AGEISM DEFIED BY THE KU ‘COUGAR’

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written September 30,2022, revised 23.10.22)

The Cougar, which was first staged at KU and came back last weekend at KCC, is all about a wealthy businesswoman, named Nelly (Joy Kairu) who falls in love with a young man who coincidentally is the same age as her best friend (Rebecca Chemcutai) Mary’s son Nun.

Nun (Trevor Aseri) had never met his mother’s BFF while growing up. And she had never seen him before her employee Jeff (Ian Wachira) brought him to check out a possible job in her company (which he did at KU). Once she set her eyes on him, the sparks began to fly. Apparently, he was attracted to her too. However, he was already ‘taken’ by Calmer (Laureen Wangari), a sweet young innocent who was Jeff’s life-long friend. (For some reason, their encounter was removed by Cougar director Victor Muyekwe.)

Jeff is at the centre of this story since he knows both Nun and Calmer well. He is also a trusted employee of Nelly. Yet we don’t know much about him. In fact, we don’t know back stories for any of the characters in the play.

 Muyekwe is a playwright who both scripted and directed The Cougar. He also started his own theatre company, which is admirable. But in future, he will need to flesh out his characters more.

What we do know about Jeff from his behavior is that he’s schizophrenic and has horrific mood swings even when he speaks to Calmer, the girl he claims to love. He claims he never told her his true feelings for her because he feared rejection. That anxiety could be the cause of his bottled-up emotions bursting out abruptly while trying to speak about his feelings for her.

It's the Cougar that we would like to know better. We don’t know if she had ever been married or if she has hung out with many men. We don’t know how wealthy she is or where that wealth came from. Did she inherit it, earn it through her own sweat or through the sweat of her staff?

In any case, Nellie has it and wants someone to share it with. Why doesn’t she find someone her own age, her friend Mary asks after Nellie reveals she’s in love with a younger man. In principle, Mary is against the whole concept of the older predatory female cougar. Even before she discovers that Nellie’s lover is her son, Mary is adamantly opposed to cougarism. She doesn’t buy the idea that she is limiting her friend’s freedom of choice. To her it is immoral. And besides, what would other people think? Nellie couldn’t care less.

Another issue of the character development has to do with Nun. Here is a guy who, one-minute expresses ‘eternal love’ for Calmer, but the next minute he adores Nellie and carelessly dumps his campus queen Calmer. Jeff sheds some light on Nun’s character when he tries to tell Calmer Jeff made a play for her to prove to Jeff that he had the power to do it.

Part of the reason we don’t understand Nun well is Muyekwe’s directorial decision to remove the scene where he and the Cougar first meet.After that, we see no evolution of their affair so we still wonder about his motivation. We know he’s told Jeff he was overwhelmed with loving emotions for Nell from the outset. But really, is it ‘true love’ that he feels or does he simply look forward to enjoying the security of her money?

The one character whose intentions are clear is Jeff. He’s been hot for Calmer since childhood but never dared to tell her so. Now that she confirms his worst fear, that she’d reject him, he’s convinced he has not choice, “If he can’t have her in life, then they can be forever together in death,” Victor tells BDLife at KU during my two hour wait for his show to begin.

There were two fight scenes at KCC. One in which calmer tries to clobber Nun for robbing her of her virginity and leaving her like a stray dog. The other is where the two older women tussle until they are interrupted by Calmer’s dying before their eyes, having drunk the poison prepared for her by Jeff who follows after her having suicidally drunk the same stuff as her.

Cougar came off better in some respects at KCC. But the lost scene which was present at KU made the show more understandable and complete.