And to make sure he really enjoys himself, he arranges to get married to a random beauty he sees roaming about the market.
Iyaloja, the woman who brings about the match, is a little concerned that Elesin will be distracted from his duty by marriage (okay, and sex), and the Praise-Singer following him around seems to have some concerns as well. Elesin informs them both that he's more than ready to do his duty to the king and his people, though, so for now, everything appears to be copacetic.
Rising Action
God Save the Queen!
Plays would be way too short if things went according to plan, right? The local British authorities hear about the upcoming Yoruban ritual and are less than enthusiastic about it; Simon Pilkings, the local District Officer, sends word to the police to stop Elesin. Naturally, the Prince (the British one) is visiting while all this is going on and will be attending a ball at the Residency that evening, so Simon does not want anything wacky happening—and ritual suicide, in his eyes, is pretty wacky indeed.
Climax
A Sort of Homecoming?
The Pilkingses attend the ball at the Residency as planned, but Simon soon gets word that local policeman Amusa did not get far with his orders to stop Elesin. As a result, Simon has to rush out to deal with the situation himself. You who what they say: If you want something done right…
Left behind, Jane ends up chatting with Olunde, Elesin's son, who has just returned from his medical training in England after getting word that the king had died. Despite the fact that he left the community and angered his father with his plans to go to England and pursue a Western education, Olunde came back immediately to fulfill his duty to his father as part of this ritual.
When he hears the drums in the distance stop, Olunde believes that his father has achieved his goal and is now dead. However, Simon and others return soon after, and it's clear something funky is still going on… and then, Elesin stumbles in, handcuffed and very much alive.
Seeing that his father failed to make it to the other side before the British could intervene, Olunde is angry and shuns him, saying he has no father anymore. Ouch.
Falling Action
A World Upside Down
Thinking they've done a really good thing in saving Elesin from (in their view) a barbaric custom, the British folks are pretty puzzled by the intense anger and disappointment Elesin, Olunde, and Iyaloja feel in the wake of their intervention.
Iyaloja comes to visit Elesin in prison and basically chews him out for failing to achieve his goal. Elesin tries to analyze what went wrong, pondering the possibility that his new wife made him a bit too fond of life right before he had to abandon it. He claims that he ultimately would have gotten it together and crossed over, had the British not intervened when they did… but who knows?
Resolution
The Sins of the Father…
To try to right the wrong Elesin committed, Olunde ends up sacrificing himself (that's polite for committing suicide), and his body is delivered to Elesin in prison. Upon seeing his son's body wrapped up in a bolt of cloth, Elesin takes the chains binding him and strangles himself before anyone can get in his way. It's unclear, though, whether Olunde's sacrifice (and Elesin's final gesture) will make any difference in terms of averting cosmic disaster. Sigh.