BLOOD AND WATER' EXPLORES DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES

 PARENTING AND THE PROBLEM OF KIDS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published March 3, 2022)

‘Blood and Water’ by Stewardz Production is apparently a sequel to an earlier play staged last year entitled ‘I Will Not Marry’ which unfortunately I did not see.

The director and playwright Malvin Idachi was good enough to start his show with a short scene which I think was meant to give us the gist of what happened in ‘I will not marry’ Part one. We would then be prepared to watch Part two.

Issuing a disclaimer at the outset, I confess I would be better equipped to comment on this play if I had seen part one before last Sunday afternoon when ‘Blood and Water’ was staged at Kenya National Theatre.

We are introduced to Amanda (Selina) and Ted (Joel Mureithi) who at one time were a happy couple very much in love. ‘It was out of love that Ted got a vasectomy since he didn’t want to have any children,’ Mureithi told The Weekender shortly after coming off stage last Sunday afternoon.

‘But Amanda had cheated on Ted [in ‘I will not marry’], and got pregnant with Morgan’s (Felix Mtetezi) child,” Mureithi adds. That first play ended with no one knowing if Ted would forgive Amanda who apparently preferred Ted to Morgan in any case.

Now comes ‘Blood and Water’ which seems to be a story about retribution among other issues related to youth and parenting. The production addresses problems that young people are facing today. Those include things like bullying, premarital sex among teens, corporal punishment of children in schools, and parental favoring of one sibling over another.

The issue of incest is quite overt. It made me wonder whether the play, which at times felt almost pornographic (for Kenya, that is), was well-suited for small children to watch. There is a veneer of slap-stick humor that made the little ones seated next to me at Kenya National Theatre laugh. That happened when, for instance, the two secondary school girls, Delilah (Alicia Muthoni) and Sonny (Lindsay Andika) fought physically, simultaneously with Delilah’s brother Samson (Wayne Mukhweso) fighting raucously with Butita (Alex Muange).

There were a few loose ends that never get fully explained in ‘Blood and Water’. For instance, how did Amanda end up raising two kids, not just one? She was accused by Ted of favoring her daughter over her son. But then in the end, we find out Samson has a different mother who only shows up in the last scene. Could that be the reason Amanda isn’t kind to him? She suffers from that the syndrome of only caring about one’s own ‘blood’ or family relations, and not so much anyone else’s.

Sam already has major mental problems before he discovers Ted isn’t his dad, and nobody can tell him who his actual father is. Maybe even his new ‘blood’ mother Auko (Ruth Kagia) doesn’t know.

Sam has a drinking problem, which looks symptomatic of a deeper personal dilemma. The script suggests that Sam might be intersexual, meaning neither fully male nor female, but a mix of both. This is a major issue in gender studies, but I have never seen it portrayed on the Kenya stage before. It is just unfortunate that the topic wasn’t more clearly explored in the play. Instead, it was sidelined when Sam discovers he has the hots for his ‘sister’ Delilah and acts on that incestuous desire.

Sam’s curiosity about who his father is mainly due to his being raised to believe his dad was Ted. In the last scene, Amanda and Morgan come clean and reveal who his father is. But their ‘cleansing’ doesn’t come like a healing balm. Instead, one is led to see why it doesn’t pay to keep secrets or to let lies fester. The consequences play out when the children grow up and similar issues repeat themselves.

Take for instance, Sam’s alcoholism and incestuous feelings as well as Delilah’s inexplicable pregnancy (another question of whodunit?) since there are apparently several candidates for patronage, including her own brother.

One incident that brings these complications to light is Sam’s decision to do some investigations of his own. He looks into the issue of his family’s DNA, apparently to find out more about his own background. He apparently has had an inkling that people other than Amanda and Ted are his real parents. And he’s right!

But one isn’t sure what the playwright is trying to say. It’s a tragedy that all these people seem to be confused. Perhaps it’s an accurate reflection of Kenyan society today.