LION KING RADICALLY REVISED IN SPARKLING SHENG
By
Margaretta wa Gacheru
On a scale
of one to ten, the senior students from KCA University nearly scored a jackpot
with their premiere performance of ‘Simba Bazenga: A Musical Play’ at Kenya
National Theatre this past week.
They get
high marks for everything from choreography, costuming, and sensitive acting to
lighting, set design, and set changes which were swift and inconspicuous.
The only
thing that dropped the bar a bit (but didn’t undercut my view that KCAU just
produced the best musical theatre work of 2021, hands down) was that delicate
mix of technology and live theatre.
“The
software let us down,” says the show’s director, Ogutu Muraya who also lectures
in KCAU’s Department of Arts, Film, Media, and Economic Studies. “It’s the
reason we were a half hour late in starting,” he adds. Yet he didn’t need to
explain the delay since school students were still streaming into KNT during
those moments in any case.
It was
Muraya’s choice to risk a glitch just so his students could a taste of current
theatrical trends which definitely include mixing live performance with digital
technology. But by creating theatrical backdrops with beautiful images
projected from a computer, the outcome was bound to be dicey. It mostly worked well
(apart from a couple of brief glitches) at the Friday matinee, creating moods
most relevant to the tale that turned out to be a radical, indigenized
adaptation of Disney’s The Lion King, workshopped and scripted by Silas Temba.
“We’d prefer
to say the show was inspired by The Lion King, but you could see the
many differences,” Muraya told Weekender when we met after the show. In
fact, Simba Bazenga was a brilliant modification of the original tale, starting
with replacing English with Sheng and Swahili.
The show is
still about family, identity, and responsibility. It’s also about power,
betrayal, jealousy, and justice. But the fact that it’s set in urban Nairobi, not
on some idyllic African savannah, makes the whole story come alive with urban
sights and sounds.
Musically,
the show is again a mix of many of the Lion King classics like The Circle of
Life. But the score was also revised and indigenized by Rodgers Ng’inja who
picked up another classic, ‘Hakuna Matata’ only to transform it into a reggae
romp. The song has different connotations now. It marks the moment when the
young prince Simba, (played charmingly by Sandra Chadota) stops grieving and
feeling guilty about his father’s death. He essentially turns his back on his
destiny and identity, and takes a mindless, ‘don’t care’ attitude towards his
life.
That’s
exactly what his uncle Scar (Emmanuel Barasa) wanted him to do. Having been
instrumental in his brother’s death, uncle then went on to convince Simba he was
responsible for his father’s demise, and had better flee for his life, which he
does.
That left
the field open for Scar to claim he is now heir to the throne. Jealousy had
enflamed his cruel scheme to dethrone his stately brother. It got him the title
and time enough to bring devastation to the Pride Lands and mourning to people
who felt the double loss of both father and son.
Simba would
have been lost in the wilderness forever if it hadn’t been for Rafiki (Kulola
Kitatu) the female shaman, who serves as a sort of narrator. She stumbles upon
Simba (now played by Mikal Otieno), reminds him of his role and responsibility
to his people. She compels him to come home and reclaim what is rightfully his.
The only problem
is that Simba has spent years living in shame, trying to crowd out the feeling
he was responsible for the death of his dad. He comes home, only to be reckoned
a coward by his best friend Nala (Sharon Chelang’at) who rejects the ‘don’t
care’ man that he’d become.
It is her
strong rejection that finally wakes him up to regain his courage of conviction
and join the struggle to retrieve the Pride Lands and his place at the
legitimate leader of his people.
Simba
Bazenga was so professionally performed that one can hardly believe it was a
final students’ assignment in Muraya’s theatre arts class. But it’s all the
better for illustrating the calibre of theatre that university students can create
when they are tutored well.
Ogutu Muraya may be better known as an internationally acclaimed storyteller than a theatre
arts teacher. KCAU is fortunate in having him on staff, and clearly his
students are as well.
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