ZIPPY’S TELL-ALL TALE WAS REVITING

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written 28 september 2022)

Dr. Zippy Okoth gave a mesmerizing stand-up performance last Wednesday night at Kenya National Theatre that kept her full-house audience enthralled for no less than two and a half hours.

Mind you, most standup comedians can only keep their audiences engaged for an hour at best. But Zippy’s ‘Side-Chick Wife’ kept us riveted to our seats, disbelieving that she could speak so casually about sex and how it has been an essential element in her character’s life.

Speaking on a barren National Theatre stage, decorated with only two simple flower-filled tables and a chair she barely had a moment to sit in, Zippy was ever in motion.

She starts off coolly. Speaking straight to her audience, she establishes her credibility with us by giving her genealogy and lineage.    

She quickly took command of the stage, having only her microphone as a prop. Her story was what we had come to hear, and boy, did we get an ear-full!

Having watched most of Zippy’s one-woman performances in the past, I’d expected this one to be autobiographical, which I believe it was. There might have been points that she embellished, like the number of men she met through online dating sites or the number of times she tried fasting or juicing to lose weight. Otherwise, this was a seamless story about the Zippy who is happily divorced from Ricky (who mistreated her badly and featured prominently in “Diary of a Divorcee’) but who wants to have another man to love in her life.

She finds him in Bobby, but before she lets him get under (and all over) her skin and into her heart, she lets us know how much she values her freedom and renewed sense of strength. She had inherited that resilience from her family who for generations have produced strong women.

But she succumbs to Bobby’s charms and ‘accidentally’ gets pregnant. She explains how she had been using a ‘coil’ to avert pregnancy, but had recently removed it. She says she hadn’t had sex for five years so thought there was no need of keeping it in. Apparently, she felt her active sex life was over, but then, Bobby walked in.

Initially, she’s committed to having the child, irrespective of his feelings or plans. She makes no demands on him since she had actually wanted a child to companion with the one she had with Ricky.

But then, he’s happy to accommodate the child, and even happier to befriend her first born girl. But once she raises the question of ‘what next?’, everything changes. His response to her query is to duck the implied issue of wedlock and gradually distances himself emotionally and physically from her.

Eventually, she discovers she has been deluded. She is neither a wife nor the only girlfriend he has got. Or put another way, she has been living as if she were a wife, but now, she realizes she is more like a side-chick since he’s been having affairs with other women all along.

Zippy is a brilliant storyteller whose story comes straight from the heart, whether it is all autobiographical or not.

Yet no matter the motivation, what makes the tale super-juicy is the way Zippy unravels her feelings about sex in the process of telling her story. She claims she is basically ravenous for it and distraught when Bobby is no longer there for her sexually or emotionally.

What sends shockwaves through the play is Zippy’s unvarnished language related to sexuality. She is shameless in speaking about the most intimate aspects of love-making, which is quite amazing in a country where local ‘morality police’ refuse the teaching of sex education in the schools.

So while Kenyans are still tight-lipped about sex and publicly caught up in Puritanical notions like even speaking about the biology of sexual reproduction might pollute children’s minds, Zippy is talking about what’s already happening among young people who honestly need to hear how to deal with their biological changes, urges, and feelings, especially as they relate to sex.

Zippy only staged ‘Side-Chick Wife’ once last Wednesday. One hopes she performs it again, although one feels her performance was so natural and emotionally charged that she might not find it easy to expose herself so publicly again. Maybe that challenge will compel her to come back on stage, a place one feels is her true artistic home. But whether she repeats her frank and unfettered discussions related to sex and reproductive rights is another issue altogether.

 

IRREGARDLESS VOL.2 OFFERS A GENTLE POST-ELECTION LANDING

 By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted september 26, 2022)

Even if you had seen the first volume of Chatterbox’s July production of ‘Irregardless’, you might have felt (as I did) that it was incumbent upon you to check out volume two of the same show, just to see what sorts of changes JJ Jumbi made between his pre-election and post-election writing.

In the attractive program that he created to share with people who came to his shows, which ran from 23-25 September at Braeburn Theatre Gitanga, he claims he created “an entirely new script”. In one sense that is true. But on the other hand, the structure of the play is quite similar. He still highlights specific social institutions, like the schools, churches, markets, prisons, and even the High Court as well as specific concepts like corruption and criminality. 

But he seems to delete most references to the issue of class, which were some of the most intriguing and important parts of the play.

But no matter. Only that Jumbi clearly chose to cool down his social commentary, including blatant references to class inequality. Instead, he chose to be more positive and to amplify sentiments associated with peace and the promise of a new day with new faces taking the lead politically.

Nonetheless, he hasn’t given up on critiquing politicians as we see in the first act. As in volume one, his show begins in the classroom, only now his youth are more disciplined and less rowdy. Here we see a more subtle reflection on class in that the Professor tells his students just how ’special’ they are. It’s like a mantra they are meant to repeat and believe as their right to feel special, and even superior.  

The students are there with him to learn the art, guile, and strategic thinking of the smart politician, something they apparently are meant to become one day. The Professor teaches a course he calls ‘political theology’ and the students are there to learn the language and the games that politicians play. Sounding almost Orwellian, the Prof warns that smart politicians never make ‘promises’. Instead, on the campaign trail, they must stay aspirational and ‘ambiguous. The idea is to never talk oneself into commitments your constituents will expect you to keep. The rest of the play seems to proceed along that line of ambiguity.

For instance, in act two, as in the first edition of Irregardless, we proceed to the church. Once again, we see the churches falling in line with politicians and the flow of money being a major motivator of church leaders. But now the congregants are more subdued. They’re keen to welcome the Winner, their new leader, a man who might vaguely resemble our own new head of state.

The president is received well, especially musically speaking. The live music is fabulous, filled with many well-known (and original) tunes with their lyrics adapted and revised to ingeniously meet the need for innuendo and levity.  

This politician has promised to clean up politics and dispense with dirty money. He’s promised to sanitize the whole system, which leads us into one of the most memorable sections and songs in the show. It comes when the choir breaks into a song about God being the great Sanitizer. Meanwhile, the new leader has apparently brought a batch of Hand sanitizer bottles for sale in the church, which is like a sign to signal that the churches are just as unclean as ever. But the song is so sweet. The musical score from this Irregardless needs to be made available for us to purchase!

Meanwhile, before the Winner leaves the church, he wants to hand over the six billion that he’s brought to give, since that’s the central message of church leaders like the ones played by Martin Kigondu and his wife, the church’s Mama. Mother Mary is emphatic about her gratitude for the cars and other gifts and goodies given her and her spouse for serving as conduits for God and His son, Yesu Kristo.

Another marvelous moment in this scene comes as the Leader breaks down in feigned humility and wipes his tears with paper money and then hands the paper cash to locals who happily take it as a bribe.

The rest of Irregardless 2 takes you from the High Court and the Jail to the local Market and the Mau Mau mzee. But the gist of JJ’s story is clearest for me in the first two acts of his satire.

 

 

POLICE IMPUNITY STAGED AS FARCE AT STRATHMORE

 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 26, September 2022)

What happens when a bully takes charge of a situation, be it a police station, a city, or a country?

And what if the bully is really a conman who can just as easily pass himself off as a mad man who can be ‘forgiven’ for all his bad deeds since people generally believe that no sane person can behave as badly as he does. Thus, he must be insane.

We have seen bullies and conman operating a lot in the world these days. Take the former president of the United States, for instance. We also just saw one in last weekend’s production by the Strathmore Drama Club of Dario Fo’s brilliant satire on crazies and bad cops in ‘The Accidental Death of an Anarchist.”

Fo’s play grew out of a real-life incident that took place decades ago in Milan, Italy, where there were street protests over the death of a political dissident, an anarchist who was picked up by cops and shortly thereafter the same cops declared the anarchist had ‘accidentally’ died.

Then when the public was not appeased by the cops’ claim of ‘accidental’ death, the police declared the man had committed ‘suicide’ instead. The public went wild with outrage, and Fo scripted his controversial play. Seen as inflammatory for taking on the topic of police impunity, Fo has subsequently been praised for his daring use of dark comedy as a means of opening people’s eyes to the reality of impunity and their ability to fight it.

Trevor Munene plays the flamboyant Maniac, the flippant conman who has a knack for swapping identities at the drop of a hat. He’s been hauled into the same police station as the anarchist had gone and charged with a slew of misdemeanors. But he’s not worried. Instead, he seems to relish the chance to meet Inspector Bulinga (Justin Mwanzia) and turn this cop’s world upside down.

In this case, the Maniac’s a vagrant, but he claims otherwise. In the course of minutes, he morphs from being a Pastor, Lawyer, Doctor, and Ph.D to being a Psychiatrist, Army Captain, a Teacher of Calligraphy. And when he has a chance, he expands his covert plan of disrupting the cops’ operation.

Maniac initially doesn’t look like there’s a method to his madness. But after picking up the Inspector’s phone and playing his receptionist, he starts off a chain reaction among the police that eventually leads to the play’s stunning end.

Divide and conquer seems to be one tactic this cunningly crazy Bully employs. He proceeds stealthily, calls in the police Superintendent (Denzel  Maniple) and succeeds in bullying him and his underlings until they all are scared of being ‘found out’. For Maniac, now playing a retired High Court judge, intends to reopen the cold case of the Anarchist.

The scene gets increasingly insane as ‘the Judge’ bullies the cops into doing everything from singing and dancing to essentially admitting they bumped off the anarchist.

Behind their backs, the Maniac calls up the Media, represented by Ms Sophia (Venessa Gichio) who he has quietly coached on what questions to ask, such as where are the forensic reports the press never got to see?

All this time, the Judge claims he is only seeking the truth, yet he doesn’t reveal that he’s been officially ‘certified insane’. None of the cops are wiser until Inspector Bulinge returns to his office wearing an eye patch that he got after being punched by his fellow Inspector (Jeff Obonyo) who’d been misinformed by the Maniac about nasty things Bulinge purportedly said about him.

Bulinge immediately detected something fishy about the Judge. But it isn’t until Maniac discloses that he’s been recording their conversation since he arrived as the flagrant vagrant that the scene gets intense. Maniac gives that recording to the journalist who quickly meets the same fate that we now see must have happened to the anarchist as well.

The Anarchist had been charged with dropping off bombs in train stations. But the Maniac claims the cops, in cahoots with the Government, planted bombs to disrupt everyday life and keep the populous unprepared to protest their country getting turned into a police state.

Our slippery Maniac manages to escape the fate of the Anarchist in a split second. But before he goes, he finds one undetonated bomb and pulls the pin. Boom! That’s the end!

I have to say this cast did a fabulous job; Trevor Munene leading the field in capturing Fo’s defiant spirit of anarchy and fearless freedom of expression.

 

 

CRONY PLAYERS BACK WITH UNRELENTING MALE GAZE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written 24 September 2022)

It’s a healthy sign of the development and growth of Kenyan theatre that a bunch of members of the Heartstrings cast split from the mother lode and created a new theatre group altogether.

More than a year ago, Osoro Cyprian, Victor Nyaata, and Nick Kwach joined hands with Dennis Ndenga to create Crony Productions.

‘Coast of Living’ is their second major show which opened last weekend at Alliance Francaise. Already, Crony has a faithful following, mainly among friends who loved Heartstrings performances when they saw Nick, Victor, and Osoro in them.

The public may find many similarities between the two troupes, especially in the free-spirited way they both operate. Both favor humor and entertainment. Both tend to draw their themes from current affairs, trends, and everyday living.

But concerning ‘Coast of Living’, Crony steers clear of anything that resembles political ‘correctness’ or even a hint of politics at all. Instead, it tackles the titillating topic of men on the move to satisfy their sensual desires by any means available and away from their women’s prying eyes.

There’s little subtlety in the way the male gaze dominates this script. Macho-masculinity seems to assert itself in various ways, starting with a dad (played with glee by Humphrey Maina) bringing his daughter’s BFF, Sophie (Makena Kahuha) down to the Coast to frolic (similar to what Woody Allen did when he got involved with his wife Mia Farrow’s adopted Korean daughter. It caused such a scandal he had to eventually divorce Mia and marry the Korean girl.)

But that story is really a side show to the broader topic of the three friends, (Victor Nyaata, Nick Kwach, and Moses Gatheca) who are looking to have a good time the weekend before Fabian (Kwach) marries his sweetheart, Maria (Natasha Wanjiru). The only hitch is that Fabian doesn’t want to cheat on his fiancée. He even advises his friends on the value of settling down and getting on with their lives.

Yet Baron (Victor) is hot to trot and the trio finally take the advice of their hotelier, Sultan (Osoro Cyprian) and get out to exercise so they’ll be strong when he introduces them to several sexy ladies who will be happy to accommodate them.

This is when we see Fabian stumble into the same problematic pit that many men fall into. He sees Sophie on the beach. She has managed to escape Baba Maria long enough to walk alone and meet the exercisers. As it turns out, Fabian and Sophie had known each other years before, but their lives took separate paths. He trained to be an advocate, and she trained to do who knows what. But surely, both knew it wasn’t a smart idea to rekindle an old friendship right before Fabian’s wedding.

What made the prospect even worse is that she is literally like a sister to Maria. So she is not only cheating on Mama Maria (Marion Wambui) and engaging in a pseudo-incestuous relationship with the Baba. She is also cheating on her soul-sister, Sophie, which is most painful of all.

But all that doesn’t come to light until after Sultan showcases his sexy girls to the trio. He presents them in silhouetted style, having them dance and gyrate in sexually suggestive turns, after which the men are meant to make their choice. Nick seems impervious to such temptations. But he gets snagged that weekend by Sophia.

Apparently, Fabian wasn’t planning on mentioning his misconduct to Maria once they got back home. But as Baron had invited his new Mombasa friends to the wedding, they spill the beans once they see Sophia and Baba Maria arrive soon after they do.

Like being stabbed in the heart, Maria’s pain translates to outrage and an absolute refusal to stick with a guy who’s disrespected her so flagrantly. She also blames Sophia, but her wrath hits squarely at him. Removing her engagement ring and publicly calling it quits, she lets everybody know that there will be no wedding. And she means it.

This is when we recall that for feminists, Politics are Personal. Maria has taken an adamant stand for women’s freedom and refusal to bow to male opportunism. Her mom represents the old-fashioned point of view, to excuse men’s improprieties for the sake of security and family stability. That’s what she did. But look what that got her!

Better to be free and true to oneself than otherwise.

  

 

 

 

 

 

TEWA’S WOMEN ARE HOT FLAMES

                                                                                      Jacqueline Kalanga

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written September 22, 2022)

Thadde Tewa had no idea he would find 44 wonderful women artists from all around the East African region to exhibit this week at Village Market’s exhibition hall.

Granted he had booked the hall over a year ago, intent on mounting an exhibition of visual art. But he had no idea at the time which artists he would select or where they would come from or and how it all would get done. Nonetheless, he was intent on doing a monumental exhibition that would reflect his newest ‘discoveries’ of young talents who he felt deserved to be shown.

Esther Wanjiru

“I took a big risk by making the booking,” the ambitious young free-lance curator and gallerist tells BDLife. “But I felt that this was the time to try,” adds Tewa who admits VM asks quite a fee up front to book the hall.   

Tewa’s last exhibition reflected the challenge he has faced ever since he left Polka Dot Gallery in 2017. He had done well as the Gallery’s manager and gained scads of artistic skills and knowledge, working with artists and clients alike.

But once the gallery closed, he had to make his way as an independent, free-lancer whose love of African art and artists inspired him to follow his own ingenious path.

Today, Tewa is one of the most trusted advocates for emerging artists. He creates catalogues for them, sells their artwork on the fly, and opens doors like the ones at Village Market’s Exhibition Hall.

It’s true that Tewa put a Call Out to all artists on social media earlier this year and got an overwhelming response. “I was surprised at how many women responded,” he admits.

Then, once he checked out the quality of works that was being sent, he decided that it was the women’s art that had the greatest appeal to him. That’s when he decided his venue at Village Market was bound to be a women’s show entitled “Pink Flame”.

He’s assembled more than 150 artworks for this show, but it hasn’t been easy. He says one young Sudanese artist was so keen to be in the exhibition, she rolls up her paintings, put them in a tube, and then trusted the post to get them over the border like any other piece of mail. “They arrived in time and I was able to re-frame the work,” he says, admitting that running a one-man show has been a challenge.

Featuring women from all around the region, there are Kenyan newcomers like Elnah Akware, Joy Ki’to, Doreen Mweni, and Irene Katumbi. But there are also artworks by women from Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania.

What’s wonderful about ‘Pink Flame’, apart from Tewa’s enabling many of the 44 women to have space to be seen publicly for the first time, is the chance we have to appreciate their talent, originality, and youth.

Most of the women exhibitors are in their 20s and a few, even younger than that.  For instance, Kay Aluvanzp is 19 and in her last year at the International School of Kenya. Joy Ki’to is also a youngster and a member of the Mukuru Art Club. So is Doreen Mweni who has been with the Club a bit longer than Joy. But both have benefited from the attention given to up-and-coming artists by the Club’s founder Adam Masava.

Several of the women have graduated from university-based art programs. They include Taabu Munyoki and Fridah Isai who both came from Kenyatta University’s fine art department while Elnah Akware came from University of Nairobi’s school of design. A few are from Makerere in Uganda, like Rossette Aweko and Jacqueline Kalange. And even more came from the University of Sudan in Khartoum, including Dahlia Baasher, Wafa Salah, and Amani Azhari.

Meanwhile, there are several so-called ‘self-taught’ artists who can trace their inspiration to paint to mentors like Patrick Mukabi. Nadia Wamunyu is one of them. There are others, like Sheila Bayley, who isn’t so easily identified or associated with artists that we know. Her style is unique and intricate to the point where one must look twice or thrice to be able to ‘read between the lines’ of her painted drawings.

Pink Frame is up at Village Market until October 2nd, so one needs to get there quick before the show shuts down. A few will be back in November for the Rotary’s Art to End Polio for Good, but that’s another story.

 

 

 

B

EL TAYEB AND SLEEM MAKE NAIROBI A REGIONAL HUB FOR THE ARTS

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted september 21, 2022)

Clear evidence that Nairobi has become a regional hub, not just for economic activities, but also for cultural and artistic events, is being seen this month at two of the newer art institutions in town.

Both Gravitart and the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) are hosting works by artists from Egypt and Sudan respectively. There’s ‘Mirrors of Existence’ by Mostafa Sleem from Cairo, and El Tayeb Dawelbait’s Untitled Archive from Khartoum.

Coincidentally, this is not the first time the two have been mentioned in the same breath. Back in 2019, Veronica Paradinas Duro curated a show at Gravitart with both men’s works featured in an exhibition entitled ‘The Sky inside You’. And now, she has given Sleem a solo exhibition, which reveals just how far the artist has journeyed aesthetically since his artworks were first shown in Kenya three years ago.

There’s a stark contrast between then and now. Sleem’s earlier works come from those pre-COVID days when no one would have guessed how lonely life would become during lockdown. In those earlier times, his art had lots of exuberant color, blended beautifully into a crazy cacophonic blast that seemed to be infused with rich musical accompaniment and sun-lit sound. That exuberance is apparent in works like ‘Flying Melody’ and ‘Finding Hug’.

But then, much of that color disappears in Sleem’s more recent multi-faced portraits, the ones meant to be ‘mirrors of existence’. Veronica tells BDLife that his portraits have been inspired by one great work of art, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and one great artist, Picasso.

Mona Lisa’s look has presented itself as an enigma to many who question what is behind her smile. Is it sadness, sweetness, or simply a desire to be done with her sitting ASAP? Sleem addresses that issue by including more than one expression of his subject’s face on his canvas. Knowing that human beings have a myriad of moods, emotions, and thoughts, he apparently aims for his visages to express as many of those sentiments as possible in one surreal face.

Insisting that his faces are ‘mirrors’ not meant to be limited by gender, race, or age, he tells Veronica that they are meant to reflect a universality and oneness of humanity instead.

Whether that is the way his art is perceived by viewers who come to see it at Gravitart, that will be for Veronica to know. Personally, it feels like Sleem reduced his focus to singular, isolated souls who like him, were sadly locked down during the pandemic. Hopefully, he will revert back to using color now that COVID has cooled.

 ‘Mirrors of Existence’ is a hybrid showcase running until the end of month.

Meanwhile, NCAI is presenting an almost comprehensive collection of El Tayeb’s works, including everything from an installation he created in Lamu to one he made specially for this show. It’s got his sketch books and drawings as well as lots of the objects that have inspired him to develop along the lines that he has.

The one arena of his creative expression that wasn’t touched in this assemblage of miscellaneous items was his work in textile design, particularly the clothes he’s designed and embellished with woodcut prints for Kiko Romeo. But no matter, except that these further reveal the versatility and experimental magic of the artist.

El Tayeb came to Kenya as part of a tsunami tide of Sudanese artists whose first stop was Paa ya Paa Art Centre. “I came at the invitation of Elimo Njau and Paa ya Paa,” El Tayeb tells BDLife. He was grateful to get the chance to come. But then, he, like so many penurious young artistic emigrants, didn’t have cash on hand to buy paints and canvas. So what did he do? Like others, he turned to found objects, recycling trash and turning it into treasure.

In his case, his trash was ‘antiqued’ boxes, old wooden containers once used by mainly carpenters. He recycled tin cans too as one will see in this eclectic and fascinating exhibition which shows the many facets of the artist who we have come to associate with one proverbial big-nosed profile.

The profile has grown old and redundant so it’s wonderful to see that El Tayeb has so much more to him. This show reveals how well he can draw for one thing. It also makes one wonder why he’s gotten so lax about experimenting compared to when he was hungry and struggling to find a way to survive in his new environment.

 

 

 

EL TAYEB, ELIMO, AND ME in 1997

 

MEN OF AMBITION RETURNS REFRESHED AND SET FOR ALEXANDRIA

 By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written September 18, 2022)

Journal of Orina’s Men of Ambition Part 1 came back to Kenya National Theatre last weekend after winning accolades at the Kenya Theatre Awards and being featured at the Kenya International Theatre Festival as well.

Coming back refreshed and reckoning that several cast members had to change, the show was something of a full-dress-rehearsal for their appearing next week at the Alexandria Theatre Festival in Egypt.

The storyline is still the same. It’s unfortunately one familiar to many Kenyans. It’s all about rivalry for power and a family divided over who will reap the spoils after their wealthy father dies.

The stakes are high since the dad built an empire stretching from the coast to the lake. He also had indicated that among his children, one of which is adopted, he’d picked his first born, Clifford to take charge of the empire once he was gone.

 

Yet when we meet the family, their emotions are raw and intense. The family matriarch (Mary Kamanthe) serves as a sort of narrator, letting us know that she had just come from burying her spouse when she hears that Clifford has been murdered in the house. There were only four on hand at the time, so all of them are suspects who have motives for eliminating the House of Radin’s future CEO.

To the majority, the most likely killer is Duke (Brian Orina) since he’s unpleasantly arrogant and made it clear more than once that he didn’t believe Clifford was fit to be Boss.

Even his mom believes he did it. So does his half-sister Vanessa (Lorna Lomi) , and the family’s solicitor Esquire (Dennis Kinyanjui).

Aware that he’s already been convicted in their minds, Duke also can’t look for outside support since no one, not even he, wants the shareholders to know about Clifford’s death just yet.

The family agrees to interrogate the issue in the morning. But Duke cannot wait. He wakes the others up at 3am and insists he be the first to interrogate the other three.

As it turns out, he’s correct. They all believe he killed his brother to obtain the family wealth. It’s a believable charge since Duke has made it clear he believes he’s the only family member who’s fit to run the House of Radin successfully.

Duke is especially rude about women, holding a deeply misogynistic point of view. It’s certainly not one that respects women getting anywhere near to power. He insults both his mom and step sister who suggests she had a special relationship with the old man.

In any case, no one has any substantial evidence to support Duke’s guilt. There’s only emotional opinions and hearsay.

It is only Duke who has heaps of allegations against the other three.

For instance, he knows his mom was stealing funds from his dad, the implication being she might have even bumped him off for his wealth. The dad was aware of her dishonesty and was getting ready to oust her from the family, according to Duke. That’s when we learn how cruel her husband was, beating her every night for years, yet she stuck with it for reasons only she knew.

The family solicitor, Esquire, was also sure to be sacked, says Duke, since the boss had found him incompetent and was soon to be taking action against him too.

The step sister, Vanessa had never been Duke’s friend. Yet the boss welcomed her in and taught her a great deal about how to manage the House of Radin. Duke’s disgust of Vanessa is tainted by his chauvinistic distaste for strong, resourceful women who are stepping out of line and ‘pretending’ they have the resources to handle the reins of power.

Ultimately, the vote is taken and Duke is not only voted the probable murderer of Clifford. His mother also disowns him for life, banishing him forever from the House of Radin.

Orina may not have foreseen the public outcry at the end of Men of Ambition after he had left us with a cliffhanger. At the last moment of the play, we are left watching Vanessa quickly claiming the chairman’s seat with the Matriarch and the solicitor standing on either side of her as if they are ready to serve their new CEO, Chair of the House of Radin obediently.

It's a startling end that left us wanting to know how Vanessa would do as the company’s new CEO. And so, Part 2 was conceived, apparently as an afterthought.

 

 

GARDEN COURT GALLERY

INVENTORY OF A05 ART

September 13, 2022

DINING ROOM

1.     Geraldine Robards abstract art, oil paint mixed with resin and topped with Swarovski crystals. A gift to me. Geraldine has been extremely generous, giving me painting practically every time we meet.

2.     Gomba Otieno’s Untitled abstract wooden box painting. Gomba, a founder of Maasai Mbili artist collective, called me and asked me to buy one of his paintings since he was headed to Germany or Sweden for an exhibition but he had insufficient funds. I agreed to buy at a minimal price, like perhaps Sh10,000. My dear friend.

3.     Patrick Mukabi’s Market mamas. I bought for very little, like Sh6,000 when he was in a group exhibition at the Kempinski Hotel on Waiyaki Way. Patrick is a dear friend who has mentored so many young Kenyan artists, he has lost count. But none ever forget him since he always has an open door. He also travels globally to teach and exhibit abroad. He also teaches children all the time.

4.     Kathy Katuti’s Kikuyu event where women come to celebrate the bride-to-be. I bought for Sh17,000 at the Dusit D2 Hotel during a group exhibition. She has exhibited in the Kenya Arts Diary.

5.     Lionel Njuguna is brother to John Kimemia and son to Zecharia Mbutha. He is rarely seen on the Nairobi art scene in part because he had a drug problem, in part because he is alienated from his family.

6.     Geraldine Robards’ Coastal village scene. Geraldine taught art at Kenyatta University and at Makerere in Uganda. While raising four children, she spent lots of time with them at the Coast in villages like the one in the painting.

LIBRARY/TV ROOM

7.     King Dodge K… of Ngecha. Dodge is a poet, playwright and gallerist whose Ngecha art centre is a place he has turned into a Kikuyu museum. Not sure when I bought that painting but I think it have been when he exhibited at the Nairobi National Museum.

8.     Joshua Maingi’s abstract piece is a narrow painting that fits conveniently at the right of the library, just next to it. I bought it for Sh7,000, not because I loved it so much as because I like to support the artists even in a small way. Buying their art makes a difference to their quality of life

9.     (above TV) Lisa and Migwi: the drawing was done by a young Kenyatta University art student named Elvis Ramboh Ochieng. He is also the artist who painted Maya alone and Faith alone. I had him do the art work before they came in June 2022.

10.Geraldine gave me the red and yellow abstract work.

11.Dennis Muraguri is a brilliant sculpture and painter who decided to focus on making money. So he now mainly paints matatus like the one above the TV. There was a charity auction organized by One Off Gallery where they were selling small paintings like this one. I was able to buy it for Sh10,000.

12.Gloria Muthoka’s Coffee Picker came to us to be in one of our Kenya Arts Diaries. We exhibited it at the Heinrich Boell Foundation and I bought for a very reasonable price from the artist. Two more of her works are in Faith’s bedroom.

13. Three gazelles were produced as part of the Tinga Tinga school of artists, who followed the style of the late Tanzanian artist, Edward Saidi Tingatinga. I think I bought it from either Alan Donovan who sadly died in 2022 or Shine Tani of Banana Hill art gallery.

14.John Kariuki, ‘Nairobi Railways’. I found this painting by Kariuki at Patrick Mukabi’s Dust Depot before COVID. It could have been 2017. I bought it for 17,000/ since I’d never seen a work by him that I felt represented more of his life and our lives as members of the Nairobi arts scene

15.Maya’s room has Maya’s portrait, a gift to her from me in June 2022 by Elvis Rambo Ochieng from a photograph Lisa sent me of Maya at her 11^th birthday party.

16.Faith’s portrait. After I had Elvis paint Maya (because I recall the first trio painting I gave them when they were just faith, mom, and dad), I decided Faith should have a solo painting too. That is how Elvis painted Faith in her lovely Ethiopian dress which she wore during her high school graduation time when the family was still living in Ethiopia.

17.Faith also has two Gloria Muthoka paintings, based on folk tales about the tortoise and another creature.

18.Faith also has a Tingatinga-like painting creating by a young Kenyan female artist who I had never seen before and never since. She was exhibiting at the Owl’s Nest, which briefly held exhibitions at a café based across the road from Valley Arcade. I paid her Sh15,000 just because I thought it was so sweet and I could see she was trying to get moving in the local art scene.

LIVING ROOM

19.Samuel Njuguna Njoroge’s Footware painting was a gift to me. He says he had tried to exhibit it somewhere but it was rejected. I told him I wouldn’t have rejected it. I liked it so he gave it to me. Those footprints are from the shoes of children in his neighborhood including his own.

20.John Okumu is a little-known artist, the nephew of my dear friend, poet, playwright, actor, and media broadcaster John Sibi Okumu. He was about to exhibit it at Village Market, courtesy of William Ndwiga, but I thought it was quite clever and I couldn’t quite understand it. The fish is made out junk so it’s technically a work of junk art. But then it seems to have been photographed, so I am not sure.

21.Waweru Gichuhi’s Piano Player is one of my favorite paintings. Waweru is one of the first members of Brush tu arts collective. He was exhibiting the piece at the Dusit D2 one Saturday morning. It was over in a corner and few people had seen it. Waweru is my good friend so he let me have it for 25,000/.

22.On the other side of the Kitchen, Nicholas Ochieng aka Nicomambo painted The Mkokotene that is above the water cooler. He is studying in Hamburg Germany right now, but I have another one of his earlier works in my bedroom, above my bed. (I wouldn’t have placed her there) I bought it reasonably from Nico at Dusit D2 during a time when the GM of Google Nairobi, Charles…., was sponsoring those Saturday morning for the sake of the artists. It was a great venue for sales.

23.Tonney Mugo’s Framed Glass piece was initially commissioned by me to bring home to give to Joan Smutny for all her good deeds done to me. I only paid Sh10,000 for it which I still feel was a very good deal. But I couldn’t part with it and also worried about breaking it in transit. So it too is there above the water cooler.

24.Missing is a giant Mahogany sculpture of Jesus’s Last Supper based on the painting by Leonardo da Vinci. I had to artist, a Rwandese refugee, make another for you and which I pray you still have. How could a huge work like that simply disappear?

Margaretta’s room (as there is still a lot of art that hasn’t been shown in the house, my walls will be changing, especially when Migwi gets the special hooks that don’t damage the walls)

25.Boniface Maina’s Lovely lady with the long neck is an early work by an artist who has done very well and changed a great deal. He is one of the cofounders of Brush to art studio with David Thuku and Michael Musyoka

26.Dale Webster painting My Portrait unasked. I was and continue to be deeply touched that he did this since he is a wonderful painter-philosopher whose years in Kenya were as a British man dependent on his spouse since she had the job here with BBC. Dale only painted Kenyan artists with whom he then swapped his art for theirs. It was a great situation since his terms here were that he wasn’t supposed to work. So he worked but was not paid. He sent me the painting after he had moved back to the UK. I treasure the painting

27.Moira Bushkimani sold me her very first drawing, a self-portrait, for Sh5000, and I feel it was worth it. She was happy that I was the one who owned this special work.

28.Unknown artist created this collage piece which I found with my friend Stuart Nash. He pointed me towards this little-known gallery in Kibera. That’s where I found the painting. It cost Sh6000 which Stuart paid for me.

29.Mary Collis’s Abstract art was a gift to me which I treasure. Mary and Carol Lees started RaMoMa, the Rahmtukha Modern Art Museum which worked from 2000-2010

30.Nichols Ochieng’s Cucu is over my bed. It’s the first painting that I spent Sh40,000 on, but I thought she was so well conceived I felt I ought to have her. She’s not beautiful but she’s got a sturdy spirit. Nicholas is a rising start in the Kenya art world. He’s from the Mwangaza Art school in Kisumu

31.My 1977 film review. It’s terribly damaged, but I have kept it as evidence to show that I was writing about art, in this case the films of Jean Renoir, the son or grandson of the renowned French painter Pierre Auguste Renoir, back as early as 1977. That was the year the French Cultural Centre opened and its director Pierre Comte was so progressive in his way of opening up the art scene. He treated me like a princess and even gave me his driver to get back to Thika where we were living at the time.

32.Many other pieces, one by Adrian Nduma, several more by Geraldine, Mike Kyalo, Sam Kimemia, Kamal Shah, Lincoln Mwangi, Nduta Kariuki, Mary Collis, Souad, Liza MacKay, Taabu Munyoki, Chela Nancy, Patrick Mukabi again, and many more.

Gazebo

33.Two voluptuous women sculptures by Ugandan artist, John Odoch Ameny, a brilliant junk art artist who was introduced to me by Alan Donovan. Alan had been called by Odoch who was having no money and no sales. Alan asked me to please buy the women and a lamp, all for Sh15,000. How could I resist. I nearly lost both women after bringing them to Alliance Francaise where I was launching by book, The Transformation of Contemporary Kenyan Art. The head of the French language program had kept one in her office. I found the other one in the usual storage space, but couldn’t find the one the French woman had hid. When she saw that I was taking one away, she protested, indicating she might have the other one. I was told later she had it. When I heard she had left kenya, I feared that she’d left with the second one, but I was told I could come for her. I was so relieved.  The two might embarrass some people but I take them with a sense of Odoch’s humor mixed with his love for African women.

34.Gazebo wall painted by Chela aka Nancy Cherwon who is a Kenyatta University graduate in Fine Art and is so versatile she does graffiti art as well as mural painting and NFT as well.

HALL OF FAME'S ENERGY ABOUNDS IN ‘THE 5TH’ THE PLAY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (September 12,2022)

University students had a field day of fun last weekend when they, as the Hall of Fame Entertainment, not only staged ‘The 5^th, an emotive, melodramatic production by Martin Odongo who also directed the play.

They couldn’t resist additionally including everything in their showcase from spoken word poetry and Lingala rumba dancers to a self-identified ‘cowgirl’ folk singer with a lovely voice and gigantic guitar.

They also incorporated a lot of choral and solo songs, including Bob Marley’s classic, ‘No woman no cry’ which fit in well in the first scene. That’s when we learn about the tragic accident of the First Lady Martha (Nyambura Mwangi) who apparently has been paralyzed for life.

In the opening moments of the play, we learn her daughter Gabriela (Charity Wacheke) isn’t certain as to whether her mother’s fall was accidental or if she’d been pushed by her dad, who’s also Head of State, President Bronix McCarthy (Jackson). When we meet Gabriela, this girl is seriously angry, full of vitriol and outrage.

Initially, it’s hard to fathom why this girl should be so shrill and melodramatic. Of course, there’s the issue of the incessant ‘5^th’, her father’s VPA, (virtual personal assistant), which drives her crazy.  But as the story unfolds, we find that Gabriela’s poor brother Bahati (Blaise Rukungu) has also been mistreated by the dad. That, of course, is her interpretation of the scene. Her brother (who we eventually learn might actually be her half-brother) has cancer, the kind that’s supposedly best treated in India. But Dad isn’t keen on sending him there and we don’t know why.

In the 5^th, we’re looking at President Bronix on election day when he is not doing well at the polls. So one might forgive him for not having much time for the family. He’s trying to figure out how to salvage the situation and expand voter turnout. But he looks destined to fail, despite having had a successful presidency up until recent times.

On the surface of things, it certainly looks like Dad, being a politician, is solely preoccupied with his political future. Gabriela looks correct in charging this man with neglect of his family and prioritizing politics over them. But the reality is not so clearcut.

In fact, the play itself is not clearcut. For one moment, we see mom being a cripple and a tragedy that gets serenaded by one lovely lady who’s a member of the chorus who sings in sympathy for the mom. But the next minute, we find mom on her feet in a quarrel with her husband, the President.

Okay, this is called ‘flashback’ but not everyone will understand this sudden turn of events. It’s meant to give us insight into the ‘real story’. But equally, it’s also mystifying.

There’s a Media Man in ‘The 5^th’ named Tobius () who comes out of the upstairs bedroom into the story and apparently gives us a clue as to what’s happening. But he’s quite extraneous, unless he’s somehow suggesting we’re watching Reality TV, rather like the Kardashians who mesmerized millions and made the family international celebrities.

As it turns out, the president’s story is a good juicy scandal. The First Lady hadn’t been straight with her man. She had a child with his arch political rival (Lusichi Victor), the one who’s running against him on this critical ballot. The baby boy was born years ago and turns out to be Gabriela’s brother, Bahati.

What also hadn’t been clear is that the President had known for sometime that the boy wasn’t his blood and that he’d been hoodwinked by his wife. When he found out, we aren’t told. But this apparently explains why he doesn’t feel obligated to fork out funds for the boy’s chemotherapy overseas.

It's a challenge to recognize the Gabriela who we meet during the flashback. She’s frivolous and fun-loving, flirtatious and even disappears into a second-floor bedroom with her boyfriend Denno (Joseph Mukunga), her father’s PA who apparently got replaced by the 5^th.

But the story ends with our not quite knowing what day we are on. The present is where the play began. It was the day of the election. But in the flashback, Bronix blames his wife for aligning her interests with his rival. So perhaps Gabriela was right in the first place. Maybe Martha’s accident wasn’t an accident at all.

Hall of Fame deserves high marks for a fabulous set design and lots of emerging talents who we welcome to our vibrant Nairobi theatre scene.

 

 

 

STUDIO SOKO: MENTORING INTO MAGNIFICENCE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted September 2, 2022)

When I first met Jeffie Magina in his Umoja 1 ‘bungalow’ he was comfortably squeezed inside a space one might otherwise deem a museum.

His artworks were tightly hung close by one another but they included precious early works that he had swapped with soon-to-be important Kenyan artists like Dennis Muraguri, Michael Soi, Maggie Otieno, Longinos Nagila, and Patrick Mukabi, exchanging his early works for theirs.

Magina was content at the time, but soon realized he needed to expand his studio space since his artistic expectations and vision had grown. He was already working well with local artists. But new generations were being born, and he wanted them to enjoy some of the benefits of training that he’d had to find outside of formal art schools, among his fellow artists.

That’s one reason he joined Studio Soko, which at the time was just Jeremiah Sonko and Kuria Njogu. They were based in South B, which is where they held their first Safari Mentoring Art program. It’s also what led to the first ‘Listening II my Soul’ exhibition in 2019, featuring young artists like Daisy Buyanzi, Husna Ismael, and Joyce Kuria. That was shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Kenya and the world at large.  But it meant the second Safari Mentorship Program would be put on hold until the situation improved.

It finally did in 2022 when Studio Soko put out the call for youth who wanted to take part in the program that would begin in April. Since it was fully self-funded, the Studio Soko trio could only afford four mentees, Felix Otieno, Billy Chelilde, Joshua Asewe, and Tony Kiprop.

“There were also children who got mixed up with the mentees, since I was teaching art to children while mentoring older [aspiring] artists at the same time,” Magina tells BDLife. That is how Abigael Nkatha , age 11, got into the second ‘Listening II my Soul’.

All the mentees represented at the exhibition that opened September 8 at Nairobi National Museum’s Creativity Gallery are in their early 20s. Meanwhile, the mentors, elders Magina, Kuria, and Sonko are in their 30s.

Most of the works presented are paintings, on canvas or paper. But there are the two sets of sculptures as well which are among the most interesting works in the show. And nearly everything in the exhibition was conceived in the new studio Magina created after tearing down his tiny space and reconstructing his home, studio, and gallery as a bigger, better duplex.

“Now I have room not only for my friends’ artworks in my gallery. I also have a larger studio where there’s room for the mentees as well as me,” says Magina. He is careful not to claim ownership of Studio Soko as he insists it’s still alive and well although it has no physical space of its own right now.

The other big challenge of the program was art materials. “As we had no sponsorship,” says Magina, “we had to dig deep into our own pockets. But we’re grateful to TICAH (Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health) for enabling us to have this exhibition at the National Museum,” he adds.

Having no funds to buy his own canvas or paints, Magina also had to ‘make do’ with what he had on hand. “All I had was a hammer and screw driver and some building stones I found on the street,” he says, having sculpted busts which are among the most elegant works in the show.

His “Head of Medusa”, “Jane Doe” and “Scream” are all filled with an emotional resonance and careful craft. It’s surprising to believe that Magina had neither taken a sculpting class nor worked with a hammer and screw driver in that fashion before preparing for their second Listening show.

He admits he must have been ‘listening’ since he had never thought of himself as a sculptor before now. He also has paintings in the show. So does Kuria who has been making do, using discarded vinyl disks as the mainstay of his art for many years.

But if one goal of Studio Soko has been to transfer knowledge, experience, and artistic skills to the next generation, then Listening II my Soul has proved they’ve succeeded. They’ve only touched the lives of a few young people who have begun to see a wider range of possibilities open to them in visual arts. Now it’s time for other ‘elder’ artists to step up and assist more youth who wannabe professional artists. There’s a lot to learn.

 

 

ANNABEL MAULE, LEGENDARY THESPIAN TURNS 100 TODAY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written September 7, 2022)

Hundreds of thousands of Kenyan school children have taken part in the Schools Drama Festival since 1979, the year Annabel Maule sold the theatre house that her parents had built more than 30 years before. 

Few if any of those aspiring actors ever heard the name of the madam who turns 100 today and now lives quietly in a Nairobi suburb. Yet there might never have been a drama festival if Western theatre hadn’t been brought to Kenya by people like Donovan and Mollie Maule, Annabel’s parents. They established their first theatre company in 1948, four years before the Kenya National Theatre was launched in 1952.

Not that the performing arts didn’t exist in Kenya before Europeans arrived. In fact, one aspect of the post-colonial literary revolution that took place in the late 1960s when playwrights like Okot p’Bitik and Ngugi wa Thiong’o overturned the English Literature program and replaced it with curriculum that began with orature and oral traditions, where original Kenyan stories, dramas and comedies, are to be found.

Nonetheless, British colonialism embraced its own brand of theatre, the kind the Maule’s were well established in, long before they arrived in Nairobi. They had also raised both of their children, Annabel and Robin, to be child stars who performed on stage, cinema, television, and radio.

Annabel literally grew up on stage, starting back in the 1930s. In her book, ‘Theatre Near the Equator’, she writes about how she was in everything from the 1949 film version of Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ and the 1954 TV version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to shows on BBC’s Sunday Night Theatre and ITV’s Television Playhouse.

She also starred on London’s West End way back in 1950 in ‘His Excellency’. But once her parents moved to Kenya to start the country’s first repertory theatre, there was a draw to get her to come on stage here. That would take several years.

First, the Maule’s had to get settled and that wasn’t easy. They called their first company Theatre Royal, which was strategically located on Delamere (now Kenyatta) Avenue, which later became Cameo Cinema.

Then they moved to an interim space which they called Studio Theatre, just above the Dominion grocery store on what is now Moi Avenue but back then was Government Road. It was there that the parents finally got Annabel to come play the lead in ‘Bell, Book, and Candle’ by John van Druten. It was so successful that she went on tour with it wherever they could find theatre clubs in East Africa.

But Annabel’s heart was apparently still in UK, so she went back to work in London until after her parents had successfully fundraised among theatre fans who helped them construct the Donovan Maule Theatre in 1957. Annabel returned just before Independence in 1962 to perform several leading roles, including Hester in Terrance Rattigan’s ‘The Deep Blue Sea’.

It wasn’t until 1967 that Annabel agreed to return to Kenya to take over running the theatre from her parents. They were ready to retire, but unwilling to give up what they’d created, a dedicated population of theatre goers who consistently came to see their plays.

From then on until she had to sell the theatre, Annabel did everything from act, direct, produce, and train a slew of young Kenyans in stage craft. She also brought in actors from UK since she was devoted to sustaining a high standard of professionalism in her casts.

According to Laurie Slade, brother to the late, great theatre critic Nigel Slade, one of her most memorable achievements was starring as a trio of queens, namely Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife and widow of King Henry II, Queen Victoria in her declining years, and Queen Mary, widow of King George V.

Annabel’s final film role was as Lady Byrne in ‘Out of Africa’. But even after she sold Donovan Maule Theatre, she still performed in several stage productions. She performed at what was then the French Cultural Centre in the title role of ‘Phaedra’ by the 17^th century playwright, Jean Racine. She also starred in ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ with John Sibi Okumu playing the same driver’s role that Morgan Freeman played in the film.

And since then, up until her retirement, Annabel has played the part of mentor and teacher to a myriad of young Kenyans who she worked with at both Starehe Boys and at Nairobi Theatre Academy.

So, the woman deserve a round of applause for coming this far with Kenyans. Bravo Annabel!