Kenyatta University theatre students staged their version of ‘Three Wooden Crosses” last Friday night (May 3) on a distinctly untheatrical stage in Harrison Hall.
But making
do with the best space the school had to offer, the show opened (an hour late)
with a heart-wrenching monologue on the unpredictability of life by a ‘little
girl’ named Angel (Fridah Chemutai) who promises to illustrate her point with what
is coming next.
The rest of
the play, scripted, and directed by Michael Mwangi, is a flashback, set inside
a brothel.
The young
sex-workers are having fun, dancing and laughing among themselves, apart from
one. Maya (Mercy Kajuju) is drunk and
looking miserable. She had gotten pregnant by one of her clients and she’d planned
on keeping it. But she tragically miscarried and weeps now for having lost the
one way she thought she could use to escape the tyranny of their pimp (Evans
Kimuli).
But he’s
more interested in one of the other sex-workers, Tiana (Philomena Wambui) who’s
dressed up differently from the erotic attire of the other girls. She looks
more like any other secretary in town, not like her skimpily-dressed ‘sisters’
who she plans to leave that very day. She wants to be done with sex-work, to go
back and be with her child, who happens to be Angel. But that’s easier said than
done as we see when he arrives to find his ‘whores’ (as he calls Tiana) amusing
themselves rather than doing their job, which is to solicit men and make him
money.
He calls
Tiana aside and asks her to do one last job. She rebels, but he reminds her
with several hard slaps that she still ‘belongs’ to him. He proceeds to do the
classic psychological put-down of the woman by mentally and verbally beating
down her self-confidence, making her feel like nobody and nothing. It’s ugly
and outdated but unfortunately, it’s still a chauvinistic male method to
control the woman. The physical beating is what finally leads to her agreeing
to one last client. As it turns out, he’s a blind man who believes he has come
to a reputable hotel, not a brothel.
His first
inkling of it is when Tiana tries to seduce him, and he is shocked. Then the
pimp comes in and confirms his thoughts, whereupon the blind man wants to leave
immediately. But then, he too is at the mercy of pimp who has planned to poison
him for some undisclosed reason. We assume it’s because the man is rich. In any
case, pimp gives Tiana a glass of water steeped in poison for her to give to
the innocent blind guy. He drinks it, and sure enough, he dies.
Tiana is stunned
by the ease with which Pimp can kill a man. He looks prepared to bump her off
too since she knows too much. But he’s busy reminding her that the glass
containing the poison had her finger prints all over it. He’d planned to kill
her and then there would be no contest over who killed the blind guy.
But Tiana’s
a fighter and quick thinker. She grabs the glass, throws it down hard to break,
then grabs the most jagged-piece of the broken glass, which still has poison on
the sliver. Then she struggles with Pimp until she can stab him with her ingenious
blade. He too dies, and she runs with Angel who’d been waiting to flee with her
mom.
Meanwhile,
the play has a parallel story of a pastor (Abrahim Mwangi) who visits prisons
and meets an inmate, Jack (Fredruck Ochieng) on the day before he is set to get
out. The pastor is so impressed by Jack’s performance, he offers him a job
saving souls. So once Jack’s released, they meet and start traveling together.
The two
stories meet at a bus stop where Jack and the Pastor encounter Tiana and Angel.
The Pastor
offers to assist the mother and child. Initially, Tiana declines his offer, but
then, goes into sex-worker mode in order to ask him for fare.
Angel sees
her mom try to seduce this innocent man, and in frustration runs away from her
mother for good. There’s a futile search for Angel, after which they board the
bus in mime-style. But the bus crashes and three of the four passengers die.
Thus, the title, Three Wooden Crosses.
Unfortunately,
the ending is clumsy so it’s unclear that Tiana is the one who survives. but
that’s the play’s end.
Lots of
unresolved questions remain, leaving us dangling and dissatisfied and wanting
more clarity and resolution.
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