CRONY COMPARED TO HEARTSTRINGS ON WOMEN

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (drafted 13 November 13.2 Crony productions has the problem of being born from a gigantically popular theatre company, Heartstrings Entertainment. It’s a problem only because Heartstrings is renowned for its theatrical, social, and comedic excellence, which is something Crony is bound to be compared to. That’s no problem in the sense that the three ex-Heartstrings members who came out to produce Crony were among Heartstrings’ best, namely Nick Kwach, Cyprian Osoro, and Victor Nyaati. All three were widely popular and had fans who followed them into the Crony camp. What enhanced Crony’s ability to come out theatrically with a clear sense of direction is its director, Dennis Ndenga who served for years as Heartstrings’ deputy director, second only to the boss, Sammy Mwangi, one of the company’s founders some twenty years ago. Asked recently how he felt about the formation of Crony, Mwangi told BDLife, “It’s a healthy sign of growth in the theatre industry, and we are happy for them.” As to whether he felt Heartstrings had been betrayed by the troika’s shift in loyalties, Mwangi said, “Absolutely not,” since it opened up space in the company for another crop or generation of young actors to emerge on the Heartstrings platform. Yet it is difficult not to compare the two troupe, because Heartstrings has developed a powerful template for theatrical presentation. And Crony has drawn a lot of inspiration and style from it. For instance, both companies entitle their plays with oblique phrases that seem to have little or no relevance to the story or context itself. The title of Crony’s production, staged last weekend at Alliance Francaise, was ‘Are you still coming?’ which is speaking to whom about what? The comedy itself doesn’t really answer those questions. Meanwhile, Heartstrings is notable for never (or rarely ever) giving its plays a title that made sense as it relates to their plays. Last week, they staged “Here comes the bribe” where again, one couldn’t find one person in the play being bribed or bribing another human being. But titles are just one of the ways that Crony emulates Heartstrings. There are the explosive electronic videos at the outset of their plays, something Heartstrings invariably does. And it is during those brief electronic interlude, presented in both cases on a big white screen, that the cast is identified. Finally, even the performance venue of both companies, Alliance Francaise, is the same. So what’s the difference between them? Apparently, it’s not in the scripting since just as Heartstrings doesn’t claim one person writes their plays, so Crony also doesnt identify one person as their playwright. Instead, both casts normally devise their scripts by brainstorming a story collectively, after which one person writes up all the ideas into the script. It's the content of the story that’s the difference. In ‘Here comes the bribe,’ a bunch of relatives are coming together to celebrate their patriarch’s birthday. The old man’s younger wife is putting up decorations in the home, but the men don’t pay much attention to her. All the action revolves around the reunion of the menfolk (including Osoro Cyprian, Victor Nyaati, and Nick Kwach) meeting and making fun, up until the time when they get the news that the dad is dead. Suddenly, the family goes to court since the men are apparently challenging the wife’s right to inherit the estate of her spouse. Yet here is where we have to quibble with Crony since something doesn’t quite make sense. First of all, it’s typical to find men muscling in on women’s right to own property. Widows especially have a hard time with men believing it’s their entitlement to take over the deceased brother’s or father’s properties. In some cultures, it’s even the women who are still seen as property to be inherited by the men. But now, it’s the court that’s supposed to decide. The lawyer defending the mama (Marion Chike) is Kwach while the men’s lawyer is Osoro. After shallow explanations of the legal claims and counter-claims, the Judge (Nicky Onyieni) is called upon to give her Judgement. But she basically reads the will of the late patriarch which gives the men ownership of the land. But the mama is executor of the will and she has the full power to decide who gets what when and how. It’s not exactly a punchline, especially as the will must have been read before. In any case, Crony like Heartstrings is standing up for the rights of women, and that’s a good plan.

REGIONAL ARTIST ENRICH THE LOCAL ART SCENE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written September 17, 2022)

Further evidence that Nairobi has become a regional hub, not just for economic activities, but also for cultural and artistic events is being seen this month at two of the newer art institutions in town.

Both Gravitart and the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) are hosting works by artists from Egypt and Sudan respectively. There’s ‘Mirrors of Existence’ by Mostafa Sleem from Cairo, and El Tayeb Dawelbait’s Untitled Archive from Khartoum.

Coincidentally, this is not the first time the two have been mentioned in the same breath. Back in 2019, Veronica Paradinas Duro curated a show at Gravitart with both men’s works featured in an exhibition entitled ‘The Sky inside You’. And now, she has given Sleem a solo exhibition, which reveals how far the artist has journeyed aesthetically since his artworks were first shown in Kenya three years ago.

There’s a stark contrast between then and now. Sleem’s earlier works come from those pre-COVID days when no one would have guessed how lonely life would become during lockdown. In those earlier times, his art had lots of exuberant color blended beautifully into a crazy cacophonic blast that seemed to be infused with rich musical accompaniments and sun-lit sound. That exuberance is apparent in works like ‘Flying Melody’ and ‘Finding Hug’.

But then, much of that color disappears in Sleem’s more recent multi-faced portraits, the ones meant to be ‘mirrors of existence’. Veronica tells BDLife that his portraits have been inspired by one great work of art, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and one great artist Picasso.

Mona Lisa’s look has presented itself as an enigma to many who question what is behind her smile. Is it sadness, sweetness, or simply a desire to be done with her sitting asap? Sleem addresses that issue by including more than one expression of his subject’s face on his canvas. Knowing that human beings have a myriad of moods, emotions, and thoughts, he apparently aims for his visages to express as many of those emotions as possible in one surreal face.

Insisting that his faces are ‘mirrors’ not meant to be limited by gender, race, or age, he has told Veronica that they are meant to reflect a universality and oneness of humanity instead.

Whether that is the way his art is read by viewers who come to see it at Gravitart, that will be for Veronica to know. Personally, it feels like Sleem reduced his focus to singular, isolated souls who like him, were sadly locked down during the pandemic. Hopefully, he will revert back to using color now that COVID has cooled.

 ‘Mirrors of Existence’ is a hybrid showcase running until the end of month.

Meanwhile, NCAI is presenting an almost comprehensive collection of El Tayeb’s works, including everything from the installation he created in Lamu to one he made specially for this show. It’s got his sketch books and drawings as well as lots of the objects that have inspired him to develop along the lines that he has.

The one arena of his creative expression that wasn’t touched in this assemblage of miscellaneous items was his work in textile design, particularly the clothes he’s designed and embellished with woodcut prints for Kiko Romeo. But no matter, except that these further reveal the versatility and experimental magic of the artist.

El Tayeb came to Kenya as part of a tsunami tide of Sudanese artists whose first stop was Paa ya Paa Art Centre. “I came at the invitation of Elimo Njau and Paa ya Paa,” El Tayeb tells BDLife. He was grateful to get the chance to come. But then, he, like so many penurious young artistic emigrants, didn’t have cash on hand to buy paints and canvas. So what did he do? Like others, he turned to found objects, recycling trash and turning it into treasure.

In his case, his trash was ‘antiqued’ boxes, old wooden containers used by mainly carpenters. He recycled tin cans too as one will see in this eclectic and fascinating exhibition which shows the many facets of the artist who we have come to associate with one proverbial big-nosed profile.

The profile has grown old and redundant so it’s wonderful to see that El Tayeb has so much more to him. This show reveals how well he can draw for one thing. It also makes one wonder why he’s gotten so lax about experimenting compared to when he was hungry and struggling to find a way to survive in his new environment.

 

 

Heartstrings hits on Complexities of Wedlock

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted November 12, 2022) What do you do when you discover your spouse is cheating on you? Do you cheat yourself by pretending it never happened and carry on with the status quo? Or do you confront him/her and beg them to stop? Or do you go for the side spouse and tell them to quit, or else. Or else what? That’s when you come out doing something fiercely threatening. “The other woman’ (or side-chick in today’s vernacular) has been a popular subject in Kenya literature as long ago as the 1960s when the late Grace Ogot wrote a play of the same name. Phoebe (Bernice Nthenya) in Heartstrings’ latest comedy, ‘Here comes the bribe’ staged at Alliance Francaise last week, takes a completely different approach to her spouse’s infidelity. It’s revealed on the day that she and her hubby John (Maina Fischer) are meant to be celebrating their seventh wedding anniversary. Instead, he goes off with his buddy (Dadson Gakenga) to watch a football match and her girlfriends, Becky (Esther Kahuha) and Caren (Boera Bisieri) come around to share girl-talk. It is in the course of their chatter that the truth of John’s infidelity comes to light. It turns out Phoebe has known about John’s side-chick for a long time. But she has never let on until today when the subject slips out as she’s speaks with her girlfriends. Her friends are both livid, and Becky even begins plotting a plan for assassinating John and his girlfriend. She sounds serious about carrying out her deadly scheme. But then, the side chick, Samantha (Zeitun Salat) arrives at Phoebe’s and John’s house, having been asked to deliver items of makeup that Phoebe had specifically bought from her. Whether Phoebe had planned for Samantha to arrive just then or it was simply an accident or a serendipitous matter of chance, one cannot be sure. But what is plain is that the side-chick is going to get roasted by Phoebe’s friends. The roasting comes like hot red heat and blazing verbal fire, blasted on Samantha’s head. It comes first from Becky. But then, the ‘house-manager’, Wamary (Joyce Mathenge) takes over the tirade and makes the home-wrecker’s offenses even uglier and more excruciating for Samantha to feel than ever. Samantha is cornered on every side, and no one can feel sorry for her or take pity on her either. When she gets asked if she knew all along that John was married, she at least speaks honestly to say she did. But then she compounds the pain that Phoebe must be feeling by claiming it is she who gives John advice on when and what to buy for his wife after he has brought her all kinds of expensive goodies. The situation gets even more excruciating when John and his buddy Collo (Dadson Gakenga) arrive home only to find John’s two women in the same room together with Phoebe’s ferocious troops who are prepared to pounce on Samantha and finish her off. Of course, the heat never quite reaches that point, but now the truth comes to light and it would seem there is no hope for resolution. The shocker comes when Phoebe comes up with a surprise solution. Samantha will serve as her co-wife and that’s the end of act one. It’s the first shocker of the show. There will be more to come in act 2 but some in the audience are wondering if the show is over now. That’s not possible since Heartstrings never ends with loose ends untied. Act two opens and one sees the drudgery, complications, and everyday irritations of marriage. Suddenly, John is uncomfortable with the co-wife who doesn’t know how to handle him or how to meet his every need. Samantha has been the one catered for by her one-time Sugar Daddy John. Now she finds him a big drag who’s no longer interested in charming a slay-queen. He wants his breakfast on time and all the other details that Phoebe always . Now the realities of married life hit Samantha in the face. And now John has to live with the hellish situation of his own making. All the qualities of Samantha that had once attracted him are now the basis of their incompatibility. Her free spirit and casual ways are now not helpful to his making his way on a day-to-day basis. Phoebe and Samantha had divided up with duties on a week-by-week basis, and her week is over. She is free to do her thing, and who she’s doing it with is none other than John’s buddy Coll!

ART TO END POLIO AT SERENA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru Serena Hotel is not an art gallery, despite having attractive West African sculpture scattered around the lobby area and foyer. But it was transformed into one this past week when the Rotarians organized a dazzling display of East African art in the lobby with the goal of raising funds for their latest public health campaign to ‘end polio for good.’ “Once you walk in Serena’s front door, you immediately see several striking paintings,” says Huma Kaseu, one of the newest Rotary volunteers who helped set up the ‘Imagine Rotary Art Exhibition for its opening last Sunday afternoon. “There’s the stunning ‘Ethiopian Woman’ by Patrick Kinuthia, the colorful ‘Pickpocket’ by Samuel Njuguna, Kennedy Kinyua’s City Life, and in soldered wires Alex Wainaina’s Butterflies,” Huma adds. But that was just the beginning of the unusual and eclectic art exhibition that included both renowned artists (like Elungat and Abushariaa) and unknown youth (like Ronald Oketch from Mathare and Vincent Kimeu from Mukuru Art Club), all of whom agreed to contribute to a display aimed at raising funds to finish polio through the sale of fine art. “Polio eradication has been a Rotary priority since the 1980s,” Rotary DG Azeb Asrat told BDLife at the exhibition opening. “But pockets of it still exist in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and now we hear about its arrival in Africa in countries like Mozambique and Malawi, so there is serious work required to shut it down,” she added. The hotel had agreed to assist the Rotarians. But as they had zero wall space available, it was up to Rotarians to find easels for the art to stand on. Thankfully, the Little Gallery’s William Ndwiga was able to provide 31 easels, all of which were filled with works by artists from Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. “After securing the venue, our next big challenge was finding first class artists willing to contribute paintings to the cause of eliminating polio through the sale of art,” said Ritesh Barot, a financial analyst, and past president of the Rotary Club of Nairobi as well as an artist himself. Turns out, artists and several gallerists were more than willing to participate so that when the exhibition finally opened, nearly half the easels were ‘double-booked’, with one painting atop another. That worked well for Ron Lukes, the artist whose two wildlife portraits were the ones that attracted Kenya’s new Minister for Youth, Sports, and the Arts, Hon. Ababu Namwamba as he made a grand tour of the make-shift gallery with DG Azeb. The Minister, who was guest of honor at the event, booked Lukes’ Giraffe portrait right there on the spot. He made the first purchase of the show, underscoring his commitment to making culture and the arts a priority of the new Kenya government with immediate effect. The Minister acknowledged that practically all the government offices he visits have bare walls, all of which need to be filled with fine art such as what he was seeing in the Rotary exhibition. The other dignitary who attended the opening was the Barbados Ambassador to Kenya, Hon. Alex MacDonald. He and his wife were especially attracted by a colorful painting by Ronald Oketch of people shopping in the open air at mitumba street venders’ sites. Ronald had responded to the call out that Ritesh and his team made over social media to send in works to be considered for the exhibition. Based in Mathare, Ronald had studied art on YouTube, and like many young artists has seen creativity as a means of breaking out of poverty and moving on with his life. The exhibition itself is truly an eclectic mix that marks the first time the Rotarians worked with artists to raise funds for their diverse campaigns to do everything from clean the Nairobi River and build libraries and toilets in primary and secondary schools. They also run eye camps providing free cataract surgery and dig bore holes in parched regions like northern Kenya. On Saturday night, Serena will take on its more traditional role. It will host the Rotary Foundation fundraiser dinner and also auction off several paintings from the exhibition. Most importantly, the one DB Azeb hopes will attract the most interest is an artwork signed by the Rotary International President Jennifer Jones on behalf of the artist, her brother Darren. Entitled ‘Imagine your Dream’, the abstract work is a mixed media piece in which the American artist has blended colored pigment, sand, and shredded paper to create a highly textured work which was beautifully framed locally.

THEATRE GOES GLOBAL AT KITFEST

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted Nov 1, 2022) When the Kenya International Theatre Festival opened early this week at Kenya National Theatre, there was one person who was conspicuous for his absence from the stage. The new Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Hon. Ababu Namwamba was on hand as was the CEO of Kenya Cultural Centre, Michael Pundo, the Australian Ambassador, and representatives from all the countries whose actors are coming specially to perform at KITFEST as it is commonly known. Those countries include Spain, Switzerland, and South Africa as well as Egypt, China, Czech Republic, Uganda, and the US. Not all the actors had arrived by the time the Festival opened November 1st. “Only the South Africans are here,” Kevin Kimani, founding father of KITFEST tells BDLife the day after the festival opened. “The rest will be coming in shifts as from early next week since we couldn’t accommodate them for all 14 days of the festival,” confesses the man who prefers keeping a low profile while letting others shine in the limelight. “It’s true, I prefer working in the background,” says Kimani who was recently vetted and selected to become KCC’S Principle Creative Production Officer. “I find things work more smoothly that way,” adds the man who has had a passion for theatre practically all his life. “Since I was a kid, maybe 4 or 5, I was making people laugh. I was this funny character who’d stand in class and imitate politicians and make people laugh,” he said. “I’ve always loved drama.” That passion for drama propelled him to perform in primary, secondary, and even during his ‘gap’ years, when he travelled all around the country performing in set texts like The Merchant of Venice and River Between with Jicho Productions. He also got to see how thespians could earn a living when their theatre company was properly managed. “The moment I completed secondary [at Seekomothai Boys where he’d been chairman of the Drama Club], I came straight to the Kenya National Theatre where I specifically sought a theatre company I could join and work with before heading to university,” says Kimani who at the time just wanted to know more about theatre. But then, once he reached KU and joined the Film and Theatre Department, his passion to do great things with and for Kenyan theatre was not quenched. “No one was taking KU productions to the [Schools and Colleges] Drama Festival,” recalls Kimani who proceeded to form a Drama Club open to any student, not just the ones in his department. It was with the club that they could create plays that made it to festival finals. But even then, he wanted more than just making it to the finals, and after that, going home. “I felt we needed our theatre to grow and deepen, which is how I came up with the idea of a Kenya International Theatre Festival,” says Kimani who didn’t get much support when he mooted the idea to friends and fellow thespians. But that didn’t stop him. He had a vision and whether others could see it as he did, he was determined to make it a reality. He'd been frustrated by the festival, despite KU winning “everything” in 2012. He could already see that theatre needed a broader, wider, deeper platform on which to build a sustainable theatre culture and cultivate all the rich talent that is here. Kimani had no financial backing when he first formed the Kenya International Theatre Festival Trust in 2013. And even now, KITFEST has no patron or central sponsor. But with the small savings he had earned from his work with Jicho and with loans from family and friends, he was finally able to launch KITFEST in 2016. “We were ‘international’ in that we at least had one non-Kenyan performing company participate in the festival which only ran for two days,” he recalls. The following years have seen a slow but steady growth in both international and local participation in KITFEST. This year the festival not only runs for 13 days, has eight non-Kenyan theatre troupes performing, and a whole series of workshops, master classes, lectures, and outstanding productions by Kenyans. It also will stage one play and screen one film that were specially commissioned by Michael Pundo to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Kenya National Theatre. The other event meant to celebrate 70 years is a competition among spoken-word poets who take part in one of KCC’s most popular weekly programs. It’s called PAL or Performance after Lunch which runs every Thursday from 12 to 2pm and has a huge following. But however popular the Kenya Cultural Centre, including Ukumbi Mdogo, Cheche Gallery and the main auditorium have clearly become, Kimani still believes there is much more potential for growth in theatre’s role in the country’s creative economy. “Just look at a theatre company like Heartstrings. They have ticket sales per month that earn between 800,000 and 1.2 million shillings,” says Kimani who has been digging into data collection these days. “They have on average 34 people working in every show, and around 1000 that come to their productions every month. Now just imagine if all the theatre companies in Kenya could operate that way, what kind of contribution theatre could make to our creative economy,” he adds. “You’re already talking about multi-millions. And that’s not even calculating all the employment that theatre brings to the restaurants operating nearby. When there’s a show at the theatre, venders come out regularly to sell their things. Altogether, it amounts to roughly 100 million shillings annually,” adds Kimani who is currently a Ph.D candidate at KU. “I’m researching in the area of theatre management, since I believe that none of the arts, including theatre, can be successful without effective management,” says the man who is still on track to realize his vision of a Kenyan theatre meeting its full potential at every level. “I was able to attend a theatre festival in Sweden several years ago. It is such a theatre-loving culture that out of a population of ten million, eight million go to the theatre regularly, even babies,” Kimani says. “I believe we have the capacity to expand our audiences, and create the equivalent of Broadway or even SwedStage right here in Kenya.”

SEMINARIANS REVIVE ROTIMI'S GODS NOT TO BLAME

11 November 2022 Last time I heard ‘The Gods are not to blame’ was being staged in Kenya was back in the 1970s. It has probably been performed somewhere since then. But not until last Sunday did I get a chance to see the acclaimed West African play live at the Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Karen. The play itself was a game-changer when it first got published in 1971, first because Nigerian playwright Ola Rotimi was a scholar in his own right. He drew inspiration for his play from the ancient Greek philosopher Sophocles’ tragedy, ‘Oedipus Rex’. But just as important as having a pithy plot about patricide and incest, and the debate between fate and free will, Rotimi also indigenized the script. He brought his characters back to what he envisaged as pre-colonial Africa, specifically to his own Yoruba-land which has its own pantheon of gods. Rotimi also interwove a slew of Yoruba proverbs into his characters’ lines. And while one wished a few of those pearls of wisdom could have been edited out since they slowed down the play’s momentum, the Drama Club’s back-stage crew were efficient in making set changes in no time. That’s just one thing to commend about the Seminarians’ play. Visually speaking, one could see how much care and creativity, time and thought had also gone into developing the costumes which were the best I have seen all year. So was the face and body painting. And even the set design was outstanding. One could see a kind of Yoruba iconography filling the walls, including a larger-than-life portrait of Ogun, the god of iron and of war. Another impressive feature of the production, which reflected a maturity on the part of both the actors and the directors, Dickson Ochieng and Michael Rading, was the way guys took on roles of women and girls and never flinched. They were so committed to keeping in character that one easily forgot we were watching young men playing a different gender, even as they did during Shakespearean times. All these factors enhanced the story that began with the soothsayer arriving to warn the Court that their new baby boy was destined to kill his father, the king and wed his mom, the queen. The soothsayer recommended the baby be slain. But of course, he wasn’t, even though the men who took the child to the bush had been told to finish him off. Instead, he grew up and by a string of coincidences, he returned to the land of his birth. The Seminarians did well to keep us, their audience, in a state of suspense as we wondered whether fate or free will would rule the day. Knowing Rotimi had modeled his script after Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, we knew the way things would end. Nonetheless, it was intriguing to see how this script brought Aderopo (Joshua Onyoni) back home. Now, a grown man and a stranger, he arrives when the kingdom has fallen apart. The people are demoralized, having been defeated in war, but he rallies their spirits. For this, he is beloved, leading to a vote to make him their new king, which he accepts. But after a time, the kingdom is hit by a killer plague which people say is derived from a curse. Now we’ve got a whodunit! Things start to unravel for the king once an old childhood friend arrives, loaded with a whole slew of mental triggers which lead to a salient flashback moment when the king recalls the way, years before, he had slain a pompous old man. From then on, there’s no issue of ‘fate or free will’. Now it’s only a matter of time before the truth comes to light. Unfortunately, those last 30 minutes were laborious. Apparently, Rotimi wanted to keep us on tender hooks. The slow-burning truth was painful to watch since one didn’t know how many clues the king would require before he’d admit the obvious. The original prophesy was true: he’d killed his dad, and wedded, and bedded his mom. And as in the original play the mom goes and commits suicide once she realizes the shame of her situation. And her husband-son also gouges out his eyes, although he didn’t abdicate the crown or commit suicide like his mother-wife. In any case, the play, ultimately is a tragedy just as the original was. More importantly, it set a high bar for Kenyan thespians to attain and accept the challenge just as the Seminarians did very well.

ARTISTS UNDER 30 AT ONE OFF

By margaretta wa gacheru One Off gallery just came up with an ingenious way of generating an artistic buzz while drawing upon the creative resources of both young and older working artists. Calling on them all to take part in a group exhibition entitled simply ‘Under 30’, gallerists carol lees and her assistant Kui Ogonga didn’t just elicit responses from artists in their twenties as one might expect. They also invited more established artists who were over 30 to share works they’d created back when they were actually that age and just beginning to cultivate artistic qualities that would lead to their becoming significant figures on the Kenyan art scene today. This is a perfect time to meet the ‘youngsters’, more than 20 young men and women, who brought a wide-ranging variety of works to One Off for Kui and Carol to select the best. Just one among them is a sculptor, Atieno Sachy whose metal ‘Grasshopper’, ‘Samburu’, and ‘Grasshopper’ confirm that she’s a woman to watch. The rest are doing everything from ballpoint pen portraits (‘Shy I’ by Warren Osongo) to hyper-realism (Laban Korer’s Happiness) to surrealism (Dennis Otieno’s ‘Colors’). Anthony Okari’s ‘Building Bridges, Bridging the Gaps’ has a special appeal as the visual representation of the title’s concept is clear-cut. There’s a delicacy in the dangling of colorful diamond-shaped characters who seem to be quietly communicating with other lines of thread for the good of the greater whole.