EXPLOITATION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

By Margaretta wa Gacheru ( written 12.8.23) Botched is a production by the university of Nairobi’s theatre of the Absurd which staged at the university’s Taifa Hll. It is also a show that missed several opportunites to improve their show. One was filling the whole gigantic stage with actions and sets that allowed their audience to get a richer chance to see and feel the efforts on the part of this new theatre company. Instead, they used a fraction of the stage to create several scenes that they layered one on top of the other which they could have stretched to other areas of this vast stage. They wouldn’t have had to freeze one conversation among workers while they had a telephone conversation between Mr Patel, a pharmacist providing fake morning-after anti-pregnancy pills to university students who were irate when they discovered they were pregnant. What was intriguing however was the devilish scheme involving the student president, Patel the drug-dealer, and the doctor who provided abortions to the young women, presumably for a fee. The scheme was set to exploit women first and foremost since the ones who went for the pill and found they were pregnant anyway then were advised the school’s medical doctor could provide the necessary operation. That meant it was like a one-stop shop. Take the pill, get pregnant, and then abort the pregnancy right there on campus. The operations were not advertised by any means since the last thing the university would want to be notable (or notorious) for was being the abortion capital of the city. In fact, the student leader who was in cahoots with Patel and the MD was closely associated with the Dean of the Medical School. when it was brought to her attention that tiny feotus’ were being found in the trash by the cleaners, she opened a covert investigation into the matter. The problem was she was giving it to her daughter’s boyfriend who was also a smart student leader and abortion scheme. If the scheme had simply worked with the doctor to assist women in need of an abortion, he could have been seen as a compassionate male who sought to provide a service to women. He might have been perceived as part of a system involving Reproductive Health. Instead, he was corrupt as they came. And when the doctor tried to leave the program, schemer wouldn’t let him go. That’s when we got a flashback to the doctor’s student days when he was studying by candle light when he remembered there was a football match he had wanted to watched and he was late for it. so he got up from his books and his candle and dashed off. Problem was he had left the candle burning and tipped over when the future MD jumped up to run away to his match. He hadn’t given a thought to the candle, the flame, or the fire that immediately began as he ran away. When he got back he’d found both his parents had died in the fire and he’d lost everything. The student leader must have been his peer because he now claims that if he and presumably his family hadn’t stepped in to support the orphan, he wouldn’t be where he is today. So it was that sense of obligation that the schemer used to twist his friend’s arm and make him continue provide women with abortions. The climactic moment when students came out in protest against the doctor and his colleague. They were angry and intent on attacking and arresting the doctor. But before they could reach the doctor, he had one last abortion to give. It was for the Dean’s daughter who was also the student leader’s girlfriend. Her mother had been called to the abortion clinic and was shocked to find her daughter having aborted, and her trusted student leader being the one who had impregnated her. The play ended with the students’ feeling a sense of triumph. Yet we couldn’t really tell what their motive was. Did they want to practice to end because they were against abortion, or we they against the scheme that was entrapping women? So it was more of an ethical issue than a medical or religious issue. Or were they upset the so many women had suffered severe complications after having the abortion? We’ll never know. And it is better that the playwright left us wondering. But he and his director need to tighten and sharpen the script so that you make clear, it’s women health that’s at stake, first and foremost.