By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 11 March 2020)
Talking heads
currently occupy a big chunk of time on local TV discussing a range of topics.
But I doubt if any of them have ever deliberated on the one addressed last
weekend when Back to Basics premiered in Nick Ndeda’s third original script
simply entitled ‘The Debate’.
“It might be
difficult to imagine that a show where the cast sits in one place for the whole
play can be exciting. But you’ll be surprised to find that it is” says Ndeda
just before the Sunday night performance of the script that he co-wrote with
B2B founder, Mbeki Mwalimu.
“The story
was her idea. It was my job to translate her thoughts into the scripted play,”
he says modestly. It was a challenge he’d taken on twice before, first when he
wrote ‘Man Moments’, inspired by one act of B2B’s ‘Breeze II’, and then,
‘Decompressed’ which the company staged last
December.
‘The Debate’
takes place on the TV talk show ‘Live at 9’, anchored by Donna Jawali (Mwikali
Mary) whose program apparently thrives on controversial topics that pick up top
ratings every week.
But the
topic of ‘Rape in Marriage’ generates even more explosive energy than even
Donna can control.
(L-R) Gilbert, Bilal, Mwikali, Wakio and Agnes in Live@9
“The show
wasn’t really meant to be a comedy since it’s a serious topic,” Ndeda says.
“But there are several moments in the show that audiences find funny,” he says,
understating the amusement local audiences found, especially in the contentious
word battles that went on between hardcore radical feminist, Dr Monika Marete
(Wakio Mzenge.) and bombastic alpha-male chauvinist and divorcee, Kamau wa
Kamau (Gilbert Lukalia).
The other
two debaters who also brought their own far-out perspectives to the debate are
Pastor Ingrid (Agnes Kola) of the MCN (Middle Class Nairobi) church and the
writer and rape survivor, Tom (Bilal Mwaura).
Donna is
delighted to bring up the topic on TV since Kenyans, until recently, rarely
spoke in public, leave alone on TV, about sex. It’s a titillating topic that’s
still taboo to discuss publicly, leave alone debate. Even the issue of rape is
usually discussed only in euphemistic terms such as ‘domestic abuse’ or
‘violence against women.’
So to hear
Donna announce her show’s theme of marital rape is a stunner despite her
quoting actual news reports of rape on the rise countrywide. It is her debaters
who flesh out the topic, often vehemently convinced of the correctness of their
radical positions.
Their
deliberations makes for explosive moments when not even Donna can cool down the
heated debates over everything from conjugal rights and marital servitude to
sex as a gift from God and women as ‘sex toys or baby-making machines.
Kamau even
insists that spousal rape is a myth; it doesn’t exist. He dismisses the subject
outright. His view is that matrimonial vows implicitly accord marital and
sexual rights, irrespective of whether one spouse consents to the advances of
the other or not.
Dr Monika will
have none of that. She adamantly rejects Kamau’s views on everything from the
irrelevance of consent to ‘foreplay’ being unnecessary. The word wars between
them get so highly charged that Donna finally has to kick them both off the
set.
But it is
Pastor Ingrid who has the most dumbfounding positions on marital rape. Her
perspective is similar to Kamau’s. She agrees there is no such thing as rape in
marriage since women are meant to ‘satisfy’ their men in all respects. Both she
and Kamau claim wedlock not only assures sexual rights but responsibilities as
well. He bases his argument on marital vows while her basis for accepting
subordination to her man is Bible-based. But either way, Dr Monika sees marriage
on their terms as woman being enslaved to her spouse.
But it is
Tom who drops the IED (Improvised Explosive Device) on the show when he says he
knows first-hand that marital rape is real because he has been raped by his
wife.
Tom, despite
being a shy, introverted writer, confesses he has a low sex drive which means
his wife was never ‘satisfied’. Getting graphic about what she did to him is
the final ‘juicy bit’ that heightened Kamau’s careless ‘trash talk’ and
Monika’s ferocious rebuttal. It also inspires Ingrid to stand up and sing a
hymn to comfort Tom.
The
dissonance of that final row leads to Donna ousting both Monika and Kamau as
her last resort to reclaiming control of her live show.
B2B has been
bold and innovative from the start, but The Debate takes the cake!
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