By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 15 May for 17 May 2019)
If you are
someone for whom the whole idea of a hospice, (the place where sick people go
to die) fills you with dread, you might have been tempted to walk out after the
first few moments of ‘Impervious’, the Back to Basics’ production, scripted by
Jackson Biko, directed by Mbeki Mwalimu and staged at Alliance Francaise last
weekend.
But if you
decided to stick it out (out of courtesy or cowardice), you would have been
pleasantly surprised to find ‘Imperious’ is all about defiance, not death per
se. Jedidah (Mary Mwikali) may be bed-ridden, but the doctors can’t even diagnose
her main malady.
One reason
the play picks up so fast is because Jedidah’s nurse (who doubles as the show’s
narrator) quickly turns it into more of a tragicomedy than a morbid weepy drama.
Nurse Maggie (Wakio Mzenge) has seen so many people die, she’s ‘impervious’ to
fretful feelings about ‘the end’.
She narrates
Jedidah’s story in a style that is both chatty and clinical. She gives us the
pithy details of her patient’s life. Jedidah, she says, lost both her parents
when she was young. She has no sibling, no friends either and no visitors other
than the hospice’s therapist (Bruce Makau), the priest (Bilal Mwaura) and the
teenage girl (Auudi Rowa) to whom she is donating her heart.
But even if
Jedidah had friends, she has requested a block on all visitors. She has also
made clear she wants no pity or pretense, no crocodile tears and no
free-loaders (the kind who have previously come into her life to off-load their
garbage onto to hers).
Jedidah’s
perspective may sound cynical, but apparently life has dealt her enough blows
to steel her head, soul and heart from feelings of pain. She is also
‘impervious’ to fear, including the fear of death.
Jedidah’s
fearlessness in the face of death has a peculiar effect on both the therapist
and the priest. According to Maggie, she was supposed to have a speedy demise.
The doctors had given her three weeks to live. But three months later, she’s
defied their prognosis.
The
therapist comes regularly to see her and ask about her mental condition. She
finds his curiosity annoying, implying he’s one more pretentious free-loader,
trying to penetrate her impervious wall of rock-solid sarcasm. She also accuses
him of being a mercenary who only comes because he’s paid by the hour. She
makes clear that he is not welcome, yet he won’t stop visiting.
The priest
is much more sympathetic character. He’s apparently in awe of her bravery. He
even admits he feels more like ‘a man’ in her presence than ‘a man of God.’
Mwaura is marvelous is the timid, fumbling priest who doesn’t know how to
handle his feelings for this woman, especially when she toys with his emotions.
Jedidah is
also touched by this man, yet she admits she has never ‘given her heart’ to
anyone before. In one sense, she means she has never fallen in love with any
man. But in another, she literally refers to the donation she’s about to make
of her human heart to a 15-year-old girl named Bay whom she has invited to come
see her at the hospice.
The girl
comes in a wheelchair, looking frail and in need of a new something. Jedidah
has already decided to give her heart away to Bay both literally and
figuratively, so when she gets the news that Bay has had an incident and she is
close to death, Jedidah blames herself. She feels she should have died sooner, as
if it’s her choice to make.
Perhaps what
has kept her alive is the sweet affection she feels for the priest or possibly
the meaning her life has acquired now that she is giving part of herself so
that another person can live.
Either way,
Jedidah now begs both the Priest and the Nurse to help her end it fast so she
might still be able to save the girl’s life. When they both refuse, she
apparently wills herself to death.
But before
she does, she invites him to lay with her which, in spite of his timidity, he
does. It’s a touching moment not simply because she’s opened herself to the
man, but because she wants to sacrifice her life so the child may have a chance
to live.
So while
Impervious takes place in a hospice, the story is about how one woman comes
alive in the last moments before she goes.
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