Joseph A. Walker's Ododo (truth) is an unstructured, loosely hung kind of review, if anything. It is self-contradicting in both form and content. The first four of fourteen scenes are highly stylized symbolic conceptions of an African birth-of-man fable, and of the initial entrapment of Africans by predatory human animals….

Walker has trouble with his assessment of the Black man. To begin with, he uses symbolism which he seems unable to control. In one of the early stages of African life, the Creator … delivers a large bag and a small one to Black mankind, which, quite predictably, chooses the large one filled with garments, the symbols of materialism. The other bag contains immortality. [The Creator] then chastizes Black mankind for having opted for "things rather than essences." Here Walker makes the Black man indistinguishable from the white one. Later, however, in a skit with anthropological overtones, "Black Magnificence," he insists that the Black man is superior in all ways. The ultimate truth to be perceived from the major symbolism simply never is, and it thus fails to say anything of importance. It is functional though: The large bag contains the rest of the costumes.

If one were to single out the greatest fault of the [play], it would have to be that it is apparently never clear to Joseph Walker precisely which historical truths about Black-white relationships he wants his "play" to tell, so he tries to make it tell them all. The result of this is distortion and contradiction. He castigates whites for pursuing science and building cathedrals and praises Blacks for developing soul while such things were going on. In view of the fact that Western Europeans once went to the great scholars and universities of Africa to learn about these things, the "play" at this point seems a bit more anti than pro Africa. (p. 47)

The sense of Black pride which should grow out of Walker's use of his materials—and thus involve the viewer, does not; rather, it is heavily imposed upon them and the viewer remains nearly static, denied the kind of emotional involvement which should be his as he perceives the meaning in—and has feelings about—the playwright's illuminations. (p. 48)