Our Quest For That Elusive Identity

 

Photo by Paul Munene (Drum Magazine)

(A version of this review appeared in the Sunday Nation on 17th May 2009)

KigeziNdoto & Githaa, a musical performance created by Mumbi Kaigwa was staged at the French Cultural centre on 6th and 7th May.

This musical performance was created during the first year of a Ford Foundation-funded project by The Theatre Company.

The production, which has an episodic structure, “examines pre- and post-colonial history and the lessons that might be learned today from our past”. (This is what is stated in the program.)

The examining of our pre-colonial history seemed to be a reminiscence of an idyllic past while the post-colonial history was presented through solemn speeches about the men and women who resisted colonisation.

While realist theatre presents psychologically coherent characters in a detailed environment, non-realistic theatre, which is what I assume this production was trying to achieve, expresses the essence of human existence through theatrical imagery.

But in both cases, theatre strives to engage the audience’s imagination through symbol and metaphor.

However, in this production, the text was plain- completely devoid of rhetoric. In Githaa, it was improvised and in KingeziNdoto, it was more like a lecture or a political discourse about our forgotten heroes.

The choreography showed little innovation. It may have dazzled the European audiences in the various places the performance toured in Europe, but from a local perspective, it wasn’t that impressive, as the dances were the kind that we go to see at the National Schools’ Drama Festivals, where students devise lively dramatised dances, all in one term, without any grand funding.

There were “dramatic poses” which came across more like photo shoot opportunities than theatrical imagery, in that they lacked abstraction or poetic metaphor.

In the same breadth, the costumes, beautiful as they were, merely gave the African Heritage Design Company an opportunity to showcase their work, but did not reflect any effort on the part of the director to make them an integral part of the production in terms of characterisation and consideration of the movements and lines of the dancers.

In theatre, all the elements of production need to express the central theme such that, in a production like this one, this idea could still be communicated even without the text.

The only aspect of the production that managed to achieve this was the music performed by Andrea Kalima from Tanzania. He played the limba, zeze kubwa and zeze ndogo, traditional instruments from the Gogo community.

He did not say a word. He did not ask the audience to reflect on the past. He just sang and the sheer beauty of his songs made everyone in the audience connect with that elusive past and our beautiful heritage, earning himself a well-deserved standing ovation.

I acknowledge that the theme of this production, which is, “to find ourselves” is a worthy one. But I’m of the view that this “finding ourselves” should be complemented by a quest for refinement and perfection, so that our arts have an equal footing with arts from any other culture in today’s world.

Take for instance, the case of award-winning playwright August Wilson (1945-2005). Because of the racial oppression he endured in his early years, he dropped out of school but went on to educate himself. He made so much use of his local library (Carnegie Library), that they later awarded him a degree.

Through his literary legacy, ten plays under the title Pittsburgh Cycle, he chronicles and celebrates the richness of Black American life in the 20^th century.

This is really what I would call “finding oneself”. There is a dire need for artistes in general to read extensively and learn more about the world, life and their craft.

© Anne W. Manyara 2009

Another “Copy And Paste” Production At The Phoenix

(This review appeared in the Sunday Nation on 3rd May 2009)

Matayo Mwenesi, Lynda Nyangweso and Chao Mwatela in No Dinner For Sinners

 

No Dinner For Sinners opened at the Phoenix Theatre on Saturday 25^th April. This is a comedy by Edward Taylor about a young stock exchange geek, Jim Watt (Matayo Mwenesi) who is hosting his morally hard-lined American boss Bill Gregory (David Opondoe) for dinner.

He asks his girlfriend Hellen Foster (Lynda Nyangweso) to pose as his wife because his boss doesn’t approve of unmarried couples living together, but one thing leads to the next and he eventually has to settle for his housekeeper Edna Chapman (Chao Mwatela) to host the evening and all sorts of blunders and embarrassing situations ensue, as is usually the case with this type of comedy. 

Gauging from the conversations within the audience before the play started, all (or at least, most) eyes were on Chao Mwatela, whose role as Edna Chapman showed great versatility as an actress. However, the rest of the cast seemed a little bit green, perhaps it was first night nerves, as they seemed to relax into their roles towards the end of the first act.

Going to the Phoenix is often a fine experience. The audience comprises people who dress up to go to the theatre. It makes a nice evening out, with classical music or jazz playing while waiting for the play to start and we don’t have to sing the anthem as is the case in some productions. Instead there is a nice recorded orchestra rendition and all is nice and lovely until the play begins and this is where you have to take in a deep breath, shut your eyes for a few seconds and pretend that you were in London.  

The play is hilarious, there’s no doubt about that, but for this, credit goes to the playwright and the cast members. So what then is the role (other than blocking), of the director, Charles Ouda, since he is the one with the “creative vision”?

Does he really have his audience in mind? After all, multiracial as it is, it still is a Kenyan audience. Would the play be any less hilarious if, for example, it was set in Westlands, Nairobi instead of Battersea, London?

Plays that deal with more universal themes will be applicable to any audience, but comedies rarely fit into this category. But I’m not suggesting that a play always has to be adjusted. It’s just that the Phoenix repertoire consists predominantly of British comedies, set in Britain and clattered with British characters, complete with a British accent which all makes it nothing more than a “copy and paste” exercise.

© Anne W. Manyara 2009

From Russia But Fits Like a Glove

Benjamin Kamicha as Ivan Banda

(A version of this review appeared in the Sunday Nation on 26th April 2009)

Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector General (also known as The Government Inspector or Revisor) closed at the French Cultural Centre on 19th April 2009, 173 years to the day, since it was first staged in Russia.

The translator, Thomas Seltzer, says in the introduction to the play: “In England, it takes nearly all that is implied in the comprehensive name of Shakespeare to give the same sense of bigness that a Russian gets from the mention of the Revisor.”

But the play is not only upheld as the greatest play in Russia but also one of the finest works in the history of literature.

In a letter to Pushkin, a great Russian poet, Gogol wrote, “Do me a favour; send me some subject, comical or not, but an authentically Russian anecdote. My hand is itching to write a comedy…Give me a subject and I’ll knock off a comedy in five acts- I promise, funnier than hell.”

Pushkin replied with an anecdote about how he was once mistaken for a government inspector.

The play is set in the Russia of the tsars, but it fits Kenyan society like a glove, the most obvious reason being the corruption and the impunity of the government officers. “But the Lord knows that if I’ve taken from some I’ve done it without a trace of ill-feeling.”

But this is not all; the hypocrisyof the society is rather familiar. The corrupt mayor confidently declares, “I at least am a firm believer and go to church every Sunday.” And we can identify with the alcoholic society: “As for your assessor, he is an educated man, to be sure, but he reeks of spirits, as if he had just emerged from a distillery.”

I think it would be completely in order to have a published Kenyan adaptation of this play. I watched the Strathmore University Drama Society’s production on Saturday 18th and I must say that they made a good effort towards this.

For a start, the characters’ names were changed (possibly out of necessity more than anything else). For example Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky is Antony Samba (Longi Ouma).

The inspector travelling incognito is from Nairobi and not St. Petersburg and instead of a tsar, there is a president. The play also makes reference to the maize scandal, the post- election violence and the Molo clashes.

However reference to the judge’s hunting crop and greyhound puppies alludes to European nobility and country gentry and has no resonance in our society. Also, tilapia may have been more palatable than salmon.

Having said that, the adaptation managed to capture Gogol’s humour for the most part, in a manner that was authentically Kenyan.

Ivan Banda (Benjamin Kamicha) is the self-deceptive Nairobian who travels to his upcountry home, dead broke, but still manages to dazzle the rural folk with his smart dress and big talk. “I am on an intimate footing with Chinua Achebe,” he boasts. “I often say to him ‘Achebe, old boy, how goes it?’ ‘So-so partner’ he’d reply.”

And if that is not outrageous enough he also declares, “All that has appeared under the name of Oyunga Pala was written by me.”

The mise-en-scene however was not altogether impressive. Though it was an amateur production, one would expect a little more effort from university students. For the costume, it looked like the actors were told to bring with them whatever they could find. The mayor wore an academic gown and the mayor’s chain was cut out from manila paper and bits of shiny paper.

Change of acts was done by rearranging furniture and in the second act, there was an armchair that completely hid Ivan Banda when he sat on the dining table, making him speak from behind the furniture like as if he were off stage.

None-the-less, Kamicha’s performance was outstanding. Right from his dramatic entrance in Act II, he maintained terrific stage presence. His voice projection, diction and poise were of the standards of an accomplished actor. Bravo!

Evans Nanyama was Counsellor Galo. For an actor with so much promise, it was a pity he played such a minor role.

© Anne W. Manyara 2009