PAA YA PAA IN 2014 BEFORE THEY LOST THEIR FOREST

sThe Paa ya Paa Art Gallery Gardens 

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (October 30, 2014 at www.kenyanpoet.com)

Elimo and Phillda Njau have witnessed many weddings in their spacious and super-green shamba/garden over the years. Their Love Garden has been a special favorite since it’s not only surrounded with deep green shrubs, a thick bamboo patch and several striking stone sculptures all hand made by Kenyan artists like the late, great Samwel Njau.

The Love Garden is also situated right next to the one wing of Paa ya Paa Art Centre that was built by Elimo especially to house visiting artists who come from all over Africa and the rest of the world to attend workshops and imbibe the creative climate at Paa ya Paa.
There’s even a kitchen in the roomy wing so that brides can take their time preparing for their special day and chefs can prepare for the after-wedding receptions that also are held in the Love Garden.

But then on the other side of Elimo and Phillda’s drive way is an even more spacious grassy ground where slightly bigger weddings are held. That part of the Njau’s garden is more of a forest than a manicured space, but the leafy green indigenous trees provide a wonderful canopy to keep weddings and other artistic events cool and fresh, even on hot sunny days.

The Njau’s initially moved to their overgrown Ridgeways location in the early 1970s. The old colonial stone house, situated on five acres of mostly indigenous forest land had previously been owned by Oxford University Press. But as OUP was getting set to sell the house and grounds, they gave Elimo to first chance to buy the property.

And since Elimo was managing Paa ya Paa Art Centre on Koinange Street at the time—a time when rents in Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD) were shooting sky high–OUP’s then Managing Director Charles Lewis was happy to see his friend move both his home and Paa ya Paa to the land, which at the time, seemed so very far from town but today seems like a hop, skip and jump to and from Nairobi.

Lewis and Elimo had known one another for many years and shared a mutual love of the arts. That shared affinity is one of the reasons the two were among the original six founders of Paa ya Paa, an arts space most often described as the ‘first indigenous African art gallery in Kenya.’
In fact, there were four indigenous Africans out of the six, namely Elimo, Jonathan Kariara, James Kangwana and Pheroze Norowjee. The other two were British who had deep ties to the country. There was Lewis who helped establish the Kenyan publishing industry and Terry Hirst, the fine artist who not only started the Art Department at what is now Kenyatta University. He’s also one of the grandfathers of Kenyan cartooning, having established the first cartoon magazine that specialized in political and social satire.

Initially, Elimo moved in as a renter and general manager of Paa ya Paa Gallery. But eventually, he managed to buy the property and has transformed the whole five acres into an indoor and outdoor green gallery.

Indeed, one of the reasons Elimo and Phillda regularly open their home to visitors is because their garden grounds are so attractive, both inside and out.

One of the major attractions of the grounds is the 12 foot tall cement and steel wire sculpture of a Mau Mau Freedom Fighter constructed by the late Samwel Wanjau.

Originally, Wanjau had been commissioned by Kenya’s former Attorney General Charles Njonjo to create a sculpture to stand in front of the Parliament, but when Njonjo saw the ferocity and size of Wanjau’s freedom fighter, he said refused to honor his agreement with the artist.
As Wanjau had created his Mau Mau man in Elimo’s garden, the sculpture never moved. Neither did the miniature Mau Mau which still stands in the Love Garden and is one of the major attractions of the space.

Elimo also grows fruits and vegetables as well as a host of spices and multicolored flowers just near the house that he and Phillda built with the help of many well-wishers who came to Njaus’ rescue in the late 1990 when an inexplicable fire destroyed much of the original house, including Elimo’s library of priceless first edition books.

The fire also destroyed most of the wood sculptures that had graced the garden grounds. That is why all the sculptures that one sees in the Njaus’ garden are made out of stone or cement and steel.

To reach Elimo and Phillda’s place, take the Kiambu Road and turn down the Ridgeways Road leading to Windsor Hotel. Before you reach there, you will see Paa ya Paa Lane and they are at the end.

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MOLIERE ARRIVES IN NAIROBI AFTER 400 YEARS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru  (written 20 August 2022)

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born exactly 400 years ago this year. It took a bit of time before he took up his stage name, Moliere, only to become the leading playwright, actor, and poet the French have ever claimed.

Seen as the French equivalent (or superior) to England’s Shakespeare, Moliere is being celebrated all over France this year, according to the Alliance Francaise Director, Charles Courdent.

Speaking to Business Daily just as Kenya’s rehearsals began for one of Moliere’s most popular comedies, The Miser or L’Avare, Charles says children from the age of 10 are reading Moliere plays under normal circumstances. But this year especially, plays like Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, and L’Avare are being staged all the way from Nice to Paris to Calais.

Yet as much as the French adore Moliere, few Kenyans have ever heard of the playwright. Neither have they ever seen a performance of any of his plays, that is, unless they have taken part in French Schools Drama Festivals which I believe have been happening for many years.

That makes it a big challenge for the Nairobi Performing Arts Studio (NPAS) which was invited to stage The Miser in September to ensure their Moliere is recognized and appreciated just as The British Council supports Shakespeare’s plays around Kenya.

“My first concern was to find a Kenyan actor who could help us adapt the French language [which is, after 400 years, slightly archaic] to language that is relevant to Kenyans,” says Stuart Nash, who accepted Harsita Waters’ request that he take up the challenge.

“He also needed to be more mature [meaning not in his 20’s or even 30’s],” says Stuart who is delighted to have found Sam Psenjen had a bit of time in his busy schedule of filming TV sitcoms and Kenyan films to play the leading role of the Miser.

Stuart was even prepared to adjust the whole cast’s rehearsal schedule to meet Sam’s alterations which at times important were unforeseen. But for Stuart, it was to have Sam on hand since the Miser, General Makasi who rarely departs from this multi-scene play which the company transformed into two acts.

“We also injected a bit of sheng, French, English, and American slang,” Stuart adds. And while he is aware that the AF director might wince at some of the ways the cast has revised the text, turning the arcane English (adapted literally from the equally arcane French) into a language that local audiences could hear, Stuart is going with the risk. “What else can we do? We don’t want to dumb down the language too much but we want it to make some sense,” he adds.

The plot itself isn’t terribly complicated. Nor is it at all alien to the Kenyan scene where polygamy is still practiced and the conscious public is still trying to fight child marriage.

In The Miser’s case, he wants to marry a youngster, Maryanne, (played by Suzanne Karani) who is actually in love with General Makasi’s (Sam Psenjen) son, Harrison (Amani Mwasera) who also loves the girl.

But there is also a conniving matchmaker, Mademoiselle de Venus (played by Angel Waruinge), a nosy Detective (Dru Muthure), and Ian Mbugua who gives a cameo performance as Bwana Simon to tie up all the loose ends.

At this stage, the NPAS/AF script of The Miser is still being re-worked and revised to give it more punchy fun and clarity as to what an autocratic head of state is capable of doing.

What’s so startling about Moliere is that in nearly every one of his plays, he mocks the nouveau riche (new rich and powerful). He also lampoons those with any sense of superiority, be they a royal, a rich businessman, church leader, or whomever he perceives to be a hypocrite, which he has a knack for identifying. All of those guys got burned by Moliere in his plays. Yet that never stopped the literary leaders of France embracing the playwright.

He was attacked in 1664 by the Roman Catholic church for the accusations he made in his satirical play, Tartuffe, which was filled with not-so-subtle slams at the hypocrisy of church elders and the gullibility of the wealthy who fell for the con-man, Tartuffe’s pseudo-piety. The satire was quickly attacked and censored; then it was banned and burned by the Church which took the power of theatre performance seriously. Tartuffe has ultimately been hailed as a masterpiece, but the Church never forgave the playwright.

SIMP STIRS SYMPATHIES FOR THE GIRL CHILD AND SINGLE MOM

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Kenyan playwrights have apparently taken up the habit of naming their plays with mystifying titles, like “I am not a Simp: I respect women.’

Under his breath, I think I heard that phrase uttered by the rapist in the play, Pastor Zebede (Evans Katana) who was Prof Zebedayo when he assaulted his student Stephanie (Cheryl Margie) whom we learn towards the play’s end, is also her father, having raped her mother before her. Nonetheless, it’s never clearly revealed what a ‘simp’ is.

What we do know is that ‘Simp’ is essentially Stephanie’s story. She’s a woman (Miriam Ingasiani) about to be executed for the crime of allowing her twins to be injected with the AIDS virus and thus become human guinea pigs. The executioner is one of the twins, Caine (Brian Ngugi). He wants revenge against her for giving him the dreaded disease. But he’s stopped by his twin, Abel (Matthew Ngugi) who wants to hear her side of the story.

In real life, an execution can’t be stopped to hear the convicted one’s version of the case. But justice, according to Waswa, allows the rest of his play to be mostly a flashback on how the mother’s hopes and dreams got shattered. Nonetheless, she tried her best to give the boys a good life.

Her story essentially aims to reveal the plight of an ordinary woman, a single mother, in our society today. Stephanie also wants her sons to understand how she could have relieved herself of much pain if she hadn’t cared for them as she did. As she says, she could’ve aborted them, let them be adopted, or dumped them in the trash. She could’ve rejected the chance to see them grow up with a nice roof over their heads, good food, good education, with only a minimal risk of dying young from AIDS.

She didn’t do any of that. Instead, after being thrown out of her mother’s home for having twins instead of a university degree, and finding no jobs, she takes to prostitution. But her run in with gang rapists (one of whom was her dad, the teacher) leads her to pursue her last resort. That is to allow her twins be injected with the HIV/AIDS virus.

Waswa’s script has countless twists and turns to it. In the process, he injects brilliant vocalists and even better dancers, the first one being Stephanie (number two, Cheryl Margie). She’s an incredible dancer whose display of both athleticism and eroticism prove this girl could go far if professionally trained. She gets accepted for dance studies but her dreams are thwarted by her mom who insists she go to university and study CRE, not dance. In her frustration, she skips her final exam, and goes to perform outside instead. After that, she has only one recourse to getting a passing grade. She takes it. So, does his sexual assault on her constitute rape or mutual compliance? Either way, it gives her twins and nowhere to go except to the streets to keep herself and her sons alive. The violent gang rape that she experiences there (by Stephanie #3, Purity Muthoni) is just one of the numerous sexually explosive mimed scenes in the play. This one illustrates how precarious a lifestyle prostitution really is, with or without twins to care for.

 It's in her quest to find security for herself and her boys that she meets the medic who promises her a well-funded future if she allows him to turn the twins into human guinea pigs. Her decision, seen in this context, makes more sense. What isn’t clear is how the boys get adopted by Jabali and Tina, and how Stephanie senior serves as their nanny for twenty years. What’s also unclear is why the cops show up one day looking for the man called Judas whose crime apparently was getting human babies to be used for medical experimentation. Somehow Stephanie is implicated with him and the Court finds their crimes so heinous they are both sentenced to die (in a poorly designed execution chamber).

Ultimately, Waswa turns off the lights just before Caine re-asserts his desire to execute his mom, so we technically don’t know if he did it or not.

Either way, Waswa’s play has marvelous choreography and mellifluous voices. He illustrates the single mother’s struggles and the way a girl child’s thwarted dreams can affect her entire life.

Clearly, it’s better to listen and help the child be true to herself. But Waswa’s script, however entertaining and titillating, leaves gaps we’d wish to see filled with clarity.

 

 

 

 

KIPANDE 2’s MESSAGE: VOTE AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written 7 August 2022)

Liquid Arts Entertainment kept the promise they made in early June, unlike the dirty politicians they exposed as being so similar to many of those who currently occupy political seats in our local and national governments.  They all make grandiose promises and hand out cash and other goodies on the spot, but they rarely if ever fulfill those promises which they quickly forget.

It was playwright and member of Liquid’s cast, Kelvin Manda who made the promise that he’d be writing Kipande 2 in time to have Liquid Arts perform it just before our national elections. That’s exactly what happened last weekend or just two days before August 9^th Election Day.

The play unintentionally brought us a rather mixed message however, since we were frankly being told to vote on Tuesday as it was important to exercise our democratic right. Yet what we saw in Kipande 2 was corrupt politicians swinging back into power, subverting the one honest candidate who sincerely tried to clean up her mayorial constituency.

It was money that sabotaged Mayor Sophia’s  (Shally Mumia) efforts to do the right thing. If we recall from the first round of Kipande, Sophia was an unlikely winner in the mayorial race. She had only been an assistant to the real candidate Chupa (Steve Otieno) who apparently had been bumped off in a mob violence scene. Supposedly an angry mob of anti-Chupa activists had attacked him and left him to die, which we find out much later that they did not.  

Sophia had secretly nurtured dreams of power while she had been a faithful worker for Chupa. So, we were led to believe that she stood in his place as his representative.

As it turned out, Chupa’s “death” had been a set up from the start. He had only made a deal with the real wheeler dealer Claudette (Wambui Faith) who had also paid off the mobsters and so-called activists to make the scene look convincing.

Recall that Claudette is the one who stuffed the ballot box (by thousands of votes) to ensure Sophia would win. She hadn’t expected Sophia to become a canny and credible politician who was ready to serve the people and uplift their lives.

In Kipande 2, we discover that Mayor Sophia is true to her word. But her word isn’t strong enough to defy Claudette’s cash which serves to sabotage every effort that Sophia makes to keep her own promise to fulfill in her first 100 days all the hopes she had laid out for the people of her constituency.

Sophia might have gotten a few of her bills passed if she hadn’t gone out so early to kill Claudette’s cartel and the corruption inherent in it. Sophia also refused to give Mama Mapesa (Veronica Mwangi) all the government tenders that she had sought. So, nobody was pleased with Sophia and the price she was to pay was a surprise.

Claudette was so good at working wheely deals behind the scenes that she’d decided to come out and first sue Mama Mapesa by exposing all her dirty linen in public and letting a corrupt court do its work to get Mapesa convicted and tossed into prison.

After that, Claudette who turns out to be more determined, vengeful, far-sighted, and focused than any of the others, cleverly became the ‘voice of the voiceless’ by suing the Mayor for not fulfilling her 100-day promise to Mama Wanjiku (aka wananchi). That was how cleverly Sophia got sent to jail, same as Mapesa.

So now, the political roadway was cleared for Claudette to keep on quietly bribing the necessary ones which enabled her to become the next Mayor.

What’s peculiar in the ending is how the playwright can explain how and why Claudette becomes Mayor when there was no election. I guess one can expect her appointment would be in keeping with the reality of that town where corruption is rife. But we don’t have a clue what Claudette will do now that she has a shot exercising unlimited power.

In this regard, Kelvin the playwright is sending out more than just the message to think seriously and vote like your life depended on it, since it might very well do.

The fact that Kipande 1 and 2 both have interesting corollaries or references to our own electoral situation is sad but true. We too have a system that is rife with corruption, but we can still hope and pray that peace and truth will prevail. So please get out and vote!

IRREGARDLESS OF CRIME, CORRUPTION, AND GREED, LIFE GOES ON

 IRREGARDLESS A CHATTERBOX MASTERPIECE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted August 1, 20220

Irregardless is the sort of play which if it had been staged in another time would have been deemed ‘seditious’ and gotten the playwright sent to either Nyayo House or Kamiti Maximum Security Prison.

Why? Because it openly exposes so many flagrant disparities and inequities of Kenyan society today. If, for instance, it had been staged during the Moi era, J.J.. Jumbi, the playwright and founder of Chatterbox Productions, would have gotten in trouble for openly exploring all the promises made by politicians, including the President, that were never kept. That kind of criticism would have been seriously frowned upon.

Fortunately, we got through that time, so there’s a bit more latitude in how far the artists can go in criticizing their leaders.

Even more fortunate is the fact that J.J. knew how to mask his critical perspective in humor, metaphor, music, and caricature. That way we could laugh rather than weep when we watched the glaring contrasts between a poor woman in labor who needed special care at Kenyatta Hospital versus one waiting to deliver in a five-star hospital where women are treated like queens, not worthless whores.

Sometimes the script seemed to belabor a point longer than necessary for the audience to get the gist of what was happening. That was true of the matatu scene where a couple was being pulled between two matatu touts trying to lure prospective customers to their PSV with hyperbolic pleasures like five-course meals and a chakuzi steam bath.

As it turned out, the couple had different preferences which turned into an argument and a breakdown of their bond. Their differences of opinion, leading to the quick demise of their romantic bliss, reflects a real-time problem in Kenyan society. It’s the way relationships can come and go in such a fleeting manner that multiple problems can arise from expectations shattered and cultural traditions lost in the frenzy of families falling apart.

In fact, Irregardless has a serious side in spite of the hyperbolic humor, upbeat music, and well-choreographed scenes. It has to do with the way so many institutions seem to be falling apart before our eyes. It’s true in education where we saw students clamoring for simple things like sugar and uji, bread and milk. There should have been funds allocated for some of these amenities, and perhaps they were. But due to the greed of grabby bureaucrats and politicians, those funds often disappear. It’s called corruption.

It’s true of student leaders who we saw staging rallies critical of the system. But once they are targeted, nabbed, and taught to tow the party line (either through bribery or torture or both), they become effective sell-outs now representing the system. Again, we saw corruption in action.

We even saw it in the church where there were church leaders abusing their so-called ‘calling’ by becoming conmen who get rich quick in the name of Jesus Christ. They start their own mega-churches and claim their wealth derives from a divine source that people can trust. It’s a tragedy but it also reveals the way the church no longer provides a moral compass sustaining society’s need for hope in the future. Instead, what we’re seeing is a rise in crimes and suicides.

Chatterbox’s script offers a panoramic picture of the social problems facing Kenyans today. The stories are so timely that we even see a Wajackoyah character showing up in church claiming to be a moral man. Yet we see him teaming up with that ‘prosperity’ church leader who buys his wife expensive cars, claiming his woman is equally endowed with the divine power of God.

Irregardless lampoons nearly all the social institutions that have an impact on everyday Kenyans, from the schools and inflationary food prices to the health care system, the military and police, and the churches. They all of them have been corrupted. And poverty is the crowning crunch on people’s ability to cope.

So, while the hilarity and high spirits of Irregardless seem to make light of the plight people find themselves in, the reality of poverty, corruption, and inequality are all effectively portrayed in the Chatterbox comedy.

But even before we watched the show, one had to check out the play’s title since ‘irregardless’ isn’t really a legitimate word. It’s a term that gets used to mean ‘regardless’, but by its having a double-negative in the prefix, it defies the rules of grammar which makes it a fitting title for a play about the crumbling of the rule of law.  

ONE OFF ARTISTS REVEAL ‘LEAVES OF LIFE’

 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written August 1, 2022)

While Myrna Van Der Veen was making her debut at One Off Gallery last weekend, a number of well-known local artists were also being represented at the Gallery during this mixed exhibition entitled ‘Leaves of Life.’

A newcomer to the Nairobi art scene, Myrna has the good fortune to be associated with an outstanding array of artists, including everyone from Fitsum Berhe Woldelibanos, Peter Ngugi, Anthony Okello, and Yony Waite to Olivia Pentergast, James Mbuthia, Mark Lecchini, and Ehoodi Kichapi.  

The Dutch-Indonesian artist has actually been doing her painting, photography, and sculpture quietly in Kenya for the last seven years. But she says she’s been shy to set foot on the local art scene.

“My background is mainly in sculpture, but there was a lot of photography and fine art training that went with it,” says the soft-spoken artist who has brought only painting and photographs to her ‘premiere’ at One Off.

She has just seven works in the show but what’s intriguing about them is that they’re in dialogue with one another. For instance, she has four photographs in The Loft side of One Off, each looking like abstract art until she explains, “They have all been taken of Lake Magadi from a helicopter flying at various altitudes.”

Suddenly, this aerial view of the Salt Lake is clarified. Those squiggly lines are flocks of flamingos flying over the lake while others are feeding on the algae in it. And the obtuse shapes are parts of the lake that haven’t dried up as well as other snow-white areas which are filled probably with dry salt. Now the imagery is clear, and one can even see the way her large painted abstract work reflects the mood she says she feels after spending time with the photographs. “The painting and the photographs are in a conversation with one another,” she says. “The painting, which I call ‘The Beginning’, reflects the feeling I get from my photographs.”

The painting is also filled with rich colors and texture since Myrna loves to mix her own pigments (rather than use store-bought tubes of paint) using everything from sand, leaves, and iron powder to gold leaf, wood fiber, and bronze.

“My parents were both scientists and didn’t really understand my art. But my father was a chemist and a pharmacist who taught me about mixing elements to create specific effects,” she says as a way of explaining one reason why she creates her own original colors from elements that she can blend.

On the Stable side of the gallery, Myrna has two more pieces, one a photograph, the other a painting inspired by her photo of a lone fisherman pulling his fishnet in the sea. “For me, he represents the laboring people, and I call it ‘The Passion’,” she says, alluding apparently to a correlation between his struggle to carry his net home and the Christ who carried his cross to his crucifixion.

But the conversation her painting has with the photo has more to do with the brilliant turquoise blue of the water than some religious connotation. It’s a work that’s also rich in texture since the pigments used are again blended from miscellaneous elements.

Myrna also speaks openly about having been adopted, and thus, her art always being about identity and the questions that arise from her not knowing her birth parents and why they put her up for adoption. They are questions she has only been able to address through her art.

Meanwhile, if anyone missed the previous exhibitions by Okello and Mbuthia, a portion of both have stayed on in the Gallery. But a lot of new works are also on display.

Olivia has responded to popular demand from those who had wanted to see more of her landscapes which currently cover one whole wall in The Stables. Each is a small gem of Kenya’s natural beauty. Fitsum’s paintings are also new as Mark Lecchini’s and Ehoodi Kichapi’s. Fitsum rarely paints portraits of women, but one of his works in this show is a ‘Madonna’, which is captivating and most colorfully drawn.

But for me, what was most gratifying were vintage prints by Yony Waite of the wildlife that she lives with out at Athi River for many years. That is where she used to see zebra and ostrich on a daily basis. That’s not so much the case today; but her solo portraits of these elegant creatures drawn in black and white ink and pastels are classics.

Leaves of Life will run up until 20^th August.