IN SICKNESS AND HEALTH SWINGS BETWEEN JOY AND GRIEF

BY MARGARETTA WA GACHERU (posted 2.27.2024) Sweet and Sour is the name of the bar where much of Son of Man’s latest production, ‘In Sickness and Health' took place last weekend but one at Alliance Francaise. It also gives a title to the major mood swings that dominate much of the play. The cause of those mercurial gyrations between the sweet and sour, the bitter and the bliss is the silent killer, cancer. Cancer isn’t just the primary theme of the latest play that Mavin Kibicho wrote, directed, and produced. It is also the major preoccupation of two families who initially have nothing in common other than the bar that members of both families frequent regularly. It is also the cause of so much grief and emotional turmoil that they both are feeling after they each lose a loving parent to the deadly disease. Fortunately, one of the sweetest things in the show is the voice, poise, and seductive performance of songstress Sharlene (Ivy Gidget). She is one of the three sisters who are mourning the passing of their beloved mum. Yet in her case, she seems least affected by her mother’s demise given she never took off a single day from her singing gig to grieve with her sisters. Nonetheless, however impervious to grief Sharlene seems to be over her family’s loss, we can’t miss the depth of emotional turmoil felt by the second sister, Nancy (Naomi Wairimu) when Sharlene invites her to come up and sing along with her. Nancy's silent refusal to sing at all seems embittered for reasons we don’t yet know. But we later learn that her mum had adored Nancy’s singing apparently more than her older sister’s, and Sharlene knew it. So Nancy’s refusal to sing was a sort of protest against the psychic ‘powers that be’ that stole her mother’s life from her. But despite her grief, Nancy agrees to doing an interview with a local journalist, Elphas (Peter Saisi) who is also about to lose his father to cancer. Elphas publishes her family's story as part of a series he is writing on cancer. Unfortunately, he had failed to request permission to use their names in his story. As a consequence, Nancy storms into Sweet and Sour, and picks a fight with him. She slaps him hard in the heat of her rage. Shortly thereafter, he gets the sack from his newspaper which in turn, give Nancy the media equivalent of his job. The play itself is filled with these sorts of tragic twists and turns. Apparently Kibicho chose to write it this way specifically to rouse awareness of some of the central issues associated with this disease. He handled this challenging topic with sensitivity and style. For instance, his choice to have sweet live music provided by a cool jazz trio, (guitarist, percussionist, and singer) who blended in well with the story. What's more, there's symmetry in the ways the two families cope with the crushing loss of their parent. Yet, we never find out why Elphas stayed away from his rural home for so many years. We gather there had been problems between the father and son but it was left like a loose end. We do learn that he’d been deceived by his younger brother who sent the message he should come home urgently. But Peter’s brother had been well intentioned since he knew his mum would take her husband’s death badly and the family would need to come together. Elphas still wasn’t interested in going home until there was another turn of events. Nancy arrived at the bar after she got Peter’s job and showed remorse for her family pressuring the paper to get him sacked. He's a borderline suicidal case by then, but her tender attention to his mental wounds has a surprising effect on him. If she would accompany him home, he would go. So, they agree and we get a chance to meet his marvelous mum before she gets the news that Dad had a relapse. This could only mean one thing. Now comes the excessive weeping and whaling, followed by a depressing funeral scene, and another depressing scene at the grave. Fortunately, the play ended on a happier note, with the wedding of Nancy and Elphas, and the final message that love can heal every psychic wound in the book. We also get it that it’s smart to get tested as it could save you from grief in future times.