TOO FUNNY SHOWS ARE STILL TOO SILLY FOR WORDS

By Margaretta wa gacheru (written April 29-30, 2023) If I were to write everything that I feel about too funny productions, I would be hurting too many feelings to allow myself to see the publishing of the story go through. First, the group should reconsider their name since they are really Too Silly more than too funny. Next I would suggest that the producer, director, scriptwriter, and founder of the group, Shaggie aka Joseph Nderitu, went back to school and learned a bit more about how to do all the things a theatre company should do and be. First thing would be to decentralize control of the group so that one person is not the company. Shaggie cannot do everything from script writing to directing and producing his play. Not to mention being in charge of his own theatre company. Is this a benevolent dictatorship or what? Maybe not, but it isn’t fair and it isn’t healthy for the company to have one person be responsible for everything. Especially one person who has not had professional training in all that Shaggie seems to claim expertise in. Once a person not only writes but directs his own plays, he cannot easily be corrected or edited. He needs to be working with a team, and he needs to have at least one other pair of eyes reading the text and ensuring it is coherent as well as capable of captivating an audience’s attention. The writer may believe he has produced a winning script, but then he is biased without doubt. He needs someone to tell him if he has rattled on too long on one subject or if his play doesn’t make sense or if there are small tweeks that need to be made to ensure the perfect transitions between scenes. Plus, ending can be tricky and need to be double checked. And comedy is especially difficult since one man’s sense of humor isn’t always in sync with another man’s or woman’s. And in these times when women and minorities are especially sensitive to ways they are being addressed, it is imperative that another person check the script to see if it is squeeky clean of objectionable comments. Acting is also a critical component that needs to be addressed. People do not need to shout to be heard or be argumentative for its own sake. Plus, a script cannot be a success just being silly or slap stick or even funny. There needs to be some meaning and some feeling underlying the story’s action to be of any significance at all. Otherwise, the show is a waste of time, and a bore that is vacuous and lacking in depth. Meaning is a tricky thing, but jokes can be powerful when they point to something greater in significance. They need to be either part of an allegory or metaphor or parable. They need to potentially be symbolic and have some higher implications. Otherwise, jokes for their own sake are useless and worthwhile only to folks who have nothing else to do. And then there is the subject of death that arises as a central feature of ‘The shorter the monkey’ which Too Funny staged only on April 29th at 3pm and 6pm. Every character in the play was glib about the death of Pato (Lewis Otieno). As it turns out, he never died, but his wife and best friend, (the supposed best friend who ‘killed’ him) believed he had died. Yet nobody wept. Pato’s wife Emma wept but she did so mainly because she had learned the guy had been unfaithful to her. She only wept after drinking too much alcohol and becoming a blithering idiot. Otherwise, the supposed dead body became a prop to throw around the stage as the ‘killer; Allan and his house-help Silas both tossed the body of Pato around as if it were a sack of potatoes. One has to hand it to Pato for having the flexibility and patience to play dead so effectively. And he, in his silence, was seriously funny once his body started moving, and no one of the idiots could fathom how the body moved. Obviously, one could have deduced that Pato wasn’t dead. But no, nobody figured that one out until the very end of the play. Allan’s wife Eve arrived late in the story, but she was quick to pick up the insensitivity required to not care that their family friend Pato was dead. The big issue instead was where to dump the body. Eve was best at being cold and calculating about what to do next. She demanded that the guys get moving on this one. But neither she nor anyone among them showed an iota of remorse. All that was sought was the best mode of ‘cover up’. Let’s not get caught killing somebody, was the angle that seemed to come out among this unfortunate crew. But then there were so many diversions, distractions and detours to taking this story forward that it became tedious to watch the repetition of run arounds that constituted most of The Monkey. Anyway, Pato lived and the police investigator that showed up at Allan’s house was a big help in finally bringing the story to an end. But the ending itself was quite anti-climactic. In any case, I still haven’t seriously spilt the beans regarding my true feelings about this latest Too Funny production. I think it is probably because I have been harboring these sentiments ever since I was introduced to their shows. My complaints have been the same, but I will tell them all in private consultations with anyone who wants to know my true views of the group. Otherwise, have a good day, and please suggest that not every so-called comedy has to end as a cliff hanger. There are a variety of ways to say good night. Like now.