NGARTIA TRANFORMS SPOKEN WORD POETRY INTO A ROUSING MUSICAL

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru

Outspoken as ever, Ngartia Kimathi, the award-winning spoken word poet and storyteller supreme is back.

The co-founder of Too Early for Birds (with Abubakar Majid) has been gone for many months after making a huge impact on the spoken-word and storytelling scene from the moment ‘Too Early’ appeared in 2017. He and his group were right on time (not too early!), being something fresh and new, inspired and appealing to a younger generation of Kenyan artists.

But after several well-received performances, there has been an extended hiatus which we heard from the poet himself is being broken in August when Too Early for Birds will stage their own come-back production.

But last Sunday, (April 21^st), the stage at Braeburn Theatre Gitanga belonged totally to Ngartia, surrounded by a dazzling array of other young artists and professional performers, all directed by Nyokabi Macharia.

Blending spoken-word poetry with contemporary dance, live music, and excellent lighting and sound, it was definitely Ngartia who commanded the centre stage with his vision, verses, and vibrant testimony on the struggles, pains, and possibilities of living in Nairobi and the country right now.

There is a central love story that will serve as a unifying thread that gives the various poetic vignettes a feeling of cohesion and a sense of a beginning and end.

In the beginning, Ngartia opens explosively with a powerful performance on the Word. He covers the gamut of what the word provides; where it is to be found, which is essentially everywhere; who are the word-smiths and why they are all so special.

With this sort of blitz of a word-statement of purpose, we could see Ngartia hadn’t forgotten how to rouse his audience to new appreciation of whatever it was that he was appreciating.

Previously, he had been passionate about Kenyan history and gave us stories like Tom Mboya, but now he is onto new terrain. Moving on with the times was one of the themes, key messages and must does that he shared with his audiences.

But then, as he did this, he also shifted gears and gave a profoundly personal poem on the destructive methods of fear. He effectively illustrated just how lethal it can be, since it can paralyze one’s forward motion in life, kill one’s sense of purpose, and make them feel like they are nobody and nothing, so why not end it all. Fear is mesmeric, and self-destructive.

But Ngartia also shared the hopeful possibility of conquering fear once you realize you have that power within you to resist it, just as he did.

And again, his presentation was eye-opening, and awesome in revealing just how deeply deceitful and dangerous fear can be, even as it was embodied in the form of a woman (Chemutai Sage).               

But getting rid of fear is not complete merely by destroying it in one’s experience once. It has to be re-resisted daily, since fear is very versatile and can take on new styles and shapes all the time. Plus, it can be grabbing others who haven’t heard or heeded his call to be vigilant and to trust one’s self.

It’s with these insights in mind that he arrives in Nairobi where his next spoken-word scenario is on the dangers of living in the city. They are not quite the same as those addressed in a film like Nairobi Half-Life (which will be staged as a musical by Nairobi Performing Arts Studio later this year) where Nairobbery was more about impacting the car-conscious middle class.

What’s happening now is that petty thieves, government officials, conmen, con-women and even conning kids are snatching everything from ordinary people by all methods and means. Their targets are primarily those who walk, rather than ride since they don’t have the means to take either matatus, bodas or private cars.

Then, he gives an impassioned performance on conmen and how they often have a devastating impact on people’s lives.

This is when he spots Empress Msupa (Chemutai Sage) looking forlorn and lost. He goes straight into his charm mode, refusing to be pushed away, especially when he hears her bag had been grabbed. He manages to break through her defenses and they fall in love. Bu then their story fades out as Ngartia has many more stories to share before theirs run full circle.

By the end of the show, Ngartia has convinced us the man isn’t just a masterful storyteller and powerful poet; he’s a wise man who’s got prophetic powers to navigate life in Nairobi and life beyond.

 

 

 

BONI DELIVERS A MESSAGE OF ARTISTIC FREEDOM

 

When Boniface Maina made his move out of Nairobi, back home to Nanyuki, in 2017, nobody knew how long he would be gone.

Having been a co-founder of Brush tu Artists Collective with David Thuku and Michael Musyoka, he would always be a Brush tu artist, no matter where he was based; that was certain. But other than that, no one could tell when he’d be back or what direction his art would take.

Despite being very much a member of the Brush tu family, he had always had his own singular style of operating. As he put it in Susan Githuku’s book, Visual Voices, he had always been experimental in his approach to his art. He was always open to reinventing himself stylistically. So, when we heard he was having his first solo exhibition in a while at Red Hill Gallery in early April, BD Life was keen to be there on time.

We had been to numerous exhibitions featuring Boni’s art in the past. He had one solo exhibition at the now defunct Art Space in Chiromo run by Wambui Collemore, and countless group shows, like ones he had at the Russian Embassy, another in Lamu at the Peponi Hotel, and many others at Brush tu, first when it initially opened in Buru Buru Phase one and just the trio were exhibiting, and another when the group moved literally across the street and into a house so they could accommodate more up-and-coming artists who wanted to work closely with the troika of Boni, Thuku and Musyoka[ms1] .

The collective was growing so fast that they had to tear down a wall so as to enlarge the space and accommodate still more artists. It was a timely move since a donor had stepped in to enable Brush tu to have art residencies that proved to attract a Pan African set of artists to come and work for several months at Brush tu.

It's also when the collective started having monthly Open Houses, where Boni’s art featured alongside a whole new generation of Kenyan painters, sculptors, photographers, and printmakers. It was also when we finally saw women joining the collective, and bringing new perspectives to the group. At every show one would find Boni taking different approaches to his work.

Most recently, before he went home for many months, Boni introduced us to a new character in his art. He was quite unlike the Smokey character who has never quite revealed himself through his maker, Paul Onditi. But then, it seemed he was meant to walk us through his encounters with dystopic worlds to witness them first hand with Smokey.

Boni’s nameless fellow seemed to have a more developed sense of personality and identity.  His sole reason for joining Boni’s artistic ‘ecosystem’ seems to be for expressing Boni’s sense of freedom: freedom to relax, to watch a sunset, or to leap into new realms of the unknown. And while his man seems to be apolitical, blissful despite the dystopic blight many have to face every day, Boni has chosen to peel off the skin of his character, so that his identity could transcend the problems of race, ethnicity, and even age. His man is clothed only in his muscular form.

We expected to find him at Red Hill when Bon’s show opened. He was there and still a representative of the artist’s free spirit. But the show, entitled ‘Delicate Densities’ seemed to be more about Boni’s experimentations with multimedia.

He had always loved drawing and that is what inspired him to come to Nairobi to attend first, the YMCA National Training Centre followed by another degree in painting and drawing from BIFA, the Buru Buru Institute of Fine Art.

But now, in this exhibition, Boni outdoes himself, infusing moods and moments into a whole range of materials. He works with everything from bleach and ink on canvas and special watercolor paper. He also works with various paints and brushes on wooden planks on which he also etches. He even takes up carpentry to design and assemble some of his most ambitious works which are more like sculptures than three dimensional paintings. And while the exhibition also includes a number of works from earlier periods of his artistic evolution, they also reveal just how far Boni has come since he first arrived in Nairobi in the early days of the new millennium. 

Ultimately, it’s his ongoing exercise of experimentation and creative curiosity that fuel our own appreciation of Boniface Maina.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

 

---

 [ms1]

EXPERIMENTAL ARTIST BONI MAINA AT RED HILL GALLERY

 by Margaretta

When Boniface Maina made his move out of Nairobi, back home to Nanyuki, in 2017 nobody knew how long he would be gone.

Having been a co-founder of Brush tu Artists Collective with David Thuku and Michael Musyoka, he would always be a Brush tu artist, no matter where he was based; that was certain. But other than that, no one could tell when he’d be back or what direction his art would take.

Despite being very much a member of the Brush tu family, he had always had his own singular style of operating. As he put it in Susan Githuku’s book, Visual Voices, he had always been experimental in his approach to his art. He was always open to reinventing himself stylistically. So, when we heard he was having his first solo exhibition in a while at Red Hill Gallery in early April, BD Life was keen to be there on time.

We had been to numerous exhibitions featuring Boni’s art in the past. He had one solo exhibition at the now defunct Art Space in Chiromo run by Wambui Collemore, and countless group shows, like ones he had at the Russian Embassy, another in Lamu at the Peponi Hotel, and many others at Brush tu, first when it initially opened in Buru Buru Phase one and just the trio were exhibiting, and another when the group moved literally across the street and into a house so they could accommodate more up-and-coming artists who wanted to work closely with the troika of Boni, Thuku and Musyoka[ms1] .

The collective was growing so fast that they had to tear down a wall so as to enlarge the space and accommodate still more artists. It was a timely move since a donor had stepped in to enable Brush tu to have art residencies that proved to attract a Pan African set of artists to come and work for several months at Brush tu.

This is also when the collective started having monthly Open Houses where Boni’s art was featured along with a whole new generation of painters and sculptors appearing, some Kenyan, others international. This was also when we finally see women like Sebawali Sio and Bushkimani Moira joining the collective, and bringing new perspectives to the group. At every show one would find Boni taking on different approaches.

Most recently, before he went home for many months, Boni introduced us to a new character in his art. He was quite unlike the Smokey character who has never quite revealed himself through his maker, Paul Onditi. But then, it seemed he was meant to walk us through his encounters with dystopic worlds to witness them first hand with Smokey.

Boni’s nameless fellow seemed to have a more developed sense of personality and identity.  His sole reason for joining Boni’s artistic ‘ecosystem’ seems to be for expressing Boni’s sense of freedom: freedom to relax, to watch a sunset, or to leap into new realms of the unknown. And while his man seems to be apolitical, blissful despite the dystopic blight many have to face every day, Boni has chosen to peel off the skin of our character, so that his identity transcends the problems of race, ethnicity, and even age. His man is clothed in his muscular form.

We expected to find him at Red Hill when Bon’s show opened. He was there and still a representative of the artist’s free spirit. But the show, entitled ‘Delicate Densities’ seemed to be more about Boni’s experimentations with multimedia.

He had always loved drawing and that is what inspired him to come to Nairobi to attend first, the YMCA National Training Centre followed by another degree in painting and drawing from BIFA, the Buru Buru Institute of Fine Art. But now, in this show, Boni outdoes himself, infusing moods and moments into a whole range of materials. He works with everything from bleach and ink on canvas and special watercolor paper. He also works with paints and brushes on wooden planks on which he also etches. He even takes up carpentry to design and assemble some of his most ambitious works which are more like sculptures than three dimensional paintings. And while the exhibition also includes a number of works from earlier periods of his artistic evolution, they also reveal just how far Boni has come since he first arrived in Nairobi in the early days of the new millennium. 

Ultimately, it’s the pleasure the artist finds in experimenting in the arts has been a constant that has led to our ongoing appreciation of Boniface Maina.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

---

 [ms1]

NGARTIA TRANSFORMS SPOKEN WORD POETRY INTO ROUSING MUSICAL THEATRE

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 20.4.24)

Outspoken as ever, Ngartia Kimathi, the award-winning spoken word poet and storyteller supreme is back.

The co-founder of Too Early for Birds (with Abubakar Majid) has been gone for many months after making a huge impact on the spoken-word and storytelling scene from the moment ‘Too Early’ appeared in 2017. He and his group were right on time (not too early!), being something fresh and new, inspired and appealing to a younger generation of Kenyan artists.

But after several well-received performances, there has been an extended hiatus which we heard from the poet himself is being broken in August when Too Early for Birds will stage their own come-back production.

But last Sunday, (April 21^st), the stage at Braeburn Theatre Gitanga belonged totally to Ngartia, surrounded by a dazzling array of other young artists and professional performers, all directed by Nyokabi Macharia.

Blending spoken-word poetry with contemporary dance, live music, and excellent lighting and sound, it was definitely Ngartia who commanded the centre stage with his vision, verses, and vibrant testimony on the struggles, pains, and possibilities of living in Nairobi and the country right now.

There is a central love story that will serve as a unifying thread that gives the various poetic vignettes a feeling of cohesion and a sense of a beginning and end.

In the beginning, Ngartia opens explosively with a powerful performance on the Word. He covers the gamut of what the word provides; where it is to be found, which is essentially everywhere; who are the word-smiths and why they are all so special.

With this sort of blitz of a word-statement of purpose, we could see Ngartia hadn’t forgotten how to rouse his audience to new appreciation of whatever it was that he was appreciating.

Previously, he had been passionate about Kenyan history and gave us stories like Tom Mboya, but now he is onto new terrain. Moving on with the times was one of the themes, key messages and must does that he shared with his audiences.

But then, as he did this, he also shifted gears and gave a profoundly personal poem on the destructive methods of fear. He effectively illustrated just how lethal it can be, since it can paralyze one’s forward motion in life, kill one’s sense of purpose, and make them feel like they are nobody and nothing, so why not end it all. Fear is mesmeric, and self-destructive.

But Ngartia also shared the hopeful possibility of conquering fear once you realize you have that power within you to resist it, just as he did.

And again, his presentation was eye-opening, and awesome in revealing just how deeply deceitful and dangerous fear can be, even as it was embodied in the form of a woman (Chemutai Sage).                

But getting rid of fear is not complete merely by destroying it in one’s experience once. It has to be re-resisted daily, since fear is very versatile and can take on new styles and shapes all the time. Plus, it can be grabbing others who haven’t heard or heeded his call to be vigilant and to trust one’s self.

It’s with these insights in mind that he arrives in Nairobi where his next spoken-word scenario is on the dangers of living in the city. They are not quite the same as those addressed in a film like Nairobi Half-Life (which will be staged as a musical by Nairobi Performing Arts Studio later this year) where Nairobbery was more about impacting the car-conscious middle class.

What’s happening now is that petty thieves, government officials, conmen, con-women and even conning kids are snatching everything from ordinary people by all methods and means. Their targets are primarily those who walk, rather than ride since they don’t have the means to take either matatus, bodas or private cars.

Then, he gives an impassioned performance on conmen and how they often have a devastating impact on people’s lives.

This is when he spots Empress Msupa (Chemutai Sage) looking forlorn and lost. He goes straight into his charm mode, refusing to be pushed away, especially when he hears her bag had been grabbed. He manages to break through her defences and they fall in love. Bu then their story fades out as Ngartia has many more stories to share before theirs run full circle.

By the end of the show, Ngartia has convinced us the man isn’t just a masterful storyteller and powerful poet; he’s a wise man who’s got prophetic powers to navigate life in Nairobi and life beyond.

 

SUDANESE ART AND AMNESTY INTERN'L INFO AT NOIR

bY mARGARETTA WA gACHERU (4.17.2024)

Amnesty International Kenya had been planning to commemorate (or commiserate) the first anniversary since the latest round of the civil war in Sudan had begun on April 15, 2023.

But it took a small nudge from the Sudan Democracy First Group to suggest the concept of ‘Art for Aid’ be the theme of that day. In the mind of SDFG’s executive director Omayma Gutabi, a collaboration between AIK and SDFG could provide an effective contrast between the panel of Sudanese war experts organized by Amnesty’s executive director, Irungu Houghton and Sudanese artists, all of whom had to flee Khartoum for their lives. Some had come to either Kenya or Uganda in 2023. A few as early as 1994.

Either way, the artists could provide eye-witness accounts of the terror, ‘arbitrary bombing, targeting of civilians, and gender-violence inflicted on women and girls’ that was referenced during the panel of experts on the 15^th at the Noir Art Gallery. The artists, through their art could also provide a sense of hope and beauty prophetically revealed in works like Gutabi’s painting entitled ‘Re-emergence’.

“That painting is all about a time when we will be able to re-emerge from the dark shadows of war into the light of day and peace. It’s all about hope,’ Gutabi told BD Life at the opening..

Amnesty picked up on Gutabi’s idea but reframed the title to be ‘Brushstrokes of Resilience: A Year of Reflections and Memories from Sudan’.

The aid that Gutabi hoped to raise funds for specifically was the Community Kitchen that feeds people experiencing famine in Khartoum. She noted that thousands of famine-stricken people could be fed there for just a few thousand dollars or pounds. But that required funds which she hoped could be sourced from African civilians rather than from foreign donors. But food is just one of her people’s needs.

As we heard from Kenya’s Principle Secretary in the State Department for Foreign Affairs, Dr A. Korir Sing’oei, the situation in Sudan is dire. In addition to famine, there are no medical supplies since all aid into the country is blocked, much as it is in Palestine. The incessant calls for a ceasefire are utterly ignored, again much like Palestine. And according to Amnesty, ‘The internal conflict has killed over 14000 people and displaced over 10 million people in the last year alone,” Yet media attention to Sudan’s civil war compared to theat given to the Israel- Hamas war is like two percent to 98 percent for Israel.

That is one reason Omayma Butabi is grateful for collaboration between AI, SDFG, and a crew of Sudanese artists mobilized by the Sudan Democracy First Group and NGO International Film Festival. The exhibiting artists include Adlan Bahar, El Tayet Dawelbait, Faiz Abubaker, Fatima Hassan, Hussein Haufawi, Omayma Gutabi, Sumer Deefalla, Tibian Bahari, and Yassir Ali.

For me, there are two works in the show that stand out for being most reflect the current suffering of the Sudanese people. One is the painting by Yassir Ali, the other a sculpture by Adlan Yusif who also has a solo exhibition currently in the Kibera Art District.

The painting is covered in flaming hot red acrylic with just a small head centered at the base of the piece. It’s as if the person is being showered in blood, the result of having been bombarded by drones, missiles, bullets, and whatever new models of modern warfare have been invented to diminish or even genocide total populations as is also being done in Palestine. Yassir’s work looks simple but it’s most effective in revealing the anguish of the Sudanese people.

And the sculpture by Adlan Yusif is equally powerful in conveying the horrible burden of being alive and struggling to survive during this time of war. Here again is one man, carrying a huge box that has been constructed with scrap medal. The box could symbolize all the burdens that ordinary Sudanese  are trying to cope with. It could also contain the few bits of precious property the man remains with.  Either way, it suggests the loss of what Sudan once had but has now lost, leaving the people stranded with little to show for themselves after years of needless war.

The remaining paintings are either abstract, semi-abstract or figurative. The majority of them are by Omayma who actually curated the show and reached out to Amnesty International Kenya as a means of getting out the Sudanese story to a wider audience and also to introduce a new audience to Sudanese art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAIROBI’S NEW THEATRE PREMIERES WITH A MURDER MYSTERY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (7.23.2023)

They may 📿 the youngest performing arts company to join Nairobi’s burgeoning theatre scene.

Dancing Fingers staged theirs premiere performance last Friday night at the Professional Centre, the home where the troupe’s founder-playwright and producer Alby Ng’ung’a got his first taste of theatre in the presence of one James Falkland. He never became a big-name actor, like Ian Mbugua or John Sibi Okumu.

“But I loved watching the way James brought theatre to life, and I took him as a role model that I hoped to one day emulate,” Ngunga told BD Life on the opening night of The Broken, a script that he wrote for this occasion.

It's a murder mystery, layered with several sub-themes, including sex trafficking and the exploitation of women, infidelity, and mental illness.

The story begins and ends with women weepers, which is always a problem for me when the tears carry on too long. It’s especially annoying when it takes that much longer to find out what all the angst is about. Gradually we find out that several murders have been committed and the police have been investigating and even interrogating suspects using torturous tactics that start off the screaming. And at this early juncture, we cannot really tell whether the torturers are cops or criminals or one in the same thing.

Then the scene shifts and the weeper replaces the screamer. We find that she has grounds for being upset. Clemintine had been a university student but her professor had recommended that she join Madam Sabina in her brothel which she does, although we don’t know if she went their by choice or if her ‘prof’ Dr David had powers of persuasion that are unfathomable. Either way, Clemintine may have been raped in the night possibly on her way to work. In her distress she calls her professor, but he has no mercy and tells her to bug off. She then returns to the brothel but Sabina also refused to even allow her back into a place that at one time was her home. So she’s stranded, and the next thing we know she goes missing.

Cut to more weeping, this time it’s her mom who intuits that her daughter is in trouble and yet she can’t reach Clemintine by phone. Meanwhile, her husband, Clem’s dad is out messing around with other women. But by the time he gets home, his wife is near to hysteria, having been unable to make phone contact with her only child. It takes them quite a while but they finally decide to head to town to look for the good professor David. He’s the one who recommend Clemintine come to his university. And unbeknown to everyone except Sabina, he’s the one at the heart of a sex trafficking scheme, finding vulnerable university students and getting them to go work for Sabina. Then who knows what happens to them.

David’s wife, Clara is a police mortician who works closely with Dr Msoo, the man who has serious mental issues such as schizophrenia, and a kind of mental mania that has led to his grabbing girls like Clementine and keeping them secretly for his personal use. Otherwise, he is having an affair with Clara, something that David discovers by chance, and feels deeply wounded and betrayed by it.

In any case, the police chief inspector is hot on the trail of the criminal who’s been killing young women. He visits Madam Sabina who he believes might have some connection with the killer. But not even she can imagine how any man she knows is a serial killer. He also meets with Mama and Baba Clemintine and eventually gets to the police mortuary where Clara has an office. The police Inspector heads to Dr Msoo’s home. He arrives after we have discovered Clemintine is not dead, but locked away in the doctor’s basement. The extent to which Msoo’s schizophrenia has rendered him mad as a hatter. Once he hears a knock on his door, he rushes to hid Clemi back in the basement. But the Inspector isn’t fooled by Msoo’s lucid moments. What we know is that the doctor hallucinates. That’s how we understand the dead girl on the dissection table who rises from the dead and haunts Dr Msoo who is freaked out by what he imagines to be true. The corpse seems to be telling him he will rot in Hell. It’s shortly thereafter that the Inspector arrives and arrests Msoo. Hell could be a maximum security prison for him if a jury finds him guilty of rape, murder, and kidnapping Clemintine and others.

Playwright Nganga was brave to premiere with such a complicated plot, which worked relatively well. But it required better direction since one felt the cast was flailing a bit and needed clarity as to their character development. But overall, Dancing Fingers made a good effort and looks prepared to improve as we all aim to do.                            

 

LOOSE ENDS Draft

 Mavin kibocho was smart to entitle the play that he wrote, produced and staged last Saturday at kenya cultural centre.

He called it ‘Loose Ends’ which made sense since there are so many loose ends in this drama that one can’t decide whether the play is meant to be a mystery or if the playwright needs to head back to the drawing board and give his two characters more clarity of motivation.

The first confusion comes out soon after we meet the weeping woman, Una, who we learn her sister was recently murdered and police had just found her remains. Una’s tears are apparently for her sister, but the only reason we find this out is by the arrival of a mystery man who looks like a nuisance or a determined do-gooder. He sees the woman weeping and asks genuinely if he can help. But then, when she tells him to go away, he doesn’t. Why the persistence? It takes too long to find out that by some uncanny coincidence, he and the weeper, una, once had a passionate love affair. It is never explained how he doesn’t recognized Una despite the many years that have passed since they were together. Nor is it made clear how Una didn’t recognize her former lover initually. Or did she but pretended she did not? And if that was not the case, then what’s her motivation?

Dr b eventually suggested that una planned her game in advance of being seated somewhere just outside the doctor’s office. But before that hypothetical theory comes up, they both seem to get an ‘ah ha’ moment when they recognize one another. Una is transformed from being a crying hothead who’d shouted at the doctor to stop pestering her into a loving, affectionate girl who recalled the passion they had for one another. Meanwhile, there are all these imploring voices from inside his house. They come first from his wife, then from his young daughter, people who eventually keep the doctor fixed with his family and unprepared to run away with Una as she wants.

As far as character development, it’s the doctor who describes what happened to him when it was discovered he had an affair with a minor. (Una was 15 when they met and fell in love). There’s a trial where he is accused of being  pedifile anconvicte for it. Hiyears in prison, a chunk of which kept him in solitary confinement; the rest found him being beaten and tortured by fellow fell inmates who are dads with daughters who feel the fear of their baby girl getting raped by a pedifile like the doctor.

Una’s reaction to his story is as unrelenting as his when trying to waken one man’s care for a supposed stranger. she wants the two of them to revive their relationship and run away together. To him its no longer  an option. Besides, he tells her, if we did do as she wished, they would never be socially accepted. He would always be seen as the pediphile who assaulted a child.

It apparently infuriates Una that the doctor might love his wife and child more than her. Now we are starting to see a dangerous dimension of Una’s passionate. We haven’t learned enough about Una’s background to know her mental stability or lack thereof.  We heard briefly about her brother and sisters and apparently that they are all orphans, but even the story of her sister who was deemed a prostitute is never brought up again, therefore, another loose end.

But probably the biggest loose end of all is the relationship that Una and the doctor had and continue to have, despite the doctor ff. Una suggests that she has a child whose father I the doctor but he had never been told. That idea is also not developed so it’s yet another loose end.

And finally, it’s the last scene when we are left with a blackout and a radio announcement that the public and FBI are looking for a young woman who might have a motive for killing her former lover.

There seem to be many plays coming out with this cliff hanger ending. They seem to think it is clever. But to me, it’s the ultimate unresolved loose end that young theatre companies like to produce. But tome, they are a lazy man’s way of resolving an end that is crisp and clear and doing the easy nan thing. So we can at lleast congratulate Mavin for correctly identifying his play with the ultimate loose end which is death.