NAIROBI THEATRE IN 2022 WAS HUGE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 29 December 2022) It’s impossible to capture the totality of vibrant energy expressed on stage this past year. We saw it everywhere from all four venues at Kenya National Theatre, one Mosque Hall in Kibera, and one Hindu temple stage in Loresho to on stages at both Braeburn Schools, at Rosslyn Academy, and at Woodcreek School. We also saw shows regularly at Alliance Francaise, and we even went to see Silvia Cassini’s ‘Speak their names’ at Muthaiga Country Club. So the settings were diverse and so were the genres. We saw scads of comedy coming from the usual suspects, namely Heartstrings Entertainment and Crony Players as well as from Aperture Africa and the Man-Made Woman, Esther Kahuhi. We found there were even more satires, with shows like Chatterbox’s ‘Irregardless’, Liquid Arts’ ‘Kipande’, Moliere’s ‘The Miser’, and ‘Something must Kill a Man’. And we also got to see Kenyan history dramatized in productions like ‘Mekatilili wa Menza’ and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s and Ngugi wa Mirii’s ‘I will Marry when I want’ (performed in both English and Kikuyu). Even Biblical history was staged by Chemi Chemi Players in plays like the all-woman script, ‘Spread your Garment over Me’ and the all-male play on ‘Kings and Leaders’. Both of those were mainly based on a series of monologues. They weren’t the only shows we saw using that format. There were the ‘Manic Monologues’ scripted by psychologist Shalini Bhalla-Lucas as well as ‘The Sex Lives of African Women’, directed by Kaz Lucas and presented rather like the Vagina Monologues where each woman took her turn telling truths about intimate personal experiences. That type of truth-telling wasn’t nearly as scandalous as anyone might’ve expected. But quite a few other shows provided jaw-dropping moments. One company that regularly dropped their curtain on a stunning surprise-ending was Heartstrings. Most of their shows ended with an O. Henry-styled shock that was improbable but possible as we saw. But in addition to all of these, there were also amazing shows based on sheer storytelling. One of the busiest storytellers this past year was Martin Kigondu who not only staged his own solo monologue in ‘Super Nova’, a show in which the actor-scriptwriter took us on an emotional roller-coaster ride through one man’s life which touched our hearts. Kigondu also had decisive roles in everything from the Ngugis’ ‘I will marry when I want’ and Cassini’s ‘Speak their Names’ to ‘Blessed be the Fruit’ which he wrote and directed three brilliant women actors, namely Marrianne Nungo, Lorna Lemi, and Helena Waithera. But then, Kigondu was one of many Kenyans who wrote and directed their own work in 2022. It was true of Cassini who managed to assemble a brilliant cast in order to stage an awesome but surrealist script that had required the sensitivity of Brian Ogola, Nini Wacera, and Nixsha Shah to succeed as it did theatrically. Other playwrights who ventured into directing and sometimes producing were Wreiner Harold, Orina Brian, Peter Tosh, Mohamed Ramadhan, Fred Mbogo, John JJ Jumbi, Zippy Okoth, Esther Kahuha, Mbeki Mwalimu, and of course, Sammy Mwangi. There are more, I’m sure. For instance, Bhalla-Lucas may not consider herself a playwright, but her carefully-crafted psychological profiles of characters who were challenged emotionally during the pandemic were masterful, delicate, and deep. We hope she and the others will keep the scripts coming in 2023. In the meantime, it was marvelous to see musicals like ‘Les Miserables’ by Youth Theatre Kenya, ‘Lion King’ by NPAS and Chatterbox’s ‘Irregardless’, having live musical accompaniment. Dance Centre Kenya’s ‘Nutcracker’ ballet also worked with the live orchestra of Ghetto Classics conducted by Levy Wataka this year. And even a two-hander like ‘Something Must Kill a Man’ featured a small band to accentuate the emotions of that dynamic duet. It was also good to finally see shows normally caught up at Kenyatta University come out to Kenya National Theatre this year. It happened when Chisaina Players staged Victor Muyekwe’s ‘Cougar’ and when Emmanuel Shikuku and Sam Onyang’o performed Athol Fugard’s ‘The Island’, directed by the amazing septuagenarian David Mulwa. Mulwa holds a special place in the heart of practically all the students he’s ever taught at KU. That was why Dr Shikuku found it so easy to rally former Mulwa students to go together to see their Mwalimu at home in late 2022. The 77-year-old, who just recently retired from teaching, continues to be beloved as was clearly shown that day. What’s more, few thespians have had a more profound impact for the good of Kenyan theatre than Mzee Mulwa.

KENYA ART SCENE DYNAMIC AND DAZZLING IN 2022

KENYAN ART SCENE IN 2022 WAS EXPLOSIVE posted 29.12.2022

The Kenyan art world literally exploded in 2022 as artists were keen to come out in full force after doing time under the COVID lockdown. Of course, there were spaces that quietly kept their doors open during the pandemic. Others held virtual exhibitions. Circle Art even held its annual Art Auction East Africa online. But everyone felt a great relief in 2022 when, for better or worse, most felt the lockdown was done. The one problem many artists had was finding spaces to show their work. But that was resolved with ingenuity and finesse. Some artists did it by making murals and graffiti art. All over Eastlands estates, one can find walls filled with graffiti that, like gem stones, shone in the midst of rocky terrain.

But not just in places like Mukuru Lunga Lunga where Shabu Mwangi and his Wajukuu crew built a whole new art centre in 2021-2022. Even at the Organic Farmers Market at the KSPCA in Karen, artists like Michael Musyoka and Yony Waite each took turns creating murals in the open air. Michael also led a team from Brush tu Artists Collective to create an epic mural on a vast wall at Premiere Academy in Parklands.

But leaving aside public art, which inspired a group like Dream Cona to create murals all over the City Centre in 2022, Nairobi has witnessed a fascinating metamorphosis wherein people have turned their homes into ad hoc ‘platforms’ or actual galleries. It isn’t really something new per se. Carol Lees brought One Off Gallery to her Rosslyn home years ago, after she shifted from RaMoMa in 2010. But since then, we have seen people like Louise Patterson start Tribal Gallery from her home. Veronica Duro Paradinas move Gravitart from its portable position back to her flat in Westlands. Geraldine Robarts built her own gallery right next to her home studio in Karen. And Azza Satti opened up her place in Parklands to become ‘The Apartment’ where all her walls were hung with colorful works from Khartoum in 2022. The phenomenon isn't new. But artists and self-taught gallerists clearly had fun this past year exhibiting works of their choice.

The galleries were busy as well, hanging both group and solo shows in 2022. It could be argued that this was women’s year as it started strong with Circle Art exhibiting a troika of women artists, namely Yony Waite, Tabitha wa Thuku, and Theresa Musoke. Theirs was followed swiftly with another threesome at the Karen Blixen Museum, namely Esther Mukuhi, Caroline Mbirua, and Nayia Sitonik. Then came another women trio including Maggie Otieno, Eunice Wadu, and Rahab Shine at Banana Hill Gallery. And after that, we saw Sebawali Soi showing everywhere from the Movenpick Hotel to Lisa’s Christophersen’s new space, LifeStyle, and at Brush tu Open Houses where we also found Bushkimani Moira displaying her magical masks. It was also at Kobo Trust’s Open House that we found Nadia Wamunyu showing her Black bodies while Taabu Munyoki was at work on her Black Hair series. Dream Cona also held a week-long workshop at the GoDown for young women artists, led by Joy Mboya, Patrick Mukabi, and observed photographically by Nduta Kariuki.

Ultimately, the best place to have seen women’s art shine was at the UM Gallery in the Waterfront Mall where nearly 100 women artists were represented, after responding to an animating call from Gemini Vaghela. The other space where many young Kenyan women artists were represented is in the latest Kenyan Arts Diary 2023 which was revived after a two-year hiatus by Niketa Fazel, Nani Croze, and myself. The other arena where we saw women shine in 2022 was in gallery management. That is where we have always found dynamic women like Carol Lees, Danda Jaroljmek, Joy Mboya, and Rahab Shine inspiring artists to show their best works. Now we have met a whole new group of women in charge at the newly opened Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute. Founded by the acclaimed Kenyan-British painter Michael Armitage, NCAI took off seriously in 2022. Now Don Handah is also there to curate with the women.

But even NCAI has yet to capture all the kinetic energy that we saw in 2022 since artists were exhibiting everywhere from Umoja1 to Nairobi National Museum and Serena Hotel, revealing qualities of color, concept, and creativity that are improving all the time. Finally, we cannot forget to pay homage to great artists that we lost in 2022, namely Ancent Soi, Edward Njenga, Timothy Brooke, and Alan Donovan. All hold a special place in our hearts and in the history of Kenyan art. By Margaretta wa (posted 28 December 2022)

MEDIA, MONSTERS, AND THE MADNESS OF WORKING 24/7

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published 12.23.2022) Among those who had seen Walter Sitati’s play ‘What Can’t Kill You’ when it premiered in Nairobi back in 2018, there was a debate. Would Igiza Players and Wreiner Mandu do justice to Walter’s play when it opened last weekend at Kenya Cultural Centre? Or would they let us down now that Sitati is out of town on sabbatical? I’m grateful that, from my perspective, they did justice to Sitati’s script, apart from one caveat. The long lapses between scenes were unprofessional, especially as there were no significant changes in the set. What made it worse is that Igiza had scheduled three performances on Sunday, assuming each show would take two hours, not three. This was unfair to audiences who had to endure the wait. Other than that, the play itself was well cast, particularly the parts of Boitumelo the precocious child (Chantel Moraa), Boitumelo the cheeky adult (Vivian Nyawira), and Zuberi (Jeff Odhiambo), the Boss who ran ‘the Stinging Tongue’ magazine with a sarcastic and ‘stinging’ bite of his own. Sitati is a keen observer of Kenyan society and his plays invariably have a moral message. In ‘What Can’t kill you’, he examines the ways that both mainstream and social media operate, although the play was written before the full impact of social media on the mainstream had been felt. Nonetheless, Boss Zuberi is already struggling with the first signs of diminishing readership of his magazine. This is still a major issue among all the media houses: how to kindle interest among youth especially in reading tangible (not online) newspapers and magazines? The competition for eyeballs is still a real phenomenon. That is why the Boss is interviewing applicants, looking for good writers who can revive interest in his publication. But Zuberi is only a part-owner of Stinging Tongue. The other one is Boitumelo’s mother, Yejide (Mary Kamanthe). It is through her that we meet her daughter who at eight-years-old is already a mini-‘terrorist’ with her rebellious ability to argue for her rights and against authority, be it her mother’s, her teacher’s, or even the school principal’s (Emmanuel Kyalo). Boitumelo’s radical use of logic initially looks impressive and even cute. But her lack of humility is disturbing, and it doesn’t get better as she grows older. This we discover when we meet her ten or fifteen years later. She is just as cheeky as ever. She hasn’t learned the lessons of humility and unselfishness. The same is true of Lana (Lucy Kiragu), the Boss’s daughter. She too has missed a parental force who could lovingly guide her. She comes looking for it from her dad, but he’s fed up with this child whom he sees as being irredeemably ungrateful. Boitumelo, like Lana, has also been ‘spoiled’ by a busy parent who had neglected her daughter’s soulful need for self-discipline and a sense of direction and purpose in her life. But there is a turning point in the play. It’s when there’s a confrontational moment between mother and daughter. Yejide is blasting Boitumelo for failing to take responsibility for her life. She gives this self-pitying rant about how she had struggled to ensure her child didn’t have to suffer the way she had. It’s at this point that Boitumelo realizes she had been brought up to be exactly who she is because her mom had wanted her never to suffer, to lift a finger, or to be anyone other than her proud and pretty child. At that moment, Boitumelo finally admits she doesn’t want to be the magazine’s managing editor (a job her mama gave her.) But she loves fashion and asks to work in that department. It’s the first time Boitumelo has ever expressed an interest in work. After that, the dynamics between the mother and daughter change. What’s different is that they both seem to have gained a new level of self-awareness. Now Yejide seems to have realized she had contributed to making her child into a mini-monster. She is now taking responsibility for her mistakes of child-neglect and for not letting her child suffer her own battles. A similar awakening takes place between Zuberi and his child. He, like Yejide, had finally listened to his daughter express herself. He too had finally realized he’d been part of Lana’s problem. By chance, Zuberi stops off at Yejide’s house before heading home at 2am. Lana is there so the reconciliation between parent and child happens twice, meaning there’s fresh hope in the end for both families. .

JEFFIE’S ART AND SPORTS CENTRE IN EASTLANDS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written 12.27.2022) Jeffie Magina started building Umoja 1’s first sports and arts centre back in 2011. “We wanted to create a place for artists who felt frustrated being rejected by the galleries on the other side of town,” Magina told BDLife shortly before Christmas. He was standing in his new Umoja 1 Recreation Centre which was opened in September of 2021. Combining sports and art is something the culture ministry has been doing for years. It also made sense to Magina who combined a small boxing ring with a space for young artists to exhibit their works as well.

“But that space wasn’t large enough to meet all our needs,” says the mentor of a multitude of children from the neighborhood. “We were teaching art on the weekends, so we needed more space for the kids,” he adds. Thus, by January 2020, Magina was breaking rocky ground in a space basically considered unfit for construction. “We built our new place with rocks and mabati [corrugated scrap metal];” he recalls. “Plus, we asked [Meshak] Oiro to come help us weld the metal pipes that’d define the parameters of the centre itself.”

The Umoja 1 Recreation Centre officially opened last September of 2021, complete with a boxing ring, a ping pong table area, and mabati walls fit for exhibiting art whenever an occasion arose. That time came right before the Christmas holiday when the first art exhibition inaugurated the centre, curated by Njogu Kuria. ‘Boobology’ was a group show but it mainly centred around the vision of Kuria who claims he has been ‘fascinated by boobs’ for as long as he can recall. Kuria is an artist who historically has painted using mixed media, including acrylic paints and old vinyl ‘45’ disks. I thought perhaps his ‘fascination’ was sparked by the similarity between a woman’s breast and the ‘45’ which is also round with a hole in the centre rather like a woman’s nipple.

But no, Kuria says he has always been intrigued by that particular anatomical part and decided to display a portion of his study of women’s breasts in a series of works that are controversial at least and outrageous at best. Kuria also invited an array of other local artists to be part of his showcase. Among them are Allan ‘Think’ Kioko, Hannington Gwanzu, Martin Musyoka, James Kagima, Austin Adika, Mau Kamau, Jongo K, and Jeffie Magina. But the majority of works were by Kuria, some of which were distasteful to me, others I found disturbing or downright ugly.

But then, I recall the uproarious impact that one 19th century nude by Edouard Manet had, and I decide to write about Boobology anyway. Manet’s ‘Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe’ (The Luncheon on the Grass) was also rejected by the leading critics of his day. The oil painting of a naked woman having a picnic with two fully dressed men and another scantily dressed woman bathing in the background caused a scandal when it was first presented to the esteemed Salon in 1863 in Paris. But today, that same work resides permanently in the prestigious Musee d’Orsay (Orsay Museum) in Paris. An earlier version of the same subject is also hanging in central London at the Courtauld Gallery. The reality is that nudes have been a source of artistic inspiration for centuries going back to antiquity. What’s more, one of the most famous sculptures in art history is Michelangelo’s statue of David, which is a nude beautifully chiseled and considered one of the finest sculptures in the world. This is not to say that I can compare Kuria’s nudes to Manet’s or Michelangelo’s nudes. But before one is hasty in condemning Kuria’s concept, I have to say that introducing art to children in Umoja is a gift.

It's really Jeffie Magina who deserves the praise for creating a spacious venue in an ‘under-served’ area of Nairobi where sports and art are combined. One may find it incongruous to see artworks hung all around a boxing ring or a ping pong table. But one can just as easily applaud Magina for opening up a space where children can see all sorts of culture, both art and sports. Magina has also made room behind his Centre where he has children planting trees and other herbs. So in a place that looks like it is barren of creative expression, Magina has ensured that artists and sportsmen and women from Eastlands have an arena where they can recreate their own concept of culture.

WOMAN KING ROCKS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted December 27, 2022) The Woman King is a bold, brilliant, and breath-taking film that combines historical fact with ferocious action-adventure to create an epic story in the same vein as a Gladiator, Spartacus or Ben Hur classic. Viola Davis (best known for her powerful performances in ‘Fences’ and ‘How to get away with murder’) plays Nanisca, the hard core General of the Agojie all-female army that defended their kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin) from the early 17th to early 20th centuries. The film is set in 1823 when the king of Dahomey, Ghezo (John Boyega) is at a crossroads in his career as leader of the Agojie people. Should he continue collaborating with the Oyo Empire and getting rich off of the sale of African slaves (a position his scheming wife supports) or should he split with Oyo and transform his slave trading economy into one built on indigenous crops like palm wine and palm oil. That’s the position of his loyal General Nanisca, but it’s a hard sell, especially as Dahomey’s wealth has been built on the backs of fellow Africans captured specifically to sell to both white and African slave traders. Kenya’s own Lupita Nyong’o didn’t buy it, which is why ostensibly she turned down an offer to be included in the cast. Yet some have questioned Lupita’s decision to bow out of the opportunity to work with the award-winning Viola Davis. Some critics contend she simply didn’t want to be part of the backlash that was sure to ensue once the film came out. And indeed, there has been quite a big reaction to the film coming from several corners. There are those uncomfortable with seeing strong, aggressive women fighting and conquering men like the wicked Oyo chief, who coincidentally was the man who raped Nanisca twenty years before the 19 year-old Nawi (Thuso Mbedu) was born, abandoned, and adopted by a man who tried to sell her for the dowry she’d bring if he’d successfully sold her to a rich old man. There were other critics who generally felt uncomfortable highlighting the African slave trade since the film clearly points to the fact that Africans can no longer simply blame Europeans for the trade in African slaves. In the last few years, there’s increasing evidence that there was a ruling class among Africans and the rich elite primarily got fat off the selling of their own people. Either way, the film may have its own shortcomings. But the truth is that Dahomey did have an all-female military unit trained internally to be the toughest, bad-ass, fighters around. One reason why the so-called Amazons did in fact exist is because so many men were grabbed and sent on tightly-packed slave ships to the Americas via a harsh Middle Passage. Millions crossed the Atlantic, yet no one knows how many didn’t make it. Either they got sick, died, and got tossed overboard, or they jumped themselves, preferring death by suicide to a life of servitude. It was the paucity of virile young men that largely led King Gheza’s training women to be as tough as any male fighter. General Nanisca was in charge of the training camp that the rebellious young Nawi found her way into. The camp was practically like a nunnery in that the women had to swear to give up any aspiration to wed, have children, or disobey the Agojie code of conduct. Nawi was good on the first two counts. She wanted no part in wedlock or childbearing. But obedience to rule of law wasn’t in her DNA. She nearly got thrown out of the camp more than once for her misconduct. But at one critical moment, her singular style enabled her to be in the right place at the right time to save Nanisca’s life. That was a turning point in the film. Since it looked like the women were near defeat. Their leader was almost finished but for that split-second decision by Nawi to shoot a man who was ostensibly her father as well as her mother’s rapist. Prior to that moment, we had never seen a touch of tenderness on Nanisca’s part. But after that, we hear her story and see a sudden change of heart as she had already realized that Nawi was in fact her child. The Woman King is a remarkable film. However, the fact that it came out just days before ‘Wakanda Forever’ was to be released also had a part in the film’s being overshadowed by the sequel to Black Panther.

NIGERIAN DRAWS ATTENTION TO EAST AFRICAN ART

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (composed 21 December 2022) The art of Adeshina Ademola, currently covering the walls at Banana hill Gallery is standard geometry. If you have seen two or three of the Nigerian artist’s colorful paintings, you basically have seen them all. The artist is true to form when he entitles his exhibition, which open the week before Christmas, ‘For the sake of me’. He’s being honest in that regard since it’s less complicated to think and draw formulaically than to rise to the point of inspiration where one thrives with fresh new ideas, visual concepts, and meaningful statements of soul. There’s nothing wrong in his approach to painting. Only that it feels more like wall paper than fine art. But wall paper itself, though repetitive, can be beautiful, elegant, and eye-catching which are words applicable to Ademola’s art as well. Many artists work in the Nigerian’s style. It’s a format followed by painters not wishing to challenge themselves to feel the pulse of their purpose for doing art and moving forward. Yet experimenting and pursuing new media, methods, art materials, and techniques might call for courage, a quality not everyone has in sufficient supply.

So we can still appreciate the lines, geometric designs, and colors of ademola’s art. It’s the kind that is good to take home and place it by itself where it can look stunning. Its singularity on your wall doesn’t disclose that it was like the 39th edition of one specific painting. The other 38 are similar but a shade lighter or darker, the lines delineating the triangles, spheres, or quadralaterals bolder or more refined. The point is the artist paints well. His work is well finished but it is purely decorative. That’s not bad, but not profound or revelatory. What is always fun about heading out passed Runda, Rosslyn, and Two Rivers, up to Ruaka, Muchatha, and finally arriving in Banana Hill is meeting Shine Tani, his fellow artist and wife Rahab, and their first-born Njoki who is now keeper of the books. All three are ever-busy, either painting, scouting out new artists both in and outside regional borders, or keeping tabs on the family finances.

What is also intriguing about a trip to Banana Hill is checking out the racks to find a mix of many artists producing reasonably priced works. One can find small paintings by everyone from Shine himself and Peter Kibunja whose art is surprisingly similar stylistically to that of Ademola’s. to willington Mutabe, Julius Kimemia, Ronnie Ogwang, and Martin Kamuyu. On the other hand, a part of the gallery has been taken over by the public storage of an even wider array of larger paintings which are well worth checking out. Here is where you will find any gems which an artist has randomly brought, hoping it can be at least seen in the gallery. Many younger artists do this. But also, Shine in his scouting may encourage artists from elsewhere to send their works and they will be shown, the calendar permitting.

Thus, one can find works by everyone from Paul ‘Kaspa’ K,, the late Expedito Mwebe, David Kigozi, and Leonard Ngure whose busy matatu market scenes are clearcut indicators that he’s a disciple of Bertiers Mbatia, Kenya’s first visual political satirist. Bertiers will ever-be one of a kind. He is also a generous spirit who, out of a selfless heart, called together a group of aspiring artists to come learn from him. He called the group DARTS, an acronym I cant recall the meaning of. But the point is, these aspirants had initially come to him asking for artistic advice and guidance, and he responded by creating the group and teaching them to paint like he does. Now a number of them are like Leonard, out in the field and technically in competition with him. But because Bertiers is a real artist, he fears no one. He is on his own path, coming up with his own inspired ideas, and always surprising us with his both his paintings and sculptures.

Ngure is good. So is Kennedy Kinyua, another former member of DARTS whose art can frequently be found at Patrick Kinuthia gallery in Rosslyn Riviera Mall. Other artists whose works are either in the racks or stacked at one side of the gallery’s entrance include Sebastian Kiarie, Ismael Damba, Mike Chalo, Jeff Wabugu, Yiga Robert, and many others. Shine also has several sculptures, including two by Expedito which may be news to collectors who the late Alan Donovan once described as ‘the Picasso of East African art.’

POPE SPURS A GLOBAL MOVEMENT TO REVERSE CLIMATE CRISIS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted December 20 2022) Catholics are not the only people who listen to what Pope Francis has to say. Non-Catholics also respect the man that has so much compassion for the poor, the vulnerable, and the voiceless generally. But when he chose to speak up about climate change and the threat of climate disaster, he was suddenly deemed ‘political’, biased, and a religious figure who was stepping out too far from the boundaries of religion to be taken seriously. But others understood that Francis was stepping on toes of those upholding the status quo, who didn’t want their authority threatened or their means of profiteering challenged. They were not prepared to appreciate the wisdom of the Pope. In 2016, Pope Francis expressed his distress over Climate Change in his all-important Cyclical on the subject. But his followers felt the profound importance of his message had not reached all those who could be receptive to his concerns but had not yet had the opportunity to hear what he had to say. That is when the idea of making a film about his Letter came to light. The movers and shakers who shared that conviction called themselves and the organization they chose to form Laudato Si. Their project started small, but they decided to create a cadre of activists to carry the Pope’s message around the world. But before they went out into the world, they were trained to be ‘animators’, a specific brand of activist that was normally (though not necessarily) Catholic, deeply committed to the concept of reversing climate change for the sake of present and future generations. An animator is also meant to be an organizer who brings people together to watch the Pope’s film, the one that was finally made by a high-powered team of professional filmmakers entitled ‘The Letter’. Chris Coutinho is one of those animators. “I decided to screen ‘The Letter’ and invite the three music groups I have had the most interaction with, namely the Nairobi Orchestra, Nairobi Music Society Choir and the Ghetto Classics Orchestra, to come watch,” Christ told BDLife just days before the film’s Nairobi premiere last Friday December 16, at Westgate Cinema. One hopes the film will be screened again, this time for a wider audience since the quality of the movie-making is first class. The story line is intriguing, the cinematography is powerful, yet poetic, and one never had a sense of being preached to or pushed or even politicized as some of the Pope’s most severe critics contend. Instead, the dramatic impact of Climate Change was effectively illustrated in graphic cinematography that captured the devastating impacts of tornadoes, fires, floods, droughts, landslides, sea level changes, and the creation of millions of so-called ‘climate refugees’, those who have lost their homes, livelihood, and whole communities due to the way climate change and global warming have manifest themselves in that one’s part of the world. Technically, The Letter is a documentary, but the story is so imaginatively told that the film feels more like a fairy tale in which four individuals from different parts of the world receive a letter. One is meant to represent the Voice of the poor, one the Voice of Youth, one the Voice of Nature, and the fourth, represents the Voice of the Indigenous. How these four were selected is never told but the arrival of the Pope’s letter of Invitation to the four is a fascinating way of opening the film. The poor are represented by a Senegalese peasant whose family had farmed successful for generations, but rising sea levels led to the destruction and then the swallowing up of their land. He represented all the climate refugees whose numbers are growing by the day, be it due to drought or flood, wildfires or tornadoes. The second recipient of the Pope’s invitation to come to Rome is a child, a 13-year-old Indian girl activist. The third is an indigenous chief who had dwelled deep inside the Amazon rainforest up until commercial loggers came in and destroyed his homeland. And the fourth is a couple of marine biologists who study coral reefs and are deeply distressed about the demise of the reefs due to the warming of oceanic waters. By the time the four meet the Pope, we are already convinced that there is an urgent need to reverse the trends of Nature’s destruction and for mankind to wake up and change their ways as we work together to save Mother Earth for present and future generations.

LIMINAL ART IN BETWEEN AT THE MALL

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted December 20th 2022) Liminal Spaces are defined as ‘ambiguous’ locations, spaces in between, often seen as transitional, open-ended, and undefined. They are also the name of two European women whose commercial partnership is also a cultural platform where they share news about Nairobi’s thriving arts scene. “We both have lived in Kenya for several years but always felt there was a gap in information about what’s happening currently on the cultural scene. That’s why we decided to fill the gap by creating ‘The Art Calendar’. It comes out weekly with timely information,” says Christine Hogendoorn who partners with Marine Cavaillon to tour the town regularly, picking up timely cultural tidbits in the process.

Recently, the two took a break from amplifying the activities of others and chose to organize an evening of their own in the basement of The Mall in Westlands. Entitling their event ‘Identity, Community, and Belonging,’ their show featured artworks by Elias Mung’ora and Lemek Sompoika together with a series of short films generated by the ArtXchange, an experimental project organized by the European Union and involving both European and African artists from all round the region involved in a wide array of artistic practices. Ironically, the concept of ‘liminal spaces’ seems applicable not only to the dynamic female duo who are themselves living ‘in between’ Europe and Africa, touching base with both continents, but currently occupying space that seems transitional and experimental.

Both of the Kenyan artists who signed onto their show reflect a bit of liminality in their art as well. For instance, Lemek is a Maasai by birth, but having grown up in town, he is not fully imbued with his Maasai culture and identity. His art explores the ambiguity of being either a moran or a modern Western- educated man. The issue of identity is explored in his art as one can see his transitioning from figurative to abstract imagery. The idea of ambiguity also emerges as his work seems to waver between an abstract expressionism and the long, angularity of a figure who seems to be leaping for joy like a high-flying Maasai. For me, his blending of both styles conveys his most meaningful and evocative art. The one factor in Lemek’s work that transcends liminality is his use of color. His splashes of black on white paper are striking. They have an almost Jackson Pollack feeling to them in that they have a splashy spontaneity to them. It’s also true when he splashes a dash of navy blue or flaming red onto a few.

It’s Elias Mung’ora who has the most liminality in his art. In particular, I’m referring to the works that were hung in the large high-ceiling space devoted exclusively to his paintings and included in his series entitled ‘Of Cows and Land Politics.’ These are works he created during his attendance at an artist’s residency at Tafaria Castle in Laikipia county. And these are the ones where practically everyone is in transition, be it the cows on one end of his space or the land speculators standing ominously on the edge of his massive mural-like work or the petty thieves walking away in broad daylight with somebody’s large metal (mabati) sheet.

All of these pieces are layered with meaning and depth of feeling, particularly because Mung’ora can identify with people struggling to hold onto their land. “Land is precious to my people,” the artist tells BDLife as he explains the way history is infused in his art. It is there in his use of mixed media, from newspapers clipped and used as collage to acrylic paints, pastels, and charcoal. His most remarkable painting in the Liminal show is the four-paneled work which partially alludes to the colonial era when land grabbing took many forms, including land demarcation and disruptive borders that excluded Africans from any equitable deals. Instead, they found themselves first taxed and economically enslaved as plantation workers on their forefathers’ lands, and finally removed forcibly and then detained, tortured, and brutally murdered.

But today, as the lands for grazing and those for farming are both diminishing due to multiple factors, the land clashes are present-day problems that Mung’ora explores in his painting in a challenging, semi-abstract style. Finally, even cattle are transitional characters, not only because Mung’ora explains their status has changed from once being symbols of wealth to now being liabilities. And that is not just because pastoralists and agro-businessmen need more grazing land for their cows. Cattle also emit too much CO2 into the atmosphere.

TAABU MAXIMIZING HER TIME SINCE BACK FROM VENICE BIENNALE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted december 20, 2022) Taabu Munyoli wasn’t at the recent opening of her exhibition, ‘In Good Hands’ when it opened last week at one of the new exhibition sites in Westlands, known simply at Shelter. “I was in Venice,” Taabu tells BDLife casually, not bothering to mention that she was attending the 59th Venice Biennale, courtesy of her mentor and part-time employer. We are standing outside her studio at Kobo Trust where she works from Thursdays through Saturday nights. “I’ve discovered that even when the job is just part time, I have to maximize the little time I have for my own work,” she says. Not that she doubts the wisdom of taking on a part-time job, especially as she is now assisting an artist whom she respects, esteems, and is grateful every day to be working for and learning from. But she is also involved in creating several series of new works of her own, and hopes to have a solo exhibition early next year.

Nonetheless, there is little doubt that her ‘boss’ was correct in suggesting she would benefit from being at the Biennale in Venice, if for no other reason than the exposure she would get by being out of the country, in Europe, and attending one of the most important collection of global exhibitions renowned all over the world. Nonetheless, Taabu was keen to get back to Kenya, to get to work on her ‘Black Hair’ series and pursuing a series of portraits reflecting on the life of her own amazing mum, Rosemary. She was also happy to get back to work for her mentor, a woman who has had a profound impact on Taabu’s perspective on so many things.

“I definitely have learned to see things in a different light, from a deeper perspective,” she says. But when asked to be more specific about what she does for her Boss, she becomes reticent. “What I can say is that she came to my studio to see how my art is progressing, and she advised me to do re sketching. To sketch every day irrespective of whatever else was going on in my life,” she says, admitting that it hasn’t always been easy to sustain that sort of discipline. But she’s seen it in her mentor’s manner of work and is grateful to be called to emulate her. Wangeci Mutu is without doubt Kenya’s most renowned visual artist. She has ‘made history’ many times, ever since she became the first Kenyan visual artist to attend an Ivy League School. Yale University is the same one attended by everyone from Meryl Streep to Hillary and Bill Clinton to Kenya’s own Kimani Njogu. And even Ngugi wa Thiong’o was a lecturer there.

She’s won countless awards, been exhibited all over the world, had books written about her art, and even been selected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to be the first sculptor to fill the niches in the front entrance of the Museum with the art of her choice. She created the most amazing sculptures and set such a high bar for anyone to come after her that the Met has had a challenge to find anyone as versatile as Wangeci after her time was up for her art to occupy those privileged spaces. “Currently, she has an exhibition in Houston, Texas,” Taabu volunteers. She has been working for the woman for the past two years. But just as quietly as her employer came back to Kenya and established her home with her family in Karen, so Taabu has been low key about telling people what she does during the early days of her week.

Taabu means to explore the issue of black hair from an historical perspective. “I want to contrast the significance of women’s hair during precolonial times and now, since it is very different,” she says. She has had to reference South African sources and has already begun creating paintings using both an image-transfer technique and acrylic paint. At the same time, she is inspired by her own mother’s history and she wants to create more works around Rosemary’s colorful career in politics in the early days of Kenyan independence when very few women were entering the political sphere. But her mother was courageous enough to do it. “She didn’t win the election she fought for,” but she tried and she still has a voice in the community that people admire,” Taabu says.

Her strength has clearly influenced her daughter who is also independent, progressive in her own quiet way.

CHARLIE'S MURALS BLEND ART AND EARLY EDUCATION

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted December 15,2022) Creative Murals is a trio of young Kenyan artists who, like the troika of graffiti artists, BSQ, work together on walls to create murals with meaningful messages that are also beautiful to behold. The three, Kevoh Maina, Okoth Uhuru, and Mwas Githinji, haven’t been together very long. The connecting link between them is a Chinese documentary filmmaker named Du Fengyan. “I work a lot with young Kenyan artists,” the Zimmerman-based filmmaker Du told BDLife. “But after I met Kevoh, teaching art to kids at the Saturday Farmers Market, I told him about a mural my friend Charlie wanted for his school.”

After that, the scene snowballed as Kevoh got ahold of his fellow artist Okoth, and together they met up with Mwas. After that, the three of them went straight to see Charlie at his school to find out what kind of mural he wanted. From the look of Charlie’s wall outside the front entrance of his Erdemann Chinese School on Laikipia Avenue, the four of them, including Charlie, worked well together.

“We are happy to have found these three Kenyan artists since they’ve worked with us to create exactly what we wanted expressed on our wall,” Charlie Yang, the Principal at the Erdemann Chinese School told BDLife. Yang is actually a trained medic who specialized in a blend of both Chinese and Western medicine. He was teaching Chinese at the Confucius Institute at Kenyatta University when another friend invited him to become principal at his pre-primary school. He took up the task and says he has been happy working with children and their parents ever since.

His school educates children from the ages of two up to age six, revealing just how important and highly valued is early childhood education to the Chinese. “Our curriculum is a combination of both Chinese and British,” Yang says, adding that the ratio between teachers and kids is 12 to 27. “We have three teachers per class, and all our children learn to speak both Chinese and English.” In addition to language learning, these children are introduced to a wide range of activities from sports and other forms of play to art, music, and various other social skills. Rather than just talk about the wisdom of his school’s progressive work with kids, Charlie wanted the mural to illustrate the many facets of its early education program. “The wall has 16 panels,” says Mwas who worked according to Charlie’s specifications. “All of them begin as window-like frames into which we drew and painted the images we discussed with him,” he adds.

After that, all of the figurative and colorful paintings within each frame is self-explanatory. First comes the lion and panda bear, standing peacefully, side by side. They are meant to communicate the overriding message of the murals, which is the value of collaboration between the two cultures and communities. The lion obviously symbolizes Kenya and the Panda bear, China. After that, the story unfolds chronologically with the second panel showing the two-year-olds soft landing with their mothers coming to the school and getting comfortable with the surroundings. Here is where they also meet their teachers, specially trained in teaching the toddlers. The mothers cuddle their kids who will soon be continuing with new friends and maternal figures.

After that, there’s a glimpse in the next panel of the old and the new China. But quickly, the mural moves on to a colorful array of activities, starting with the slightly older children learning kung fu and being taught by a child just slightly older than six. All the paintings in the murals are figurative, colorful, and eye-catching. The next one has children of all hues dancing on top of a globe. “The aim of this one,” says Charlie, “is to show that in spite of our school being called Chinese, we have 20 percent who are international students and are also welcomed here.”

Then as one walks down Laikipia road, this long mural is full of fascinating activities. In one mural, the kids are building a wall out of lego bricks. In another, they are being shown playing instruments of all kinds at the same time as they are looking through microscopes. “We want to introduce all kinds of career possibilities to the kids as early as possible,” Charlie says. Then, interspersed between the children’s activities are contrasting images of birds, bushes, and buildings, including the Kenyatta Conference Centre painted next to an Emperor’s castle. The final panel is of graduation day where the kids are elated, ready to embark on their further education.

TINY ART FOR THE HOLIDAYS AT ONE OFF

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted December 13, 2022) Now is the time to make one’s way to One Off Gallery as it has become a delightfully crowded domain filled with a vast and varied assortment of creative ideas, many of which are well suited for giving as gifts over the holidays. As of Tuesday, December 6, without any fanfare or major social media marketing, the ‘Tiny Art Gift Show’ opened its flood-gates. Full to overflowing with miniature masterpieces, there are works by veterans of the One Off team, like Anthony Okello and Peter Ngugi, as well as newcomers to Carol Lees’ committed coterie of artists, Patrick Karanja and Elias Mongora.

There’s also a whole batch of new artists to the Gallery, young’uns who responded to One Off’s online call to get involved in making miniatures, like Nunde Bulima and others. What is still more impressive about this multifaceted collection is that there seems to be no limit to either the quality or quantity of the art that’s arrived at One Off. It’s posed a few challenges to the curators, as when Peter Ngugi brought over 40 of his tiny colorful pig paintings made with stencils and filled in with the artist’s multicolored pallets. Ngugi has also given his pigs a three-dimensional effect to enhance their charm. But they still couldn’t all go on display at once. “We only had room for 32 of his pigs,” Carol told BDLife as we counted four rows of eight across on one wall that Ngugi shared with everyone from Sebawali Sio, Zephania Kukamba, James Kamande, and the Yegonizer to Benard Musyoki, Edward Muratha, Patrick Karanja, and Ndunda Bulima and many more. The problem of space was ultimately sorted out effectively since Carol, (who has been curating even before One Off was born back in 1994) is a master of wall space. She managed to hang the miniatures efficiently so that nothing looked squeezed, despite having one long corridor wall on which now hangs most of the miniatures.

“There’s another wall around the corner [at the entrance of the Stables],’’ Olivia Howland told us as she ushered us to see her four linocut prints of incredible insects, including a Picasso beetle which she had drawn with meticulous attention to the bug’s elegant wing designs. One other printmaker whose dry point etchings made it to that same wall was Abdul Kipruto. Coming with him from the Brush tu Artists Collective were Lincoln Mwangi and Michael Musyoka. Patrick Mukabi’s paintings were also there as were those of Leo Mativo, Ango Joe, Tracy Thomas, Mike Obanda, Tony Bulimu, Baraka Samia and others. Back along the corridor connecting One Off’s two exhibition spaces is a long table where more miniatures, mainly sculptures, reside. Some don’t remain there for long as I watched as Beni Rumasha’s sweet coster-size paintings were bought. The buyer blushed when someone opened up his beautifully packaged set of Rumasha’s works for no reason other than to snoop and find out the price: Sh2000 each.

“I just got them ‘cause I think they are the tiniest paintings ever exhibited at One Off,” James Muriuki told BDLife while failing to mention they were probably meant to be Christmas gifts. Also on that long table were three small plate-like oil paintings on paper-thin wood by Rashid Diab who created them last week while he was visiting Kenya from Khartoum. He had come for the opening of his own solo exhibition at Red Hill Gallery which is still up. Then, right next to Rashid’s painted plates came Ato Malinda’s painting of classically red poinsettia leaning on a mini-easel. And further down the table lay a series of recycled bike-chain sculptures by Simon Muriithi. Then, in the same stylistic vein, an artist named Napster used recycled car parts to create a welded reindeer. Meanwhile, in the main Stables continues the solo exhibition ‘Liberation’ by Ehoodi Kichapi (aka Jesse Nga’nga). His is an exuberant and colorful proclamation of his freedom. Asked what he’s been liberated from, Kichapi is quick to name the demons that have been cast out of his life. “Alcohol is the big one,” he tells BDLife. “I was going to die, I was told by my doctor, if I didn’t stop drinking,” he says. It wasn’t easy at first since he had been looking for means to escape his depression and paranoia. “But I defeated the demons with loving support from family and friends,” he adds.

Also having a solo show in The Loft is Annick Mitchell whose animal portraits are entitled ‘Horn of Change’.

HEARTSTRINGS SYMPATHIZES WITH THE WOMEN OF HUSTLER NATION

By Margaretta wa gacheru (composed 12.12.22) Heartstrings Entertainment was true to its Hustler Nation roots this past weekend when they staged ‘If the Shoe Fits’ at Alliance Francaise. The show illustrates a catalogue of various hustles (also known as survival strategies or jua kali gigs) that many people pursue as means of keeping themselves alive during these post-COVID times. The scene looks strangely like present-day Kenya where inflation has compounded the problem of a bad economy, joblessness, and inflated prices of everything from bread and unga to petrol and cooking oil. They take a 24 hour-day and break it up into separate segments of time in which hustlers practice particular ‘professions’ at specific times of day. Then, to reinforce the point of how difficult the hustler’s life must be, all the jua kali jobs are played by Vivian (Bernice Nthenya) who manages them all and still retains a positive spirit without complaint.

She’s initially up at 4:30am at the local bus stop where she’s given herself the job of shining shoes. Her clients include everyone from a child awaiting her school bus to a job seeker needing to look smart to impress his prospective employers. And as Vivian doesn’t have kids, the un-paid hustle of motherhood is also illustrated by Esther Kahuha who offloads her child onto the school bus so she can rush home to cook and clean for the rest of her family. Vivian quickly moves on so that by 6am, she is selling hard-boiled eggs with kachumbari to everyone from old men leaving the bar and looking for a cheap meal to chokora (street kids) who she contends have money to buy her eggs.

The egg market reduces by sun rise, so by 9am, Vivian has moved out again into the fringe of the City Centre where she serves as a ‘consultant’ helping job seekers fill out job application forms, even forms to get work in Saudi Arabia. Next is noon, and Vivian is now at the hair salon, working on women’s hair and listening as her clients critique her humble, clean-hearted life-style. They can’t understand how she can be the sole breadwinner in her household, and yet she has a man there. The character played by Zeitun Salat wants to set her up in a ‘business’ comparable to her own. She is basically a high-class prostitute who enjoys having men cover her expenses in payment for the services she provides. But Vivian doesn’t have time or inclination to cheat her man. She will see him at 6pm when she has already figured on what to cook for him. First, she must get to her 5pm gig, working as an Uber driver and listening as couples quibble. By the time the clock strikes 6, she reaches home, exhausted but prepared to continue working. She is not prepared for more complaints. Her jobless hubby (Fischer Maina) has been sleeping, preparing for an evening out with guys and spending money he expects her to give him so he can buy booze for his friends.

She is too weary to argue with him. She’s about to send him cash, when something miraculous happens. A rich Congolese General (Tim Ndissi) arrives at her flat with his entourage of bodyguards. He seems to know everything about her, and she supposedly has been communicating with him for months. He has even sent her millions for her to build a house of her own. The scene is baffling until Vivian figures out it’s her hubby who has orchestrated the communication between the General and ‘herself’. He also must be the one receiving millions in cash. The General clearly adores Vivian and wants to marry her straight away. Initial;y she ignores his suggestions but once he goes off to greet the Head of state, she confronts her spouse and gets him to admit he took took the money under false pretenses. But when he claims he took it ‘for her’ and he’d set up a separate bank account in her own name, she’s not deceived. So upon the General’s return, he insists they wed that very day. Hubby, who has slipped back into the flat and heard all the aspirations of the General. He now tries to scuttle everything once he sees the Boss about to get down on bended knew to formally ask Vivian for her hand in marriage. But this time, it’s Vivian who, in the last moment of the play, decides it is she who will ask (or even plead) for the General’s hand in marriage. It’s something she’s entitled to.

SECRETS LEAD TO SAD CONSEQUENCES IN PICK OR PEAK

By Margaretta wa gacheru (10 dec. 2022) Liquid Arts Productions needs to be lauded for promoting the development of young Kenyan playwrights. That includes members of the company like Hadasa Kariuki and Caleb Kuria who co-scripted the play the group just produced this past weekend at Ukumbi Mdogo, ‘Pick or Peak’ is the cryptic name they gave to their play. It’s a family drama about everything from sibling rivalry and infidelity to secrets that deserve full disclosure to save the innocent from getting entangled in emotional concerns they can hardly understand, leave alone resolve. “Pick or Peak is alL about forgiveness, a quality in keeping with the Spirit of the season,” explains the play’s producer Kelvin Manda on Saturday. That is all well and good, but I still want to understand the title. It takes a conversation with the show’s director Peter Tosh to get an interpretation of Pick of Peak that makes sense. “It’s the cucu [of Isaac and Jude] and mother of Pauline and Sophie who has to ‘pick’, or make a [critical] choice,” Tosh tells BDLife right after the play’s matinee. “It is also the mother who has to feel the emotional peak of the situation before she can finally come out and tell her truth to her family,” adds Stephen Kamau who plays Isaac, the grandson of the cucu. Now the play makes sense, but before this, there is much about ‘Pick or Peak’ that I did not understand until the last minute when Mama Sophie (Isabella Moraa) finally spills the beans and apologizes to the members of her family whom she had kept in the dark for probably twenty years. We can’t be sure how much time passed from the first scene, when Pauline (Veronica Mwangi) comes out screaming and howling with hot air and hostility about the way she has been mistreated by everyone in her family. She claims she hated by her father and sister Sophie (Maria Beja Mutawe) and neglected by her mum who had remained silent and passive all the while that she was being abused. Pauline has already packed her bags and is nearly out the door when her mum appears and begs her not to go. But her reaching out has come too late. Pauline goes and is not seen again until the last scene. Time lines are very loosely delineated in Pick or Peak. That means there are no clear transitional markers to help us know how much time has passed from scene to scene. For instance, in the second scene we meet Isaac, Sophie’s grown-up son who has just graduated from university with honors. Then, another mysterious young man (Tony Ngigi) shows up in Isaac’s home, behaving like an intruder who could be a crook, conman, or killer. He doesn’t identify himself, and has the good fortune to arrive when neither Sophie nor her mother are around. We only learn that the two lads are cousins (the new fellow being the son of Pauline who arrives shortly after her son). She starts off immediately to reactivate her howling accusations (as if no time had elapsed) since her sister Sophie arrives just moments before she has. Their shouting session is about to get physical and messy when their mom shows up and begs them to stand down. As a way of defusing the heat, Mama Sophie finally tells the truth she had concealed for so long. The secret she’d been too meek to admit is that she had a child out of wedlock and during her marriage. That child was Pauline, which is why the man she thought was her dad mistreated her so venomously. She embodied the humiliating truth that his wife had been unfaithful. While not excusing herself, the cucu further explains how he had once been a loving man, but something happened and he took his rage out on his wife. She had kept silent out of fear, but now she has nothing to lose. It was gratifying to find the situation resolved, the dangling details finally explained. But we needed to see more of the cucu earlier in the play, not just at its end. Then there was the issue of the hired help, (Mweni Mwende Kingori and Caleb Kuria) who are both jokesters who are apparently in the story to add a light touch to the intensely dark and angry dialogue. But I’m not sure they helped advance the storyline. Either way, once pick or peak gets workshopped, my hope is that it will improve dramatically.

READING OF KIGONDU’S MATCHSTICK MEN WORKED

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted December 10, 2022) There are stage productions, and then, there are stage Readings which only include the actors and the script. Readings are part of a larger creative process leading to what will become a full-scale production. When you get brilliant actors reading an equally outstanding script which has already been staged once or twice, the Reading can become a classic moment when the soul of the play comes to light. It leaves one wondering why more scripts do not undergo public ‘readings’, especially if they are produced as Esther Kamba did last Friday night when she invited her audience to stay after the Reading of Matchstick Man and speak to its playwright, Martin Kigondu. In the reading of his script, Sam Psenjin and Nick Ndeda gave much more than a simple read-through of a play that may soon become a film. It was upstairs at the Kenya Cultural Centre that the actors (two of Nairobi’s finest) took the plunge into the depths of Kigondu’s mentally fractured characters to give fascinating performances. Initially, it isn’t easy to figure out who is the patient and who’s the therapist in what we gradually realize is a mental asylum. Both Seth (Psenjin) and Fatili (Ndeda) are flawed. At the same time, both have moments when they are lucid and able to behave like professional shrinks, psychiatric workers challenging the other to get down deep into the recesses of his mind. Be assured, Matchstick Men is no comedy although there is an undercurrent of wit starting with the way the actual patient, Seth, puts on the doctor’s white medical jacket and behaves as if the jacket makes him that man.

But the psychological games that Seth plays frustrate Fatili at the outset. It is understandable that during the ‘Q and A’ that followed the readings, more than one inquisitor in the audience hadn’t found Kigondu’s characters the easiest characters to understand. Fortunately, Martin was on hand to explain how he’d wanted to explore issues of mental health in his play. But that required the portrayal of one character, Seth, who was mentally imbalanced, to be reached through the mental touch of another equally flawed character. In fact, both men had effectively blocked memories of events in their lives that had been traumatizing. So much so that Seth didn’t recall that he was effectively responsible for his father’s death. As a child he had watched his father turn his mother into “a punching bag”, but one day it was too much and the little boy pushed his dad down a long flight of stairs, at the bottom of which the old man was found dead. He was never seen as culpable since his mother swore it was suicide. But that event subsequently led to his amnesia about everything associated with it. Ultimately, we find out that Fatili had understood the mental blockages in Seth’s mind and felt it was imperative the truth be exposed so the man could regain control over his life. But before that could take place, we first had to learn how Seth and Fatili were somehow related. It’s because Fatili fell in love with Seth’s crazy sister with whom he had a child. It’s not quite clear what happened to the sister although she was with Fatili four years and these were terribly frustrating times for him. So much so that he apparently had beaten her bloody and the court thus denied him access to their child. This distressed him a great deal. But he too had blocked the memory of his deeds of domestic violence which were also brought out in the reading.

Eventually, Fatili gives a full disclosure, first, of his identity as a psychiatrist who had concealed his professional identity from Seth intentionally for weeks. What’s more, he had wanted to heal Seth by helping him break through his mental blocks and face the realities of his history. His motives were not purely altruistic, however since he has only one means of regaining access to his child. And that is to have a family member of his ‘wife’s sign documents that would confirm his paternity. In the end, Fatili gets both of these, so the reading ends on a relatively happy note. It resolves loose ends, but doesn’t quite satisfy. In any case, one must applaud Kigondu for interweaving several significant moments in Kenya’s post-independent history, such as the 1982 coup plot and the 2007-2008 post-election violence as factors contributing to Kenyan deteriorating mental health. All in all, a brilliant piece of writing.