[1] An adaptation of the Greek classical play Oedipus Rex, the story centres on Odewale, who is lured into a false sense of security, only to somehow get caught up in a somewhat consanguineous trail of events by the gods of the land.
The manner in which he kills his father is revealed in a flashback when his childhood friend, Alaka, comes to Kutuje to ask him why he was not in the village of Ede as he said he would be when he departed at age thirteen.
She was given a prophecy, along with King Adetusa, that their child, Odewale, would one day grow up to usurp the throne, killing his father and marrying his mother.
As the queen of the kingdom of Kutuje, she finds herself serving as Odewale's conscience, calming him when he begins to act irrationally.
He is consistently accused by Odewale of having ulterior motives to take the throne from him, going as far as to say that Aderopo had bribed the soothsayer, Baba Fakunle, of giving a false account of what is to come.
Despite his best efforts to curb the prophecy that his child, Odewale, would grow up to take the throne by murdering him, he is inevitably slain when he encounters his son, now fully grown, in the village of Ede.
He comes to Kutuje to tell Odewale that the man he called father had passed two years prior and that his mother, though old, was still in good health.
Odewale begins to make accusations of a plot being made against him, spearheaded by Aderopo, to one of the village chiefs in response to Baba Fakunle's silence.
The culture represents "the way of life for an entire society", as noted in Pragmatic Functions of Crisis – Motivated Proverbs in Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not to Blame.
In the economic structure, one observes the resources the Yoruban culture considers vital to maintain wellness and health.
During their time of sickness, the townspeople solely depend on the herbs used as an attempt to cure the "curse" put on the people.
Ola Rotimi had an immense knowledge and interest in African cultures, as indicated in his ability to speak several ethnic languages, such as Yoruba, Ijaw, Hausa, and pidgin.
By juxtaposing Alaka in Odewale's new environment, Kutuje, Rotimi illustrates the cultural differences between traditional Yoruban life, with that of the industrialized west.
The Gods Are Not To Blame reflects critically on perhaps the most cherished myth of cultural transmission that civilization entertains about itself as a means of explaining its own perpetuation.
Akin Odebunmi in Motivated Proverbs In Ola Rotimi's "The Gods Are Not to Blame" uses myths and dances established in the Yoruba culture that helps serve as the basis of the play.
Scholar Odebunmi opines that the concept of this is to understand referring to the actual context of a word said in a play (dialogue) has developed similarities with speech and how it works in culture.
Odebunmi (2008) then says, language, therefore, expresses the patterns and structures of culture, and consequently influences human thinking, manners and judgement.
Adewale a character in the play, as Ola Romiti explains in The Gods Are Not To Blame adds that was used for functional means......
It was launched again in February 2004, Bisi Adigun and Jimmy Fay's Arambe Productions presenting what Roddy Doyle described as an exhilarating and exciting version of the play to the O'Reilly Theatre.