SATAN A BEGUILING TRICKSTER WITH A HIDDEN AGENDA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 4.23.2023)

Now let us make Man is a musical play with serious religious overtones that Stewardz Productions brought to Kenya Cultural Centre last weekend (April23). it’s a show that transforms Ukumbi Mdogo into a limbo-like setting in which heaven and hell are literally at war over the souls of ordinary men and women. It’s a perpetual warfare in which Satan (Ali Juma) is an aggressive guy who delights in carrying out his strategic plan to take down all the good people, starting with one recent graduate from medical school names Dr. Jim (Michael Kamau). Satan isn’t simply aggressive. He is also charming and seductive. As a consequence, he’s dangerous to those caught up in limbo like the dead man whose body we see at the outset of the play but whose spirit we meet in person as he’s the one stuck in limbo because he can’t decide which way he wants to go.

So early on, we find this play has a metaphysical component wherein we are not only dealing with human beings made of flesh and blood. We are also dealing with characters that identify as angel-spirits who are watching the actions of mortals on the ground, hoping to save them from Satan’s deadly schemes. The playwright and director of the show, Malvin Ibachi is also the set designer who created the musical’s double-decker set. In it, one can see the metaphysics manifest as angels and Satan upstairs in the clouds while the earthy mortals are being beguiled (like Eve in the Bible) on the set’s ground floor. What could be confusing is the fact that Ipachi allows the upstairs spirits to travel downstairs and back up, taking on human forms in the process. When we first meet Dr. Jim, we see he is a clean-cut man committed to serving the people and apparently incorruptible. Yet he is a prime candidate for Satan to attack in ways in which Jim won’t know what hit him. Satan’s secret weapon is a young woman Satan has already corrupted called Jill (Sandra Daisy). Jill arrives at Dr Jim’s office without an appointment, but being a good Christian, Jim hears her out. But once she literally throws herself at Jim, he has a problem. Like a big cat, she jumps on him several times, until the last jump when he weakens and nearly has sex with her right on his surgical office table. At the last second, he realizes he’s violating medical ethics, and stops himself. His self-restraint doesn’t please Satan any more than Jill. What comes next is a shocker, but it’s part of Satan’s scheme. Jill confesses to Jim that she is pregnant and needs him to help her get an abortion. She needs it, she says, because she is only 17 and too young to be a mother. But she also specifies that she wants Jim, who has some gynecological training, to be the one to do it. When Jim refuses since there’s a law against it, she threatens to sue him for his having had sex with a minor and for sexual assault. She, in partnership with Satan, even manage to mentally manufacture a vision of Jim actually having sex with Jill. But not even this sort of mental suggestion can make Jim violate his code of conduct.

Even when Satan comes visiting Jim at his office and offering him 20,000 to do it for Jill, he won’t be moved. He begins to weaken when human sympathy kicks in. But before he can carry out a change of plan, the ex-boyfriend, Jared (Julius Mwaura) shows up and claims he is prepared to take full responsibility for their child. But it is all a ruse. He pulls out a gun and shoots her, afterwards giving her a few kicks, which throw us all off guard. Unfortunately, Jill never wakes up. She remains in a coma for all nine months of the pregnancy. Ultimately, the baby is born and this is seen as a triumph over Satan’s plan to corrupt Jim. The birth of the child also seems to confirm that abortion is a plan of the Devil. The fact that Jill doesn’t make it is hardly given a mention. But the Right to Life movement focuses solely on the fetus not the mom. One can hardly escape the implication that this play (backed up by one excellent pianist, Craig Harris) has one underlying theme. It is that fighting against abortion is fighting against Satan and standing with the angels, and with God.