COLD HEARTED CONMAN GETS AWAY WITH HIS CON

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (8 October 2022)

Slapstick is a style of comedy that requires an expert sense of timing, tone, texture, and technique. It’s not my favorite sub-genre of comedy. But it’s the one Peter Tosh’s Liquid Theatre group chose last weekend when they staged ‘Cold Heart’ at Kenya Cultural Centre.

The main source of the excessive noise and frenetic energy derived from the relationship between our sugar-tongued protagonist, Rex (Stephen Mwangi) and his partner in wheeler-dealing Bill (Caleb Kuria).

One never quite caught what their wheeler-dealing was all about. It could simply be that they were both conmen, committed to covering for one another when they were close to getting caught.

That seems to be why Bill shows up shortly after Rex and his newly-wedded wife Penina (Isabella Moraa) have arrived home after their two-week honeymoon. Bill brings in a flurry of frenetic energy because he’s successfully made a deal with some doctor to see Penina at a specific time. The guys have apparently calculated that while the wife is away, Rex’s so-called fiancée Brandy (Faith Wambui) will be flying in from South Africa.

Normally, it would make no sense for a man newly married to a blind woman have her visit her doctor without her loving spouse by her side. But no, despite the first moments of the play being all about Rex making emphatic promises of eternal devotion to his wife, he lets her go it alone. Meanwhile, he plans to await the fiancée at his house which again makes no sense. But we will chalk this off to slapstick.

Initially, Rex doesn’t look like a Casanova-type, or the kind of guy who can pick up and drop his women in the blink of an eye. But how else can we understand his being okay with having two women finding their way back to him without his concern for what sparks will fly or what sort of animosity will ensue once they understand they are not the only woman in Rex’s life.

In fact, they are not the only women. There’s Rex’s mom (Veronica Mwangi) also arrives on the scene, only to meet the pesty landlord Charles (Majestic Steve) who’s demanding Rex’s back rent or else. Mom is there to be a mainstay support to Penina who she wants to see pregnant with her grandchildren. Ten is the number she wants. But as neither the son, wife, nor fiance are home when she arrives, she meets Charles whom she gives a piece of her mind. Mom is the toughest of the bunch and even tells off Bill once she meets this noisy trouble-maker.

But Mom also gets into the slapstick mode once she must deal with Bill and Rex. The two guys are out to obfuscate their deals from the mom as well as everyone else, including us, the audience. But when she comes too close, Bill pretends to have some sort of seizure that compels her to go out and find special dawa to heal him. Of course, it’s one more trick that the two do to keep the mom at bay.

The climax comes when the two women, Penina and Brandy meet and figure out they both have claims on Rex. A physical fight ensues but ultimately, Penina takes a stand. She claims everyone must get out of her house! So they do. But as Rex wasn’t there then, by the time he shows up, she’s now ready to leave since she’s seen he’s no better than a lying Casanova, not a spouse.

But Rex seems to be the ‘Cold Heart’ who doesn’t really care that she’s left. He lives on, still apt at wooing another woman.  This time she is Bree (Maria Mutake) who has just paid Charles a deposit on Rex’s house. The moment they meet, he is back on track. Rex easily charms the new woman and proves once again he’s an impeccable conman and Casanova who to me, seems to have not a ‘cold heart’ but a hot one which is ever able to adapt and make himself desirable to any woman he wants. And now it’s Bree.

Tosh’s script has a few holes in it this time. For instance, how can a man who affords a fancy wedding and honeymoon not able to pay his rent? And why get married at all, given Rex’s love of the ladies? His incentive and intention are never made plain. And why did Penina pretend to be blind? Building backstories for characters is always helpful for readers.