NOMADS SHOWCASED IN MARIANTONIETTA’S SHOW

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted May 30, 2023) Long before Marieantonietta Peru met the international travel writer, desert explorer, and camel caravan guide Michael Asher, she had a passion for the wilderness and the nomadic people that lived there. She had been working for UNICEF as a communications officer, based initially in Sudan for three years before their fateful meeting in Somalia. She had already spent years photographing the people as UNICEF addressed issues of famine and hunger in the region. But now she was intent to travel to remote regions of Somalia that could only be reached by camel. Asher was said to be the best camel caravan guide, and indeed he was. But his next project was to trek across the Sahara 7200 kilometers on foot and by camel from east to west without backup or technology of any kind. Mariantonietta was enthralled. She asked if she could come along. “I had to quit my job with UNICEF in order to go, but I had no problem with that,” she told BDLife at the opening of her current photographic showcase at Tribal Gallery in Loresho entitled ‘African Eyes’. She is also the only woman known to have made that journey. But that was only the beginning of their treks around the region.

The elegant black and white photographs date back to the mid-1980s after she left UNICEF. The exceptions are snaps like the ‘Beja Girl, Sudan’ which won her first photo awards. Since then, she and Asher have traveled all over Africa together, mainly to remote areas where they have met nomads who are less known than the Maasai or Turkana. The husband-and-wife team share many interests including their both being fluent in Arabic. She has both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Arabic studies. And he has been speaking it throughout his travels. It has been useful, especially when they have ventured into remote areas, among little-known peoples like the Shilluk of South Sudan, the Hamar of Ethiopia, the Mucawona of Angola, and even the nomadic Tajouj Gabra of Kenya who Mariantonietta met in the Chalbi Desert. Asked if she saw any correlation between her work at that of Africa Adorned author Angela Fisher, she said her interest were in Africa unadorned, meaning men and women in their natural nomadic lifestyles, without need to adorn themselves to be beautiful.

Yet virtually all her portraits are of people who have either scarification or bead and metal accessories worn around their head and necks. The most stunning is a Rashaida woman immigrant originally from eastern Sudan. She has on a mask or burqa covering her whole face apart from her eyes made out of silver filigree. “Her people are originally Bedoins from Saudi Arabia who historically have regularly crisscrossed the Red Sea between both countries,” explains Mariantonietta. “They are best known for being smugglers of things, mainly from the mainland to Saudi,” elaborates Asher whose books often make reference to indigenous peoples of Africa. But two of his best-known books are about T.E. Lawrence, better known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and his seminal biography of the renowned British explorer, travel writer, and decorated military officer, Sir Wilfred Thesiger, whose life story he was researching when he met his future wife.

Together the two of them have travel all over Africa, but the images in her current show feature mainly women from Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Morocco, and Namibia. Her three men are from Ethiopia, one from Arbore, who she calls ‘Sindbad’, the other from Hamar covered in beads and metal wires, and a third from the Mursi people who she named Narcissus man because she thought “he was so beautiful,” Mariantonietta says. Then, there is one Shilluk herdsboy who is from South Sudan.

Otherwise, her nomadic women come from Kababish in Sudan, from Afar, Suri, Arbore, and Dassanach in Ethiopia, Himba in Namibia, and Macawona in Angola. Some of her images have been taken as recently as in the last six months while others were pre-pandemic. But always, she has gotten to know her subjects first. “I wanted the capture their eyes because I believe eyes are windows into the soul, revealing in these people a sense of authentic human-ness rarely seen in our artificial mechanized world,” she told BDLife. She says she also aims to capture a feeling of “connection with self, with others, and with the Divine that nature-based people have, but that we in the industrial world have largely lost.”

ROCK ‘N ROLL REVISITED IN ROCK OF AGES

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 5.22.23) Rock of Ages was a wild ride last weekend. It’s a high-octane ode to rock and roll music of the 1980s by Chris D’Arienzo and staged by KADS, the Kenya Amateur Dramatics Society. It’s set mainly in Los Angeles, where a naïve and innocent Sherrie (Rainbow Field) has always dreamed of going to fulfill her ambition to become a singer and a star. But just as she gets off her bus from Kansas in LA, she is robbed of her most precious possessions, her music albums. Shortly thereafter, she meets Drew (Emma Whithill), a songwriter and singer who also has ambitions but works now as a server at the Bourbon Club where he manages to help Sherrie get a job.

Their friendship blossoms, crashes several times, and nearly dies. But since ‘love never dies’, they have to get together in the end. Before that happens, we get to hear fabulous rock and roll songs originally from ‘Glam metal’ bands like Journey, Bon Jovi, and Styx performed largely by a live musical ensemble of amazing Kenyan instrumentalists: Three guitarists, one keyboardist who also plays sax, and one drummer. The only problem with them was that the sound technician didn’t balance the volume of the band with that of the voices, so there were many songs we couldn’t hear well. Nonetheless, the songs were right on key and got the audience taping their toes to the beat.

Otherwise, the set design was superlative. On stage at Braeburn Theatre, Gitanga, the set comfortably included the Bourbon Room bar and back room, the Venus Strip Club, the dressing room of the alcoholic rock star Stacee Jaxx (Mass Monte), and chorus lines of dancers and singers who swirled around the stage. Then there was the second floor where Drew lived and invited Sherrie to come listen to his original songs. It’s also where they ‘fell in love’ while dancers below dramatized what was ‘going on’ upstairs with the couple.

There were several scenes that reflected the ‘free love’ ethic of the Eighties, as for instance when Stacee Jaxx hooked the Rolling Stone magazine journalist, and even when the Mayor’s secretary gave ‘gratuitously’ to the Mayor. But KADS warned the public in advance that the show was strictly an adults only affair. The struggle to keep the Bourbon Room afloat could easily be seen as part of a culture war between conservative opponents of Rock and Roll, led by the Mayor’s wife and the Bourbon which showcases rock bands like Stacee Jaxx’s Arsenal. Stacee has just left his band and gone solo since he’s the bigger star. He gets scheduled to perform at the Bourbon. But when he suddenly cancels, Drew gets his chance to be a curtain raiser which initially looks like a great opportunity. But the people who get him booked in are also the ones killing the Bourbon with their fees. What’s worse is that Drew has to join a Boy Band that sings anything but Rock and Roll, which is what Drew loves. When, in the eleventh hour, Stacee shows up to perform, he’s drunk but just as erotically charismatic as ever and has girls fainting in his presence. Even Sherrie falls prey to Stacee’s toxic charms. She apparently doesn’t get swept up into his sexual lair, but she looks compromised to Drew who rejects her, even when she insists she didn’t get involved with the rock star.

Emma Whithill has the most exquisite voice in the show. Fortunately, she didn’t try to modify it while she played Drew. Instead, she made her moves like a guy and carried off Drew’s character well. She even came down off the stage for one song which she played on keyboard. Stacee also had a powerful voice although as he was an alcoholic, he had few occasions to sing. Sherrie was also quite good, although it was Venus’ owner who had the volume and the brass to sing ‘Harden my heart’ to Sherrie. Costuming in Rock of Ages (originally an 18th century hymn) is also amazing. For instance, one can see the antithetical nature of the culture wars in the costumes, as for instance with the conservative anti-Rock women and the erotic dancer-type women who stand with the Bourbon Club crowd. As in its name, KADS has quite a few amateurs among them but they’re interspersed with amazing professionals who gave the show the perfect polish required to ensure Rock of Ages delighted all who came to see, dance and sing along with the Rock’n Roll.

THE SHOW THAT WENT WRONG WAS JUST RIGHT FOR APERTURE AFRICA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted 5.22.23) Aperture Africa hit the heights of hilarity recently when they staged ‘The play that goes Wrong’ at Kenya National Theatre. Amar and Jinita Desai, the show’s producers, were quickly being asked to restage the play since so many early bookings filled the seats for all five performances even before the show opened late last month. Word had gone round early that ‘Wrong’ was a winner, and that it’s still going strong on Broadway and on London’s West End after years due to its enduring appeal. What also kicked up interest were the short video ads featuring stars, like Yafesi Musoke (last seen in ‘Because you said so’) and Bilal Wanjau (one of Kenya’s leading film and stage veterans) whose humor and wit literally oozed out of the videos. Then, once people heard who else was in the cast, they booked their seats straight away. That’s because it included folks like Vikash Pattni (who plays a corpse through much of the show), Daniel Lee Hird (the corrupt police inspector), Davina Leonard (the seductive cheating-diva fiancée), Hiren Vara (the insidious bride-snatching brother to the ‘murder victim’), Nixsha Shah (who pulls more punches than one could imagine coming from such a petite gamin), and Adarsh Shah (who’s come back to theatre at last). But it was director Amar Desai who brought them altogether to create this whirlwind of a slap-stick production that transcends traditional comedy by being a show in which literally everything goes wrong. The hilarity comes out of the simple theatre adage that ‘the show must go on’. That means even when doors swing off their hinges and paintings fall off the walls, or corpses turn out not to be dead, and a fiancée is anything but faithful to her groom, still the actors carry on and strive to stay in character. But as ingenious as the storyline of ‘Wrong’ may be, (it being about a play within a play and the lines between them being blurred continually) what’s most amusing about the show is watching the actors’ characters cope with all the mishaps that befall them in the play. Take the problem of props, for instance. As simple as a key or a notebook gets misplaced on stage, and the actors had to shift quickly into high gear, pretending that a vase filled with plastic flowers could stand in for a key. Now one might think that only a thespian could understand how realistic such problems could be. But you didn’t need to be a theatre buff to appreciate how actors adjusted to the oddities they were confronted with in this play. One oddity was the way Florence (Davina Leonard) kept getting clobbered by doors and passing out. The characters had to cope with whomever stepped into her part. Initially, it was the back-stage hand Annie (Nixsha Shah). But then, she too gets knocked out by another serendipitous circumstance. Then Trevor (Adarsh Shah), the sound-man had to step in to play the diva. It's fascinating to see how actors can play total idiots and adapt to major mishaps. But that’s what Davina’s character Florence had to do when she gets hit so hard by a heavy door that she’s left ‘unconscious’ on stage. She’s meant to be off so all the men had to ‘discretely’ lift her limp body off stage via a back window. But their discretion gets befuddled by the fallen curtain that should have concealed the supposedly ‘covert’ operation of retrieving her body. It was hilarious to watch and one had to admire Davina’s capacity to be handled like a sack of potatoes. But it was one of the high points of outrageous humor in the show. But the one whose physical comedy made me laugh myself to tears was Yafesi Musoke. First was when, in order to save himself from tumbling down when the upstairs study collapsed, he had to struggle as if he was swimming breast-stroke upstream against a heavy tide. And as awkward as his efforts appeared, they also held us in suspense: would he make it or not? Then, the other moment when he stole the show was when Charles (Vikash Pattni), the former ‘corpse’ rose up to declare why he’d pretended to be dead, and in the process, shoots Yafesi’s character Thomas whose dying moments are deliriously funny. Finally, a nod of appreciation to Amar for his marvelous masterpiece of a set. Congratulations too for the impeccable sound and lighting, all of which ensured the show would go wrong, which was just right for Aperture.

NJERI CONTEMPLATES LIFE AND DEATH PHOTOGRAPHICALLY

by margarettawagacheru (posted 5.21.23) Margaret Njeri Ngigi had been through a ‘dark patch’ while preparing for her first solo exhibition at One Off Art Gallery, which opened late last month and just recently closed. “I’d lost many friends and loved ones, and times were tough,” Njeri told BDLife at the opening. That is how she came up with the cryptic title, “Forever is not ours” and created a series of portraits which are meant to signal Njeri’s mindset of mortality. Yet the beauty of her art is that it can be interpreted in many different ways. For instance, I saw her portraits in a more positive light. The fact that she painted all of her models with black and blue-black paint suggested to me something more like ‘Black power’ and the affirmation of black beauty and strength. Yet there is no doubt that her portraits have an enigmatic expression and pose which allow for Njeri’s more recent interpretation to hold up as well. On the last day of her show at One Off, she held an Artist Talk in which she discussed her ideas with everyone who came to listen. She told BDLife that she had meant for her models to be ethereal spirits (or “ghosts”) who had passed through death and mortality, or at least had moved on into an afterlife that was no longer mortal. Nonetheless, they are observant of the humans, she said. That is why her spirits’ eyes seem to be so watchful and wide-eyed. By accentuating their open eyes, they do seem to be staring and daring, or is it demanding that you pay attention to what you have at the moment, which is your life.

Any which way you wish to look at her portraits, as either mortal or immortal, there is no doubt that they are provocative. For the artist was deliberate in her creative process. Having studied both painting and photography (as well as filmmaking), she employed them both in her mixed media art which she considers to be ‘fine art photography’. First, she had to find seven individuals who didn’t mind having their bodies become Njeri’s canvas on which she planned to paint the blackest black on their skins. The one exception were their eyelids which in stark contrast are pearly white. “I did a bit of photoshopping on their eyes,” she confessed, in hopes that her viewers might feel there was something uncanny, unsettling about these beings. But it might require a bold leap of faith to see that they are no longer human, as Njeri suggested. The other element of her art that seemed to defy her own assessment that it reflected her primary concern with death and mortality is the white oval disk that appears in every one of her paintings.

Acknowledging that the white disk seemed to symbolize a human heart, Njeri concurred. The disk definitely looked like a life force of some sort. In every portrait it looked vibrant, radiant, and strong. So perhaps this is what she meant in the blurb at the front of her catalogue, when she wrote, “Ultimately, my goal is to explore and understand the mysteries of life and death.” When asked if she could cite any specific artists who had inspired her, Njeri was quick to respond that the South African photographer Zanele Muholi was a definite source of inspiration for her. Like her, Muholi works in black and white, but Njeri has chosen to occasionally adorn her black images with other colors. Nonetheless, one can clearly see Muholi’s influence on Njeri’s art. However, conceptually their art has evolved in strikingly divergent ways.

Njeri has a diploma in fine art from Kenyatta University, a Bachelor’s degree in Film Production and Direction from the United States International University. But it was the course that she took in photography that has had the most enduring impact on the direction she wants to go artistically. For instance, it’s her photography that won her awards as in her 2022 winning of the East African Photography Award and the 2020 nomination for the Photo London Emerging Photographer of the year award.

She has exhibited extensively overseas, especially in Art Fairs, several held in Basel, Switzerland and London, UK. She has also had solo exhibitions in London, including one featuring her ‘Murky Waters’ series which was curated by Doyle Wham Art Gallery. In addition to exhibiting through the London gallery, she also works with several others, including the AKKA Project in UAE and One-Off Contemporary Art Gallery.

A PLAY READING LIKE NO OTHER AT GOETHE (draft)

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 5.12.23)

It was a Play Reading like no other. A story told by 10 actors seated before a house-full audience in the congested upstairs library of Goethe Institute. It was also a performance that had never taken place before. That was because the ensemble assembled by director Esther Kamba had decided unanimously to do their first read-through of ‘Ruined’ without a prior rehearsal. “It was agreed to keep it simple and spontaneous,” Esther tells BDLife, referring to the award-winning play by African American playwright Lynn Nottage. And yet, when the time came last Friday night and the reading was about to begin, all ten quickly climbed into their respective characters and gave them ‘full-bodied’ life, using just their voices. It began with Joe Kinyua becoming a kind of narrator, reading the playwright’s instructions to the cast. Those instructions are normally internalized by a show’s director and cast members who are guided by the writer’s ideas. Then, what an audience sees is a show in which the dialogue is blended with the director’s interpretation of everything else that transpires in the play. But in a Play Reading, the audience gets to hear the dialogue but they are left to imagine what those words might translate into on a stage. For instance, I saw the reading of ‘Ruined’ from a cinematic perspective. The actors got into their characters so well that I felt we were with them deep in the heart of Democratic Republic of Congo during the height of a civil war between the State’s military forces and the rebel army.

The play itself is set within a brothel owned and operated by Mama Radi, who is played with a no-nonsense style of humanity by Caroline Odongo. Her brothel is a neutral zone where members from all sides of any conflict can come to drink, eat, and fulfill their lusty desires with women employed and trained by Mama to do the job to her client’s satisfaction. The play is filled with dark humor even as it reflects on the way women’s sexuality has been weaponized such that rape is a tool of torture and a means of destroying a people.

DRC is the first country where rape and sexual assault were finally recognized as weapons of war, just as deadly as an AK47 or assault rifle. The problem was so rampant in Congo that Nottage was commissioned by an American theatre company to write a play about it. Goodman Theatre even sent her to East Africa where she met women who told her many terrible truths about the horrors of what was ruining the lives of women, girls, and the country as a whole. The play that Nottage wrote won her countless awards. It also compelled Esther Kamba to secure the rights to stage it here in Kenya. The play reading was meant to test the waters to see how an audience would appreciate the script. Turns out they loved it, and urged Kamba to perform it as a full production. “But that will cost us more than we can afford just now,” Kamba confessed. Cost didn’t seem to quiet the audience who responded in the affirmative when one crew member asked if they would assist by supporting a future production. The relationships in the play are raw and wonderful. There’s Christian (Arthur Sanya) who regularly brings Mama supplies, and who one day brings two young women to work in the brothel. Sisters Selina (Eileen Bulungu) and Sophia (Agnes Kola) need a safe haven, and Christian knows the Mama can provide them with that. But the Mama can’t be bothered. She is ultimately persuaded to accept them, but only Selina can serve the men fully. Sophia had been so badly damaged sexually that her female organs had been ‘ruined’ for good.

Ironically, Sophia has the most exquisite soprano voice that unfortunately attracts bad men, including top fighting men who threaten Mama who, by playing a shrewd diplomatic set of cards, gets Sophia and her place off the hook. Meanwhile, Sophia is stealing cash from under the Mama’s nose. And when Mama confronts her, Sophia confesses she has heard of an operation to repair her damaged parts. Mama had planned to sack her, but in the end, there is a total turn around. There are other sub-plots in this dazzling play which nearly ends as a tragedy. But finally, there’s a fairy tale ending of the kind you only find in romantic novels like those of Mills and Boon.

Included in the cast were Caroline Odongo, Nyokabi Macharia, Joe Kinyua, Arthur Sanya Mururi, Mugambi Kihara, Esther Kola, Ileene Bulungu, Sundrez Malley, Victor Mwangi, and Steve Njau. A PLAY READING LIKE NO OTHER AT GOETHE By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 5.12.23) It was a Play Reading like no other. A story told by 10 actors seated before a house-full audience in the congested upstairs library of Goethe Institute. It was also a performance that had never taken place before. That was because the ensemble assembled by director Esther Kamba had decided unanimously to do their first read-through of ‘Ruined’ without a prior rehearsal. “It was agreed to keep it simple and spontaneous,” Esther tells BDLife, referring to the award-winning play by African American playwright Lynn Nottage. Yet, when the reading was about to begin, all ten quickly climbed into their respective characters and gave them ‘full-bodied’ life, using just their voices. It began with Joe Kinyua as narrator, reading the playwright’s instructions to the cast. Those instructions are normally internalized by a show’s director and cast who are guided by the writer’s ideas. Then, what an audience sees in a show is dialogue blended with the director’s and cast members’ live interpretation of the play But in a Play Reading, the audience listens to the dialogue but they are left to imagine what those words might translate into on a stage. For instance, I saw the reading of ‘Ruined’ from a cinematic perspective. The actors got into their characters so well that I felt we were with them deep in the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the height of a civil war between the State’s military forces and the rebel army. The play itself is set within a brothel owned and operated by Mama Radi, who is played with a no-nonsense style of humanity by Caroline Odongo. Her brothel is a neutral zone where members from all sides of any conflict can come to drink and fulfill their lusty desires with women employed and trained by Mama to do the job to her clients’ satisfaction. The play is filled with dark humor even as it reflects on the way women’s sexuality has been weaponized such that rape is a tool of torture and a means of destroying a people. DRC is the first country where rape and sexual assault were finally recognized as weapons of war, just as deadly as an AK47 or assault rifle. The problem was so rampant in Congo that Nottage was commissioned by an American theatre company to write a play about it. Goodman Theatre even sent her to East Africa where she met women who told her many terrible truths about the horrors of what was ruining the lives of women, girls, and the country as a whole. The play that Nottage wrote won her countless awards. It also compelled Esther Kamba to secure the rights to stage it here in Kenya. The play reading was meant to test the waters to see whether an audience would appreciate the script. Turns out they loved it, and urged Kamba to perform it as a full production. “But that will cost us more than we can afford just now,” Kamba confessed. Cost didn’t seem to quiet the audience who responded in the affirmative when one crew member asked if they would support a future production. The relationships in the play are raw and wonderful. There’s Christian (Arthur Sanya) who regularly brings Mama supplies, and who one day brings two young women to work in the brothel. Sisters Selina (Eileen Bulungu) and Sophia (Agnes Kola) need a safe haven, and Christian knows the Mama can provide them with that. But the Mama can’t be bothered. She is ultimately persuaded to accept them, but only Selina can serve the men fully. Sophia had been so badly damaged sexually that her female organs had been ‘ruined’ for good. Ironically, Sophia has the most exquisite soprano voice that unfortunately attracts bad men, including top fighting men who threaten Mama who, by playing a shrewd diplomatic set of cards, gets Sophia and her place off the hook. Meanwhile, Sophia is stealing cash from under the Mama’s nose. And when Mama confronts her, Sophia confesses she has heard of an operation to repair her damaged parts. Mama had planned to sack her, but in the end, there is a total turn around. There are other sub-plots in this dazzling play which nearly ends as a tragedy. But finally, there’s a fairy tale ending of the kind you only find in romantic novels like those of Mills and Boon. Included in the cast were Caroline Odongo, Nyokabi Macharia, Joe Kinyua, Arthur Sanya Mururi, Mugambi Kihara, Esther Kola, Ileene Bulungu, Sundrez Malley, Victor Mwangi, and Steve Njau.

MILLAZ’S FIRST MURDER MYSTERY TAKES CUES FROM AGATHA CHRISTIE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (April 9, 2023)

One thing that’s most laudable about Millaz Productions is that they give young people a chance to take on challenging roles, like director and playwright, roles that tend to be occupied by older guys, not younger girls. But it happened during ‘Midnight Train’, which was scripted by Saumu Kombo, 27, who began her literary career as a poet, then shifted to scriptwriting. But this was her first murder mystery, which was a valiant challenge. Then there is Terry Munyeria, 28, who directed a Millaz production for the first time after previously doing everything from stage management and set design to acting in previous Millaz shows. Speaking to BDLife right after the show’s Sunday matinee at Kenya National Theatre, Terry explains that she’s been with Millaz for the last three years, and loves the way aspiring thespians are learning on the job.

Constructing the semblance of a train on KNT’s massive stage, Terry says she didn’t actually build the sets, but it was her idea to construct the three separate cabins to enable the action to flow from two luxury suites to the kitchen. The play begins with chaos as crew members ignore the pre-wedding party and simply appear in places that are above their pay grade. That includes the cooks, Josiah (Mike Ndeda) and Hawa (Leila Tasha) who are part of the commotion that transpires throughout the play. Their presence lends an element of comic relief, except that Josiah is the first to get murdered mysteriously. But moments before the cooks appear, there’s the security guard, George (Emmanuel Chindia) and his girlfriend Lola (Vivian Nyawira) who move right into the bride-to-be’s suite. Lola is a trash talker, who is especially rude to the bride, calling her nasty names and claiming she’s too old for Yusuf, the groom. Meanwhile, George looks innocuous, but we soon learn how looks can be deceiving.

Moving on, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the demise of one person on the train after another. In fact, at the station, before the train takes off, an announcer promises the ride will be a happy, fulfilled trip, so everyone should relax. Unfortunately, the announcer got it all wrong. This trip is meant to be joyful, desined by two wedding planners (Precious Mawia and Ann Nyawino) especially for bride and groom to be, Maria (Ileene Anyona) and Yusuf (Robinson Mudavadi). Instead, the train turns into a nightmare shortly after it leaves the station. Initially, things get bad for Maria after she sees Yusuf heading off with his ex-girlfriend, who is not on the guest list, but got invited by the groom. That leads Maria to seriously consider cancelling the wedding. From then on, the squabbling spreads like wildfire among everyone from the wedding planners to Maria and her girlfriend, Naima (Terry Ngangi) to the cooks who compound the confusion and finally, to the security guard who turns out to be more about insecurity than security. The groom is nowhere to be seen. But then a set of boxes, apparently gifts, from Yusuf to Maria arrive, as if to placate the bride. She’s pleased, but then the first box she opened is filled with bloody body parts which freak everyone out.

Suddenly, they all realize there must be a murderer on the train. (We never find out who the body parts belong to, but nobody seems to care). Maria is most distressed, and has reason to be, since a string of murders are taking place all around her. They seem to be random killings, since there are no clues and no one on the train looks like an assassin. No one actually witnesses the killings, since they seem timed to coincide with electrical blackouts. Finally, the killer shows his hand. It’s George, the so-called security guard, who identifies himself as the founder-member of the Midnight Train Murder Club. It is a surprise that takes too long to emerge. But when it finally does, he says he’s going to first finish off the bride and groom and then the cook and maybe even his own girlfriend. At the last minute, the groom finally arrives, but he instantly gets clobber by George, and all looks lost. Fortunately, there is one last hope. It’s Yusuf’s wise old grandfather who appears just in time to save the day. He finishes George, ending the show on quite a violent note. But as it’s Kenya’s first original murder mystery, it’s a good beginning.

TICAH'S DISRUPTIVE REALITIES SPARK INGENIOUS ART (draft)

TICAH embarked on a rare and risky experiment this past week when they brought together more than a score of artists and professionals to Goethe Institute, and asked them to think about reality. Or more specifically, disruptive realities. If they were provided with whatever materials they required, could they create, perform, or build something (be it an installation, poem, or performance) that reflected their views on ‘disruptive realities’? Counting on the imagination of all the participants they had invited [to be part of this week-long project], TICAH coordinators Eric Manya and Suzanne Mieko also had given serious thought as to who they’d invite. Their concern was for diversity in age, profession, and gender. That led to their calling everyone from sculptors, painters, puppeteers, and architects to fashion designers, traditional flutists, digital artists, and even one quantitative surveyor. “We’ve been running rika residencies for quite some time,” Manya told BDLife. “But this time, we wanted to cut across artificial barriers between art and professionalism.” Rising to the occasion, all the participants got together to deliberate, come up with concepts, and get to work creating mainly installations that were often collaborative constructs. For instance, fashion designer Akoth Otieno told BDLife she wanted to contrast the soft and sensual features of her designs with something rough and hard. That led to her obtaining a mannequin which she covered with an elegant crocheted top and a spikey chicken wire ‘skirt’. She collaborated with [fellow fashion designer] John Kaveke in designing the full-length chicken wire skirt. The spikey skirt was also meant to ensure a woman’s safety. Interestingly enough, Akoth wasn’t the only woman in the project to consider safety. Sculptor Maggie Otieno created a giant totem out of newspaper strips which also contained a secret ‘safe space’ where women could flee if need be. Architect Linda Kinoti went even further to create a safe haven made out of bamboo and heavy tetra-pak paper, the kind that once contained the Nyayo milk school children got during the Moi era. “While someone was reflecting on their youth, they’d climb inside Kinoti’s shelter, and find the interior covered with mirrors,” Manya explained. “The mirrors are there so someone can reflect on themselves,” he added. Kinoti was assisted in the shelter’s construction by artist Solomon Luvai and ‘Bamboo man’ Daniel Otieno. In his other life, Daniel is the quantitative surveyor who finds bamboo while on the job. During the TICAH project, he fashioned bamboo suits, two of which were hung last week at Goethe. Others he showed during the recent Kibra Fashion Week. There were also writers, thespians, and storytellers in the TICAH mix who produced something called a ‘Zine’. “Zine is short for magazine,” explains Suzanne Mieko as she shows me the ‘zine tree’ and adds that the three women who’d produced a zine are Wangari the Storyteller who performed at the Opening of the ‘Disruptive Realities’ showcase, Caroline Odongo, who’d performed upstairs at Goethe the previous day in an awesome play reading of the script ‘Ruined’, and poetess Lutivini Majanja. They were assisted in fastening their zines to fish wire by contemporary dancer Adam Chienjo, who also ensured the zines hung properly. Then, it was the digital artist Akili Huru who added beautiful colors to the covers of their zines, making them one of the most collaborative installations of all. The one bigger one was the Shrine which was part of the project drawn in charcoal by Solo. The contrast was between Common the cool easy-going rapper on one side of the Goethe stage and Fela Kuti the fiery revolutionary rapper who had built his own shrine before he died. The artists’ shrine was assembled as Akili Huru called everyone in the project to bring a special something to put into the room behind Fela’s portrait. Then on opening night, the public was invited to this combustible mystery Shrine into which everyone swarmed, irrespective of the ‘danger’ being conjured up by Akili and another collaborator, Anto Neosoul. One who didn’t get wrapped up in the Shrine was Mutua Matheka who’d addressed the contrast (or ‘disruptive reality’) between film and still photography. He did it by taking over a thousand shots of dancer Collins Brian (who also performed on opening night), after which he assembled them in a blurred but beautiful fashion and fixed them inside a box resembling an early version of a camera. In all, the installations mirroring ‘disruptive realities’ were surprisingly ingenious and fun.

TEWA EXHIBITS TWO INTENSE EAST AFRICAN ARTISTS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 5.9.23) Online art exhibitions and catalogues are fast gaining ground among young Kenyan artists wanting to be seen, their artworks shown. One man who has popularized this trend is Thadde Tewa who has created online catalogues for everyone from Onyis Martin and David Thuku to Nadia Wamunyu and Doreen Mueni to Abushariaa Ahmed and Coster Ojwang. But currently, Tewa has taken the works of two up-and-coming East African artists to the rooftop of Village Market where Sheila Bayley and Muramuzi John Bosco share an exhibition entitled ‘Trace Back’. Aiming to give the public a sense of where these two have come from and who they are, Tewa actually drew upon an identity issue that both are already addressing in meaningful ways through their art. Sheila Bayley grew up artistically during the pandemic after losing her job managing a German construction enterprise. “I never went to art school, but I have always painted and have always found it comforting somehow,” she told BDLife. And once she started getting serious about her art, Sheila quickly began to sell her work. “I have a large family and they have always been supportive of me, so that was encouraging,” she admits. One of her older sisters is a nurse, and she is the one who found Sheila as a baby dropped off and left by an anonymous mother at her hospital’s doorstep. “For some reason, she took me home and I have been a Bayley ever since,” she explains. It's no wonder that identity is a serious concern for Sheila who says all her works at Village Market reflect aspects of her query into who she is. As it turns out, her art is filled with beautiful people. Particularly beautiful women bedecked in colorfully designed gowns, as in “Girl at the Lake” where a young girl is seated beside a pond surrounded by beautiful people, especially women, who are also portrayed in paintings like Blue Windows and The Liquid State of my Mind. Yet her art isn’t only filled with women. All her paintings are delicately drawn in meticulous lines and forms, often appearing like anonymous beings, one of whom might be her unidentified mother. Working in both acrylic and mixed media on paper and canvas, Sheila’s art has an intensity to it that is electrifying in an enchanting way. The charm is in the details which she regularly brings to life through nature’s colors, of the sun and moon-lit blue sky, the turquoise water and orange horizon. Meanwhile, Muramuzi has much in common with Bayley, particularly as both have an intensity of style that means their paintings are meticulous drawn and detailed to the point where every stroke seems significant in telling their wider stories. Sheila’s are more internal yet expressive of the loved ones who are important to her, starting with herself. One of her works, entitled Heading On has two heads apparently conversing with one another. “Both of those heads are me,” says Sheila, who being the mother of one little girl, considers everything she does with that little girl also in mind. Muramuzi talks about how he grew up in a village in Western Uganda among Ankole cows, and how he adapted swiftly when he first came to Kampala. “But to me, Kampala is also a giant village,” he tells BDLife on the Saturday the show opened. Yet I wonder which side of Kampala is as overgrown with entangling vines and roots, branches and moss-covered tree trunks found in Muramuzi’s village scenes. His rural background overflows in all of his richly organic paintings. His are as intense, if not more so, than Sheila’s in that he seems to layer one path into bush country on top of the next. Occasionally, he will highlight a school or a school bus rambling through the bush. In one of his works, you can even see a mkokotene loaded down with bags of charcoal extracted from the richly-fertile forest. One just hopes that is not the precursor to the gradual plundering the land of its beautiful trees, turning this luscious side of Uganda into a desert as dry as the Sahara. Tewa clearly has an eye for artists who are coming into their own and exploring new perspectives on the African experience. It’s important because the rest of the world only knows about West African art and the likes of El Anatsui who are fabulous artists but not the only ones who exist in sub-Saharan Africa.

B2B TRACE THE EVOLUTION OF A CHILD PROSTITUTE

Market Price is a deeply touching tragedy and truthful reckoning of the lives of women and girls in the slums of Korogocho. It’s young men’s story too, since survival is everybody’s issue. But it was women and girls that Back to Basic’s Mbeki Mwalimu went out to meet and listen to after premiering Back to Basics’ original script late last year, and then unceremoniously canceling the remainder of the shows up until this past weekend. It will remain a mystery as to why the cancelation. Suffice it to say that as I was fortunate to see that premiere, I can confirm that while the story has been streamlined a bit, there is a richer development of characters this time round. That is especially true for Zamzam (Mary Mwikali), her alcoholic mother (Lucy Wache), her best friend Nicole (Shivishe Shivisi) and the younger Zamzam (Chadota Sandra), whose dramatization of the pivotal early moments in the elder Zamzam’s life is poignant and powerful, but also profoundly painful to see. “We sat with the women for hours and listened carefully to all they were willing to share with us,” Mbeki tells BDLife. Included in those listening sessions were the show’s director Wakio Mzenge and its scriptwriter Sauma Kombo. So while it was Mbeki’s initial idea to develop the script based on true stories shared by the women, the script came into being as a collaboration among the B2B women who developed the ideas and then, Sauma was given the task of weaving them into the story of Market Price. That story focuses on Zamzam whose story unfolds as she unravels it for a naïve free-lance writer, Clarita (Valentine Njeru) who’s come to the slums apparently for the first time in her life. She’s utterly unprepared for what she hears and she never quite gets the drift that she is sitting with seasoned prostitutes who have been surviving on the ‘market price’ of their trade since childhood. And even up to now, they practice prostitution just as their mothers did before them. With impeccable synchronicity, director Wakio managed to link sound, lighting, and story to take us straight from the elder Zamzam’s mouth into the heart of her early life. We’re transported through time and space into Zamzam’s tough early world. It all takes place on the same stage, even as there are four separate sets, each appropriately designed to convey slum life as reality. There’s the Korogocho garbage dump at the far end of the stage; then Zamzam’s one-room hovel; then the street where trafficking of goods (including girls like Zamzam) take place, and finally comes Zamzam’s current room where the so-called ‘content provider’ had come to interview and write a story on Zamzam. The set is amazing, but it’s from here that we see some of the fascinating changes made between the early version of the play and the one we saw last weekend. The first major change is the development of Zamzam’s mama who is just as cruel and alcoholic as she was in the first round. But now, she revives, which she didn’t before. “The mama has to wake up and work when her booze runs out,” Saumu explains. That is why there’s an eye-opening scene in which the little girl has now figured out that since she has to eat, and her mom won’t provide, she has to join the legion of women who earn their living by selling their bodies. We meet her arriving home after being with a man and washing her private parts. After that, she immediate goes out to do it all over again. In seconds, her mother arrives home and does the exact same ritual as Zamzam, of cleaning her private parts and then getting out to go looking for more business opportunities. What Market Price does so well is to demystify the life and evolution of a sex worker. By revealing the transformation of a little girl who truly had few choices of career paths in her life, one has to appreciate the bravery and resilience of Zamzam. Her mother’s story further exposed the vulnerability of women and girls living in poverty. So does Nicole’s experience of men not paying up after a sex worker provides her services. Zamzam vows it won’t happen to her. But after she became a gun-runner, she is cheated out of her fee, so she fights back and is nearly killed in the process. Many thanks to B2B for telling Zamzam’s story respectfully, empathetically, and with recognition of her beauty despite the hardship she’s incurred.

DRUMS OF WAR BEAT LONG AFTER WAR END

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (composed April 30, 2023)

Drums of war is an historical play, scripted and directed by Mavin Kibicho, that reflects on the deep psychological damage done, not just to the soldiers traumatized by their close encounter with the physical and most brutal, inhumane features of war. It also does heavy damage to the families, friends, and communities from which these soldiers come. It’s a heart wrenching story, told by Son of Man Productions last weekend at Kenya Cultural Centre. One of those damaged by war is Christine, (Michelle Tayars) a woman who has turned her back on day-to-day news coverage because she has already learned the pain of news. Specifically, the news that broke her heart was knowledge that both her husband and her brother died in the war. Initially, we don’t know in which war they died, but it’s easy to deduce after learning the two men first went to war with Kings African Rifles, then, came back after years and finally, volunteered for KAR again to go and serve the British. So, the story is set sometime in post-World War Two East Africa. It is when Christine’s militant daughter arrives home and declares she too is a fighter. But she’s fighting with the Mau Mau.

Then, when the Colonial Governor announces that an Emergency has been declared, we now know it’s 1952 and Christine is crushed that her Nyambura (Naomi Wairimu) is also going to war. Nyambura refuses to speak to her mother, she is so angry and anti-colonial that anyone who isn’t with the Mau Mau (the Land and Freedom Army) is an enemy. That makes her mum one. And her dad since he is no better than a lousy Home Guard since the KAR were also proud servants of the colonial land grabbers and prime targets for attack in her mind. Christine’s friend Diana (Leila Kare) had tried to prepare her friend for the coming tides of radical change. She could hear the ‘Drum of War’ long before Chris could. But Christine is still unprepared for what’s about to happen. It’s her ‘dead’ spouse Peter who suddenly shows up after all these years. It shocks her so badly that her reaction is over the top. She refuses to accept him and one can see her mental state is deranged. Ultimately, she accepts him, but her emotional reaction is so overwrought that we can’t feel much sympathy for her.

We never quite hear where Peter had been during those seven years after the war’s end. What we do learn is that he actually had been writing to Christine all along. It is now Nyambura who admits she waylaid every letter and kept them all from her mum. Why she did that is also a loose end we don’t find out about. Chalk it off as one more cruel ripple of war. But Nyambura’s was a cruel game to play with her mother’s emotions, and Christine now has to recalibrate her mind to cope with this news. It was her daughter who cheated her, not her husband. But why? Perhaps it is also because she has situated her mother among the enemies of the revolution, the colonial sympathizers, which was not the case.

The mom apparently adjusts to that news. But now, it is Peter who still hears drums of war in his head. His alienating behavior mystifies Christine, but it’s explained to her as PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, a term that didn’t come into use until after the Vietnam war’s end in 1975. Nonetheless, Peter is haunted by memories of his life under a colonial master. He also frequently hears the words of Christine’s brother whose death is never explained. In fact, there’s a suggestion that Peter, under the spell of those voices in his head, might have killed his brother-in-law, and possibly even his own baby, the one who died right after the first world war. We see how Peter had been brainwashed to such an extent that he actually shot and nearly killed Christine. He also nearly killed Nyambura, but she had her own gun, ever-prepared to fight fire with fire. Fortunately, the voice of his brother-in-law came to him like an angel and told him he did not kill him as Peter had feared he had. The angel (Derek Omondi) told him essentially to give up the guilt and go back to his loved ones, which he ultimately does.

And the love is the healing power which finally draws the threesome, mother, father, and child, back together as one.

APERTURE CLARIFIES, WHEN IT'S ALL WRONG, IT'S ALL RIGHT

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 5.8.23)

For sheer entertainment and delightful humor, blended with a bunch of raucous physical comedy, you don’t want to miss seeing “The play that goes wrong.” It’s Aperture Africa that is staging the slap-stick comedy this coming weekend at Kenya National Theatre. “I first saw the show on [London’s] West End in 2019 and wanted to stage it ever since,” director Amar Desai tells BDLife. He has been actively involved in securing rights to stage it here, which hasn’t been easy, especially as the show is still going great guns on both London’s West End and Broadway in New York. But he finally got them and also auditioned a marvelous cast of actors, many of whom will be familiar to those of you who attend Nairobi theatre regularly. For instance, Yafesi Musoke was recently co-starring in ‘Because You Said So’ at Braeburn Gitanga. Daniel Lee Hird just directed ‘1984’ also Braeburn Gitanga, and Vikash Pattni was just nominated for his recent performance in Manic Monologues. Bilal Wanjau was just in Aperture’s previous production, ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Wolf’. He was also in Aperture’s comedy, ‘It Run in the family’ with another cast member, Hiran Vara. And Nixsha Shah was recently in Silvia Cassini’s new play, ‘Speak their names.’ Davina Leonard was in a previous Cassini play, ‘A man like you’. And that leaves Adarsh Shah who has been in countless shows I didn’t have the opportunity to see.

It's a marvelous cast performing a play within a play that’s been described as a cross between Monty Python and Sherlock Holmes where everything that you can imagine goes wrong. And many more mishaps that might be un-imaginable to most folks, apart from the playwrights, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shield, also go wrong. The sum total of these ‘unanticipated’ events is hilarious and the kind of humor that transcends verbal language. Described as ‘the funniest comedy play [ever] staged in the West End,’ I had the privilege of watching a show rehearsal and can testify it’s the style of humor that both adults and children will find irresistible. The play being staged by the local Drama Society is a murder mystery, a whodunit with more than one twist to it. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot. But there’s a would-be murder of the soon-to-be-wed Charles (Vikash Pattni) who was to marry the beautiful diva-type Florence (Davina Leonard). The cops are called in, and the police Inspector (Daniel Hind) shows up, intent on investigating whodunit? Yet the show itself seems to still be in the rehearsal phase. That’s because there are so many screw-ups, from pieces of the set not holding together to uncountable distractions that one can hardly imagine how an audience has paid to watch this catastrophe of a show.

But it is hilarious, and the show ‘must go on’. The play itself is a sort of spoof on comedy itself. It also makes fun of the competition that actors may feel towards one another in a production, the role of envy and jealousy in fueling an understudy’s not-so-secret desire to take over from the lead character. Meanwhile, the Inspector seems to be moving ahead with his investigation. Yet one can’t help noticing he doesn’t even touch the ‘dead’ body, leave alone check the pulse of the ‘corpse’ to ensure Charles is really dead. There’s also infidelity going on, which you will have to watch to find out who’s unfaithful with whom. The other issue that isn’t easy to figure out is people’s motives. In every good murder mystery, all the suspects have a motive for murder. The fact that Charles has a new will in his pocket suggests maybe someone doesn’t want their place in his previous will to be undermine. But that is just one of the tricky twists and turns that throw so many loopholes into the play. Both Charles and Florence have brothers (Yafesi Musoke and Hiren Vaya) who each have interests of their own, which are also murky. Their entanglement in matters leads to a marvelous sword fight that is just one of the many elements of physical comedy that is too funny.

Florence is another one who is prone to melodramatic moments leading to fainting scenes that are laughable. She is such a prima donna both on and off stage - that one can’t help feeling slightly empathetic when one of the backstage crew (Nixsha Shah) tries to step into the actor’s shoes. I won’t give away what happens in the end, although I will say, like any good murder mystery, it won’t end in a way that could have been easily foreseen. It’s a show that is jolly good fun, especially at the end when something big happens to Thomas that should keep you grinning and or giggling all the way home.

DOUBLE DOSE OF FAMILY HAVOC IN DENY, DENY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 5.8.23)

Heartstrings entertainment performed an excellent indigenized version of the Ray Cooney farce last weekend at Alliance Francaise. Those who know the British comedy, entitled It Runs in the Family’ might not have even recognized the play In Deny, Deny, Deny apart from the initial split screen in the first act when the two kids, Gavin (Fischer Maina) and Vicky (Bernice Nthenya) are doing a silly ‘pillow talk’ over their cell phones while occupying two separate households. Giggling and giddy over their new-found love, they are children of a taxi driver named Juma John (Dedan Juma), something they don’t discover until the final moments of the play. Up until then, they are basking in the early glow of a fresh affection that they share after being together (mostly vicariously) for a little over a month. It’s the mothers of these children who don’t want their kids to get involved with strangers. Not that they know the boy- and girlfriends are related in any way. But the kids want to change all that. Meaning they plan for that very day to be the one that Vicky comes home to Gavin’s so she can meet his mom. Vicky’s mother (Zeitun Salat) is far more po

For some reason, Vicky’s dad Juma claims he is not available to go with his daughter to meet the prospective in-laws, but he is able to pursued Uncle Stanley to at least drive her to the boy friend’s house and drop her there. We don’t imagine there is anything odd about the father’s inability to be by his dear daughter’s side when she goes to meet the boy’s family. If he had actually known where she was going, one wonders why he wouldn’t have stopped the trip altogether. But that’s one loose end we won’t worry about. The point was, we wanted to meet Stanley and bask in his jokes before the hammer came down and the truth as to everybody’s lineage would be found out. But for now, Vicky had to reach Gavin’s house and meet the mom. The joke was that within minutes of Vicky’s arrival, her mom showed up escorted by Stanley who drove her there. But so did Zephaniah (Arnold Saviour) with his bad leg and wonderful physical comedy that allowed that ‘bad leg’ to be good and funny from the hip bone down to his toe. Zephaniah was definitely not a character the equivalent of which could be found in the Cooney comedy, but he was in Heartstrings’ where ‘Deny, Deny, Deny’ was such jolly good fun. His banter with Uncle Stanley was also hilarious as well as being hyperbolic. Ironically, the kids were largely forgotten just as soon as Gavin was released to prepare the chicken for cooking. And then when he came back and asked if Vicky could assist him, nobody seemed to care. The drama was apparently between the two older women who seemed to be eye-ing one another in inscrutable ways. It was only when Juma stopped by Mary’s house that he was unmasked as the man who ran two separate homes. But unlike the British show where John the taxi driver had married both women, both Mary and Moraa were initially side-chicks of Juma. But both provided him with such wonderfully happy and comfortable homes, he kept them both, something that in Kenya is not against the law (I believe) if neither one is legally contracted as a wife. Juma’s arrival is like a bomb shell being dropped in the middle of this family affair. Both mothers have already got to talking, but unlike the Cooney comedy, the mothers never let on to Juma that they have known about one another for years and apparently have become good buddies ever since. The final crisis arises when the alarms go off, that Gavin and Vicky can never get hitched since Juma is both of their dad’s. Suddenly, tables are turned and Mary says they can wed since Juma is not Gavin’s Dad. Then Moraa speaks up and say no, they cannot marry since Stanley is really her dad!! And then comes the final joke: it’s that Stanley is also Gavin’s Dad. What we can’t know is who had the last laugh in the end!!

WHAT'S WRONG IS RIGHT WITH APERTURE AFRICA: A PREVIEW

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (5.5.23) For sheer entertainment and delightful humor, blended with a bunch of raucous physical comedy, you don’t want to miss seeing “The play that goes wrong.” It’s Aperture Africa that is staging the slap-stick comedy this coming weekend at Kenya National Theatre. “I first saw the show on [London’s] West End in 2019 and wanted to stage it ever since,” director Amar Desai tells BDLife. He has been actively involved in securing rights to stage it here, which hasn’t been easy, especially as the show is still going great guns on both London’s West End and Broadway in New York. But he finally got them and also auditioned a marvelous cast of actors, many of whom will be familiar to those of you who attend Nairobi theatre regularly. For instance, Yafesi Musoke was recently co-starring in ‘Because You Said So’ at Braeburn Gitanga. Daniel Lee Hird just directed ‘1984’ also Braeburn Gitanga, and Vikash Pattni was just nominated for his recent performance in Manic Monologues. Bilal Wanjau was just in Aperture’s previous production, ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Wolf’. He was also in Aperture’s comedy, ‘It Run in the family’ with another cast member, Hiran Vara. And Nixsha Shah was recently in Silvia Cassini’s new play, ‘Speak their names.’ Davina Leonard was in a previous Cassini play, ‘A man like you’. And that leaves Adarsh Shah who has been in countless shows I didn’t have the opportunity to see. It's a marvelous cast performing a play within a play that’s been described as a cross between Monty Python and Sherlock Holmes where everything that you can imagine goes wrong. And many more mishaps that might be un-imaginable to most folks, apart from the playwrights, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shield, also go wrong. The sum total of these ‘unanticipated’ events is hilarious and the kind of humor that transcends verbal language. at Described as ‘the funniest comedy play [ever] staged in the West End,’ I had the privilege of watching a show rehearsal and can testify it’s the style of humor that both adults and children will find irresistible. The play being staged by the local Drama Society is a murder mystery, a whodunit with more than one twist to it. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot. But there’s a would-be murder of the soon-to-be-wed Charles (V Pattni) who was to marry the beautiful diva-type Florence (Davina Leonard). The cops are called in, and the police Inspector (Daniel Hind) shows up, intent on investigating whodunit? Yet the show itself seems to still be in the rehearsal phase. That’s because there are so many screw-ups, from pieces of the set not holding together to uncountable distractions that one can hardly imagine how an audience has paid to watch this catastrophe of a show. But it is hilarious, and the show ‘must go on’. The play itself is a sort of spoof on comedy itself. It also makes fun of the competition that actors may feel towards one another in a production, the role of envy and jealousy in fueling an understudy’s not-so-secret desire to take over from the lead character. Meanwhile, the Inspector seems to be moving ahead with his investigation. Yet one can’t help noticing he doesn’t even touch the ‘dead’ body, leave alone check the pulse of the ‘corpse’ to ensure Charles is really dead. There’s also infidelity going on, which you will have to watch to find out who’s unfaithful with whom. The other issue that isn’t easy to figure out is people’s motives. In every good murder mystery, all the suspects have a motive for murder. The fact that Charles has a new will in his pocket suggests maybe someone doesn’t want their place in his previous will to be undermine. But that is just one of the tricky twists and turns that throw so many loopholes into the play. Both Charles and Florence have brothers (Yafesi Musoke, Vaya) who each have interests of their own, which are also murky. Their entanglement in matters leads to a marvelous sword fight that is just one of the many elements of physical comedy that is too funny. Florence is another one who is prone to melodramatic moments leading to fainting scenes that are laughable. She is such a prima donna both on and off stage - that one can’t help feeling slightly empathetic when one of the backstage crew (Nixsha Shah) tries to step into the actor’s shoes. I won’t give away what happens in the end, although I will say, like any good murder mystery, it won’t end in a way that could have been easily foreseen. It’s a show that is jolly good fun, especially at the end when something big happens to Thomas that should keep you grinning and or giggling all the way home.

THERE’S A MESSAGE FROM IGIZA: ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 5.6.23) It’s time for theatre companies to start taking seriously the problem of set design. Some have begun putting contemporary art on the walls of their sets. But then, when scenes change, yet the art remains the same, it can be disorienting if you, the viewer, are meant to be in the moment with the cast. My problem this past weekend was the opening scene of Igiza Players’ satire, Kneading Needs, which was staged at Kenya Cultural Centre. The art on the walls went well with much of the play since it was mainly set in offices of political leaders. But this opening apparently took place in the village where Kibali (Kennedy Kithia) had returned to see his parents after having won a senatorial election. The scene is rural, even as Kibali’s innocence and idealism are fresh and optimistic. But the set design doesn’t relate to the location of the scene’s action. Plus, the poverty of Kibali’s parents is made known by the Mama who reveals the bank is coming to foreclose on their property since they have no means to repay on a loan. The son reassures her he will soon be earning a Senatorial salary, which (is substantial and) will enable him to get back their land. That’s fine, but now, why can’t producers pay as much attention to set design as they do to acting, lights, and sound? Otherwise, the story that unfolded last weekend at KCC was like a theatrical Gado-cartoon, a snapshot of what is most troubling in Kenyan society of late. But more than that, it takes specific events and weaves them altogether so that we see a phenomenon like Maandamano within a wider weave of Kenyan politics practically in real time. Playwright Sigu Nyerere even gave us characters comparable to an Opposition leader like Raila in Busisa (Javan Barasa) and a President like Ruto in Okuzo (Jeff Obonyo). He also gave us an idealistic young MP like Kibali who is prepared to stand with his constituents, the vast majority of Kenyans who need better health care, better education opportunities, better job opportunities, better roads, electricity, and above all, better leaders. Nyerere, the script writer, also gave us a woman who might mirror a prayerful true believer like Mrs. Ruto in President Okuzo’s wife, Oluyele (Lucy Milkah Wangui). One doesn’t know if the First Lady has ever spoken so sternly, directly, or critically of her spouse’s conduct, as Oluyele does in the play. But if she has, we should regard her as the conscience of the nation since Oluyele is ferocious in her verbal attack on her husband over his thieving ways, ways that rob the wananchi of the food that they need. One is amazed that the playwright allowed her to stay around and didn’t have her husband, the President, banish her for her forthright way of seeing him for the ‘sinner’ that he is. One is also amazed that Oluyele remains with this crook; but there is just a hint that she actually enjoys sharing the power that her man has. Doesn’t that look she too is self-serving in that she sees the whole picture of corruption, yet as much as she critiques it and lets him know she sees it all, yet she still won’t walk away. In the end, it’s the young MP who had been shot during a Maadamano, and all assume either he died in the assault or he is holding onto life by a thread. Either way, he is virtually gone, leaving the President to believe that all his critics are also silenced. He is wrong, of course. The final scene finds Kibali rising from the “dead”, in this case, a hospital bed, and leading a new revolution for peaceful change. His final speech is powerful and persuasive. He tells the two Leaders, Busisa and Okuzo, that another negotiated handshake or even a truce isn’t good enough. It only signals that they are prepared to share the wealth that should be fairly distributed within the wider community and nation, not simply between themselves. There’s a clamoring of people right outside, but neither so-called leader claims responsibility. So, who could be leading them, they ask? That’s when Kibali bursts into their room and dismisses their truce. The peaceful demonstration that he is leading is a true revolutionary force. It’s nonviolent, and meant to suggest that another kind of Maandamano is possible. Maybe yes, maybe no. We’ll have to wait and see.

PLAY READING ABOUT RAPE, WAR, AND WOMEN’S RIGHT TO FIGHT BACK

BY MARGARETTA WA GACHERU (written 5.5/6.23) It was a Play Reading like no other that I have attended before. A story told by 10 actors seated before a house-full audience in the congested upstairs library of the Goethe Institute. It was also a performance that had never taken place before. That was because the ensemble assembled by director Esther Kamba had decided unanimously to do their first read-through of ‘Ruined’ without a prior rehearsal. “It was agreed to keep it simple and spontaneous,” Esther tells BDLife, referring to the award-winning play by the African American woman playwright Lynn Nottage. And yet, when the time came last Friday night and the reading was about to begin, all ten quickly climbed into their respective characters. And although it was only a sort of storytelling session, it was very different from that for several reasons. One was that Joe Kinyua became a kind of narrator, reading the playwright’s internal instructions to her cast. That instruction is normally internalized by a show’s director and cast members who are guided by the author’s ideas. Then, what an audience normally hears and sees in a production is the dialogue and the director’s interpretation of the way he or she sees the text. However, in a play reading, the audience gets to hear the dialogue but is also empowered to imagine what those words might translate into on a stage. For me, I saw ‘Ruined’ from a cinematic perspective. The actors got into their characters so well that I felt we were with them deep in the heart of Democratic Republic of Congo during the height of a civil war between the State’s military forces and the rebel army. The play itself is set within a brothel owned and operated by Mama Radi, who is played with a no-nonsense style of humanity by Caroline Odongo. Her brothel is a neutral zone where members from all sides of any conflict can come to drink, eat, and fulfill their lusty desires with women employed by Mama and who she also trains to do the job to the client’s satisfaction. The play is filled with dark humor even as it reflects on the way women’s sexuality has been weaponized such that rape is a tool of torture and a means of destroying a people. PLAY READING ABOUT RAPE, WAR, AND WOMEN’S RIGHT TO FIGHT BACK BY MARGARETTA WA GACHERU DRC is the first country where rape and sexual assault are finally recognized as weapons of war, just as deadly as an AK47 or assault rifle. The problem was so rampant in DRC that Nottage was commissioned by an American theatre company to write a play about it. Goodman Theatre even sent her down to East Africa where she met women who told her many terrible truths about the horrors of what was ruining both the lives of women and the country itself. The play that she wrote won her countless awards. It also compelled Esther Kamba to secure the rights to stage it here in Kenya. The play reading was meant to test the waters to see how an audience would appreciate the script. Turns out they loved it, and urged Kamba to please perform it as a full production. “But that will cost us more than we can afford just now,” Kamba confessed. Cost didn’t seem to quiet the Friday night audience who responded in the affirmative when one crew member asked if they would assist by supporting a future production. The relationships in the play are raw and wonderful. There’s Christian (Arthur Sanya) who regularly brings Mama supplies, and who one day brings two young women to work in the brothel. Sisters Selina (Eileen Bulungu) and Sophia (Agnes Kola) need a safe haven, and Christian knows the Mama can provide them with that. But the Mama can’t be bothered. She is ultimately persuaded to accept them but only Selina can serve the men fully. Sophia had been so badly abused sexually that her female organs had been damaged or ‘ruined’ for good. Ironically, Sophia has the most exquisite soprano voice that unfortunately attracts bad men, including top fighting men who threaten Mama who, by playing a shrewd diplomatic set of cards, gets Sophia and her place off the hook. Meanwhile, Sophia is stealing cash from under the Mama’s nose. And when Mama confronts her, Sophia confesses she has heard of an operation to fix her up. Mama nearly sacks her, but then, in the end, there is a total turn around. There are other sub-plots in this dazzling play which nearly ends as a tragedy, but ultimately, there’s a fairy tale ending of the kind you only find in romantic novels like those of Mills and Boon.