“I have spent a lot of time with grown-ups. I have seen them at very close quarters which I’m afraid has not greatly enhanced my opinion of them,” writes Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944) in his most famous novella, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) (1943).

The book, which reads like a children’s book is actually a reflection on life and any adult reading the book is invited to see the world through the eyes of a child.

As part of the Francophone Week festivities, the book was performed in French at Alliance Française from 14^th -18^th March 2011, directed by Victor Ber and Sammy Mwangi, creating a fresh perspective of the book as the actors brought the characters to life.

Characters are defined and understood by the language they use and this was well portrayed by Kevin Gitau, whose costume, gait, and intonation brought forth the frivolity of The Little Prince.

De Saint-Exupéry contrasts the innocence and purity of childhood against the pretentious and superficial pursuits of adulthood. He claims, for example, “If you were to mention to grown-ups, ‘I have seen a beautiful house, built with pink bricks, with geraniums on the windowsills and doves on the roof…’ they would not be able to imagine such a house. You would have to say to them, ‘I saw a house worth a hundred thousand pounds and they would exclaim, ‘Oh! How lovely!’ ”

The purity and simplicity of life as seen through a child’s eyes is a pertinent theme in any culture. It is therefore no wonder that the book has been translated into more than 190 languages, including Latin and, thankfully, in 2009 the Kiswahili translation by Philipp Kruse and Walter Bgoya was published by Mkuki na Nyota Publishers in Tanzania.

In a performance space, the text, transformed from the written word into the spoken word, takes on a new dimension. Shavajai Franz lent his voice to the author as the narrator, while Ishmael Kerongo was the author as a character in the book. Franz and Kerongo also played various other characters like The king, The Conceited Individual and The Drunkard, amongst other characters, who The Little Prince encounters in his journey across the planets.

Apart from conveying meaning, words also trigger images in our minds. The directors used an onstage screen to portray images like the sunset and flowers, which The Little Prince talks about extensively. The screen was also used to project the illustrations from the book, which are central to the text and to create a silhouette of The Little Prince, skipping about in childish glee but most crucially, it was integral to the stage lighting, which set the mood of the performance and created the dreamlike world of The Little Prince.

There were also pictures of local and foreign politicians including Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe and Muamar Gadafi which I did not find very appropriate as the general thrust of the book is  not a political discourse but a reflection on the essence and purity of life.

Inasmuch as the king on one of the planets that The Little Prince visits is described as “an absolute monarch” he was still “very kind” and “gave reasonable orders.” He explains that “authority is first and foremost based on reason.”

If there is any discussion leaning towards the political, then it is more from a socio-economic perspective rather than reference to actual leadership. For example, the businessman explains to the Little Prince, “Kings own nothing. They reign over. It is quite different.” Then he continues, “When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you discover an island that belongs to no one, it is yours. When you are the first to have an idea, you take out a patent on it: it is yours. And I own the stars because nobody else before me thought of owning them.”

FOURTEEN poems comprise what seems to be largely an autobiographical work, Homecoming, by Sitawa Namwalie, that was performed in the Austin Room at Braeburn School, on Friday 4^th March.

The poems decry Western domination (Eh, Kumbe I am Poor) and the slanted writing of our history (Land of the Guiltless Natives), satirise third world issues (Oprah Endorses the Toi Market Support Group),  and emphasise  the need to define our identity (Nameless), amongst various other  themes.

At the risk of discussing the historical issues underscored in this production in favour of the more critical aesthetic ones, I would like to draw attention to the second poem, Land of Guiltless Natives which is an excerpt from Namwalie’s previous production, Cut Off My Tongue.

Although this is presented with humorous mimicking of early colonialists such as they may have upraised Kenya at the time, it is mistaken to suggest that our apparent ‘obsession’ with land stems from colonial influence seeing as land was vital to many African communities in pre-colonial times, in particular the Kikuyu community, whose Mau Mau war is comprehensively outlined by Caroline Elkins in Britain’s Gulag, in which she aptly states, ‘A kikuyu could not be a Kikuyu without land’.

Furthermore, the title Land of Guiltless Natives mocks our tendency to idealise our past yet Homecoming, in its entirety seems to do just that.

This ‘ideal past’ has been a dominant theme in the postcolonial years, even amongst prominent writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Ngugui wa Thiong’o, who were steeped in English literature in their formative years and thus owe, to an extent,  their successful writing careers to the European literary traditions that they find themselves pitched against.

It’s worth noting that works of African writers that have achieved classic status are those that find a reasonable middle ground, such as Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which has been described by Simon Gikandi, a noteable scholar of African literature and a professor of English at Princeton University as “an ambiguous representation of the Igbo past as heroic but, at the same time, compromised by Okonkwo’s blind commitment to his culture and his obliviousness to alternative values and interpretations”.

It was not clear to me, whether to regard Homecoming as a dramatised reading of poetry or as a performance of poetry.  If it was meant to be a theatrical performance, then the use of theatrical space is of the essence.

Exploring various ways of using the stage as a metaphoric space is what distinguishes the realm of text from that of performance. A good description of this metaphoric space can be found in the prologue of Shakepeare’s Henry V in which the chorus asks the audience to “make imaginary puissance” and to “think, when we talk of horses, that you see them”.

Namwalie and the other performers, Alice Karunditu and Shan Bartley read out the poems as opposed to reciting them from memory which greatly compromised the performance element.

In performance, set, costume, lights, music and movement are as important in the communication of ideas as the text is.

The poster described Homecoming as “a dramatisation of 14 poems infused with music and movement.” I therefore anticipated stage movement that explores the expressive possibilities of the human body and its interaction with other elements of performance. The use of the Austin Room at Braeburn as opposed to the main theatre may have also limited the exploration of such possibilities.

The three lessos that were draped on the back wall rendered an ‘African feel’ but did not necessarily define the space. The music, played by Henry Isaac Anyang’a echoed and interspersed the text but could have had a bigger impact if it were integral to more elaborate movement.

If I absolutely had to categorise this performance, I would place it under Performance Art, which is an experimental form of modern theatre that defies definition. Performance Art, is a dissent against the entire canon of Western theatre, largely inspired by the work of French and Polish directors Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski respectively, which seeks to revisit such as questions as, What is theatre? What is performance?

1982, is a significant year in Kenya’s history owing to the political unrest leading to and following the attempted coup d’etat in August that year. It also marks, according to the theatre scholar Mshaï Mwangola, ‘the end of one era of theatrical performance in Kenya’ after the production of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Maitũ Njugĩra.

All over the world, wherever there is an oppressive regime, theatre is often the first victim. Fortunately, Kenyan artists have enjoyed freedom of expression in recent years and in theatre, the re-emergence of a true people’s theatre can be seen in the production of Mheshimiwa Kĩhĩĩ, by Edwardo Waigwa and Thiong’o Kanyari, performed by Impressionist Theatre at the Kenya Cultural Centre, on Friday March 11.

The title of the play initially caused a lot of controversy owing to the tribalist connotations that the word is associated with. However, the word Kĩhĩĩ does not have its face-value meaning ‘uncircumcised man’ but rather, it’s true meaning which is ‘immature man’.

Waigwa and Kanyari address an issue which has perhaps been long-overdue in modern Kikuyu culture, which is, the role of circumcision as a rite of passage for thirteen or fourteen year old boys, often carried out in hospitals under local anaesthesia, in the absence of the traditional instructions that outline what is expected of a man in society.

In fact, the play exposes the widespread alcoholism and consequent impotence amongst men, and promiscuity amongst women. A member of the chorus talks about how she often finds her son sprawled on the ground in a drunken stupor and how her daughter does not know who the fathers of her children are, since she is always too drunk to recognise or remember them during the encounters that lead to the children’s conception. “Nĩ kaba kũgimara gatagatĩ ka matũ…” she laments in typical Kikuyu bluntness, (Better to be mature between the ears) “than to be mature between the legs.”

The president, Kiongi (Moses Macharia) holds a baraza with his fellow power brokers Kimunya (Moffat Nyagah), Kimata (Samwel Mararo) and Kanua Njeke (Irene Wambui).  As he waits, for Kimunya and Kanua Njeke to arrive, the chorus in the background sings: ihĩĩ cia mũrimo ũria, ikwenda kũrua. (The boys on that ridge, need to be circumcised). Kiongi looks nervously about and Kimata (who also looks ill-at-ease) asks him “Have you not been, you know…” , alluding to- in the words of Kanyari- political immaturity.

The play does not only address cultural issues but social and political ones as well.

When the meeting begins, Kanua Njeke, outnumbered by the three men, has to constantly assert or defend herself especially against Kimunya, who makes disdainful or condescending remarks to her or about her. She sits at their far right, and has to crane her neck to see the paper that outlines the public land that they are sharing amongst themselves, even though they eventually allot her a share of the spoils.

The set comprises the front of a modern house against the back wall, with four chairs in front of it, where the baraza is held. At stage right, is the entrance to a traditional hut and stage left, is the entrance to a church. Thus, this modern government is flanked by traditional heritage on one side and Christian values on the other.

The chorus, dressed in red and black enters between scenes, with songs written by Kinyua Mundia and dances choreographed by John Mudembo, accompanied by a guitar or accordion, rich in rhetoric, addressing issues like land and joblessness.

Minor but prototypical characters are played by members of the chorus who wear a dress over their red and white costume or merely changed their trousers in the case of male characters, a hallmark of theatricalism, in which theatre mechanics are exposed.

The powerful impact of the play stems from this theatricalism. For those who are too young to remember or to understand why Kamĩrĩithu Theatre was razed to the ground in 1982, this play illustrates the power of theatre as a weapon against oppression.

Beverley Ongota as Lona Hassa and Nickson Walubengo as Stanley Baneki

THE heavy sound of a door being slammed is heard from below. These are the last words in the last scene of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House which critics later referred to as ‘the slammed door that was heard across Europe’.

Such was and is the impact of Henrik Ibsen(1828-1906) who is often called the father of modern drama. As M. F. Bellinger wrote in 1927, ‘His plays scorched, but they fascinated the rising generation, and they stuck to the boards.’

The door in the scene referred to here is slammed by Nora, one of Ibsen’s famous heroines, as she walks out on her husband Torvald, shortly after telling him ‘I believe that first and foremost I am an individual, just as much as you are’ (Act III).  Such  feminist views are commonplace today but in 1879, when the play was first performed, this was considered outrageous.

While I was recently reading about the inaugural, Norwegian-funded ‘Ibsen Through African Eyes’ conference, which was held in Lusaka, Zambia, in October 2010, I was not surprised that A Doll’s House was the main focus of the conference as the themes addressed in the play are still pertinent in modern-day Africa.

I would say as much for Ibsen’s Pillars of Society (1877), which was staged by the Strathmore Drama Society on February 27 at Alliance Française, only that it may not have as rousing an effect as A Doll’s House would. I doubt that those who hold public office in our society would go through so much trouble to uphold the image of God-fearing do-gooders as do the characters in Pillars of Society.  Today’s Kenya is such that, being arraigned in court by the KACC may be an inconvenience, but it is unlikely to lead one’s social demise.

The opening scene presents the ‘best’ women in the community weaving various artifacts for charity while listening to sermons by the school master Roland (Martin Abuya) in the house of Stanely Baneki (Nickson Walubengo), the richest and most respected man in the community- a successful businessman and a philanthropist, a pillar of society. However, as is the case with many of Ibsen’s characters, there is a lot of treachery and deceit behind this façade.

First, he abandoned his true love Lona Hassa (Beverley Ongota) for her half-sister Betty (Sylvia Mati) who he married for her money. Then, he had a ‘boyish escapade’ with a local actress but managed to escape through the window when the actress’s drunken husband arrived unexpectedly. Johan Tonze (Geoffrey Omundi) Baneki’s close friend and Betty’s younger brother offered to take the blame and left for America with his half sister Lona to get away from the scandal. Baneki then spread a rumour about Johan saying that he had stolen money from their mother’s company, although in truth, the company was bankrupt.

The return of Johan and Lona threatens to unveil Baneki’s good-guy façade. Johan falls in love with Dina Daudi (Karol Njoki) a girl living with the Banekis and she agrees to marry him. Johan therefore plans to leave for America to sell his farm and promises that on his return, he will reveal the whole truth. Baneki would rather Johan dies than have him reveal the truth so he allows Johan to sail on this unseaworthy ship, The Indian Girl, which he has been told is very likely to sink in the high seas.

The cast put on a good show and maintained their energy to the end, even though there was no interval. It was good to see Mati play a lead role and Ongota brought out a fiery, bold and independent Lona that was delightful to watch. The set was quite elaborate giving the stage a lot of depth with scenes played in the living room and out in the garden situated back stage, with a boat docked in the blue sea for a back drop.

The lightning and thunder in the last act, the music from the parade marching towards Baneki’s house with the townspeople coming to award him for his ‘great deeds’, and the apprehensive members of the cast looking out of the window, some fascinated by what they saw, some wanting to draw the curtains in fear, gave the play tempo, and an anxious mood and atmosphere.

Baneki's Business Associates

By far, the most commendable effort in adapting the play was making the characters real and believable, not so much by adapting their names (Bernick being Baneki for example) but through the typcast, yet tastefully selected costume that defined each character. Most notable was the manner in which the costume of Stanstad (Christopher Ragwar), Michael Vigeland (Dominic Mogaka) and Rama (Bigomokero Banyabo) suggested their unscrupulous business dealings with Baneki right from their first entry in Act I.

© Anne Manyara 2011

 

Fridah Muhindi as Juliet

(This critique appeared in The EastAfrican February 21-27 under the title, All About the Bard and the Bees)

Despite speculation that some works attributed to him may have been written by other people, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is heralded as the greatest writer in the English language.

The great Brazilian writer, Machado de Assis (1839-1908) said “One day, when there is no more Great Britain, when there is no more the United States, when there is no more the English language, will exist Shakespeare.” Thus, when Romeo and Juliet opened at Phoenix Theatre on Friday 4^th February, my anticipation was only natural. I was eager to see the director George Mungai’s interpretation of the play and ponder the relevance of Shakespeare in the modern African society.

As I studiously listened out for famous monologues, ready to take note of how they were delivered, I was rather vexed by some members of the audience who made loud comments and sniggered in the scenes that I considered to be “great tragic moments”.

However, it was while reflecting on the performance later that evening that I realised that these people- some of whom, I came to learn, were watching a Shakespeare play for the first time- are the precise gauge of the play’s success given that Shakespeare initially wrote for an audience that had not read his plays beforehand. The original actors did not wear ‘period costume’ but rather, they wore on stage the sort of clothes they would have worn off stage. Shakespeare wrote for the stage and so his plays are best analysed, studied and enjoyed on stage.

For centuries, the study of Shakespeare has been text-based, paying little attention to the actual performance of his works. This has not made easier by the fact that only the text and printed reviews of a play survive the performance.

Yet, if we are to ask ourselves, what is the relevance of Shakespeare in our society, we would need to consider to some extent the interpretation of the text but to a larger extent, the visual aspects of the play and how the audience perceives them and the meaning they derive from them, and therein lies the answer.

Mungai may have assumed that his audience is familiar with Shakespeare, going by his exclusion of the prologue: “Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene…” which explains to an unacquainted audience, the basis of the play but it was clear that he had put considerable thought into the mise-en-scene, in making the play relevant to a Kenyan audience.

Juliet (Fridha Muhindi) says O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? (Act II, Scene 2) as she “twitters” the message to Romeo (Bruce Makau) who says the rest of Juliet’s lines “So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d …” as he reads the message from his phone.

Likarion Wainaina as Tybalt

Juliet’s cousin Tybalt (Likarion Wainaina) despises Romeo not just for being a Montague but also for being an ODM supporter. The roles of Peter, a servant in the Capulet household and the friar John are played by a courier (Brian Munene) and a lady pastor (Nunga Kuru) takes the place of the Franciscan friar Laurence, who marries the “star cross’d lovers”. The apothecary is a Maasai medicineman whose Swahili speech seemed improvised, while as proper Swahili verse may have been more in tandem with the general style of the play.

The plot of Romeo and Juliet is based on a 1562 English translation by Arthur Brooke of an Italian story called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. Mercuto and the nurse are Shakepeare’s addition to the original story.

Mungai may have wanted to portray the protective role of the nurse (Josephine Mueni) but I am not altogether convinced that she needed to go as far as dressing up as an armed askari. Mercutio (Kevin Amwoma), brings comic relief to the play, with his easy-going manner and witty comments like, “If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.” (Act I, Scene 4) The writer and critic John Dryden (1631-1700) wrote, “Shakespeare show’d the best of his skill in his Mercutio, and he said himself, that he was forc’d to kill him in the third Act, to prevent being killed by him.” In fact, after the death of Mercutio, the play takes a somber note.

There has been a lot of debate regarding the sexuality of the Mercutio owing to his comments and attitude towards Romeo and the blatantly gay Mercutio in this production would have achieved an excellent comic effect were it not for Amwoma’s faltering speech in some parts, possibly due to first night nerves.

Shakespearean text can be baffling to a modern audience but the cast for the most part delivered it well, with the right intonation and appropriate gestures, making the play well-understood and enjoyable. Muhindi’s performance in particular was laudable.

Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most performed plays and has been translated into almost every living language in the world, but when we finally see a proper Swahili translation on stage, then we shall know that Shakespeare has truly come to us.

© Anne Manyara 2011

IT is said that King Louis XIV (1638-1715) of France, a great lover and patron of the arts, and because of whom classical French literature and music flourished, asked the critic Nicolas Boileau (1636-1711) to comment on a poem he had written. Boileau, obviously torn between upsetting the king and telling the truth- as a good critic does- replied, “Nothing is beyond Your Majesty’s power. Your Majesty set out to write a bad poem and has succeeded brilliantly!”

Many artistes view critics with a lot of suspicion because the word ‘criticise’ is often taken to mean ‘to find fault with’ and not ‘to understand and appraise’.

On January 22, I watched the Heartstrings production Oh My God! which was played to a house full of a thoroughly amused audience but if I gave my honest view about it, I would most likely be dismissed as an academic killjoy.

Such a sentiment is echoed by 19^th Century American social critic Washington Irving who wrote, ironically, (being a critic himself) in the Morning Chronicle, “the critics, my dear Jonathan, are the very pests of society…they reduce our feelings to a state of miserable refinement and destroy entirely all the enjoyments in which our coarser sensations delighted.”

There are some practitioners however, like the legendary British director Peter Brook, who have lovely things to say about theatre critics:  “A critic is always serving the theatre when he is hounding out incompetence. If he spends most of his time grumbling, he is almost always right.”

My opinion is that there couldn’t be a better time for theatre criticism in Kenya and the region. In fact, a recent World Bank report highlighted the growth of the African middle class. In Kenya, this rise in affluence means that more people are able and willing to pay KSh 500 for a theatre ticket than there were some years ago and more organisations are willing to sponsor theatre. As a result, there are more people taking up theatre and other arts as their full-time career which has inevitably led to the current ‘renaissance’ of the arts.

However, while patronage makes art flourish, (constructive) criticism refines it. Boileau, for instance, whose single passion was ‘the hatred of stupid books’ wrote extensively against what he perceived to be the bad taste of his time and as a result, he is credited for reforming French poetry of his time.

Most people are of the view that a critic sets out to fault a work of art and send off a nasty little piece to the editor but nothing could be further from the truth. I am a theatre critic because I love theatre and every time I go to watch a play, I hope I will enjoy it. What’s more, it is far easier to critic a good play than it is to critic a bad one because in the latter case I have the daunting task of thinking up academic ways to say that a play was a complete toss.

There is a general feeling globally, however, that theatre criticism is ‘diminishing’, with critics like Canadian Michael Vaïs pointing fingers at ‘amateurish journalists’ who have limited background knowledge of theatre, and that theatre criticism has been reduced to ‘star ratings’.

In writing for theatre, I hope to first and foremost speak to the theatre goers, especially the readers of The East African, their choice of newspaper being reflective of their more discerning tastes. While a critic’s opinion is open to debate, the facts he or she underpins, give the audience a better understanding of the play and how theatre works in general, making them a more astute audience. Accordingly, the more demanding the audience is, the greater the effort the artists will have to make.

Thus, I hope that my criticism will be of benefit to my readers but more importantly, that my opinion will not adversely affect their independent judgment of theatre productions or diminish their enjoyment of the theatre experience.

Even while the theatre critic aspires to bridge the gap between a performance and the audience, many theatre critics, including myself, hope to engage the artistes in some sort of dialogue. This exchange is what forms the essential link between theory and practice.

As British critic Michael Billington (who has been the drama critic for The Guardian since 1971) says, “Criticism, to me, is not the last word: simply part of a permanent debate about the nature of the ideal theatre.”

© Anne Manyara 2011

Naima Mungai as Jean

“YOU ain’t seen a John Godber play unless directed by me,” says John Godber but his play Lucky Sods which opened at Phoenix Theatre on Friday January 14 2011 was directed by George Mungai.

Godber is said to be the third most performed playwright in the UK after William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn.

In an interview in The Sunday Times in 2006, Godber said, “While my plays are amusing, it’s really the truth of the observation that I want to be known for. If you get that right, then comedy follows.”

This “truth of observation” is possibly what was lacking in George Mungai’s adaptation, Lucky People, which I watched on Saturday January 16.

Godber’s comedy, which is often referred to as ‘bitter-sweet’ is typical ‘black’ comedy, where the audience laughs rather uneasily because there are very grave issues underlying the humour, like in the scene where Norman and Annie cannot disguise their glee for winning the lottery, even after just breaking to Norman the news that Jean is dead or the scene with Norman and his ailing mother. This requires a lot of subtlety to pull off, but I am not quite certain that the cast achieved this.

Andrew Muthure, who played Morris, seemed to be the only member of the cast who had appropriate depth of character, although Naima Mungai who was Jean, and Susan Nzisa who played Annie and doubled as Morris’ mother, acted reasonably well. On the other hand, Tash Mitambo’s interpretation of the roles he played was too physical. In my opinion, the role of Norman did not call for slapstick, comical gestures nor did the role of the pastor need humour due to an ethnic accent. The comedy premise lay in the sadness of the situation and the humour would have come off more effectively if he had actually played these roles more seriously.

An example is the scene where Annie drinks too much gin and speaks out what she and Norman have been saying behind Morris and Jean. Nsiza played this very well and Mitambo could have sat rigid with shame and the joke would have still come off. One doesn’t have to do much to show embarrassment and the cast also needs to believe that the audience is intelligent enough to understand the situation.

Lucky Sods, whose theme is based on the winning of the lottery, was first performed on April 9, 1995 soon after the British National Lottery was set up (in 1993). This theme is also timely in Kenya, given the current “sms-6969-to-win-a-million-everyday” fever.

However, while the attempts to adapt the play to a Kenyan audience were successful in some parts, (like Morris’ reference to the flood of Nigerian soap operas in Kenya) the adaptation was not altogether convincing.

I think the crucial question here is, how effectively does Mungai manage to portray the Kenyan working class in this play? (bearing in mind that ‘working class’, which is sometimes erroneously taken to mean ‘people with jobs’ is actually euphemism for ‘lower class’ while the middle class consists of the well-educated and/or the successful entrepreneurs and consequently, the well-to-do).

Even if we suppose that Mungai has a reliable and intimate knowledge of the on-goings of the Kenyan working class, it would still be difficult to translate a British working class character into a Kenyan one. A watchman in Britain (like Morris) and a watchman in Kenya are worlds apart in as far as their economic disposition is concerned.

A better approach to adapting this play may have been through theatricalism. In fact, Godber is quoted for saying that “if theatre’s going to exist [beyond the 1990s], it has to be unashamedly theatrical, and not rely on a fancy set, with a sofa and a French window.”

Realism, with elements like the fancy set, sofa and French window that Godber refers to here, (which is precisely what the Phoenix production had, complete with the indispensible drinks table upstage) tends to pin down a play to a specific place and time, which makes adaptations rather far-fetched.

Theatricalism shuns these elements of realism, often stripping the stage bare, so that we have a character called Morris, sitting on a chair, under a spotlight perhaps, contemplating if his new found fortune through the lottery will really bring him happiness. In this context, it wouldn’t matter if Morris were Kenyan, British or Japanese and any audience would make that vital human connection with him.

The cast from Changing Generations Photo: Business Daily

(This review appeared in The East African January 17-23 2011)

RECENTLY, I was called upon to direct a play, which had a substantial amount of music in it, although it was not a musical.

As the saying goes, only the wearer of the shoe knows where it pinches and though it is common knowledge that a theatre production is an expensive venture, it was in wearing my artist hat that I really took cognisance of this fact.

Thus, when I watched Changing Generations on Friday 7^th January at Phoenix Theatre I was perhaps more indulgent in my analysis of the performance than I may ordinarily have been, but I still had my critic hat firmly in place.

Changing Generations, which was first performed at the Phoenix Theatre in 1992, is about changing times and changing attitudes from one generation to the next and it is not surprising that the show I watched was performed to a full house as this musical, whose book was written by James Falkland (1936-2007), is a must-watch.

The plot focuses on two young couples whose marriage prospects are challenged by unyielding parents who are set in their old ways. Mrs Kariuki (Catherine Kamau) is opposed to her son Kim’s (Waithaka Gatumia) engagement to Purity (Jane Gathoni) because the latter, an orphan, ‘has no background’. On the other hand, Mr Owiti’s (Kenga Sankei) opposition to his son Josh’s (Bryan Alufawani) engagement to Bella (Darshani Haria) stems from the fact that Bella is Indian.

Issues in modern relationships like unfaithfulness and AIDS are also addressed, especially in the relationship between JJ (Titus Wainaina) and Kanini (Alice Muthoni).

The musical is one of the most popular theatrical forms possibly due to the fact that it merges the three areas of performing arts- drama, music and dance- at par.

The peak of the book musical (a musical based on a story, such as Changing Genearations) was the 1940s and 1950s in America with, most notably, the production of The King and I (1951) and Sound of Music (1959) both of which were written by Richard Rogers (1902-1979) and Oscar Hammerstein (1895-1960) and both of which were adapted to film.

Despite the emergence of other types of musicals in the subsequent decades, book musicals have maintained their popularity to date. Oklahoma! (1943), for example, which was also written by Rogers and Hammerstein owes its critical fame to the manner in which the music, lyrics, story and choreography fit together seamlessly.

In Changing Generations, the music, which was written by Susan Gacukia and Joy Mboya,  set the tone and pace of the entire performance and could make good sales if recorded as a cast album, with songs like Left Out in the Cold which was brilliantly performed by Andrew Muthure who played the orphanage director, Mr Kariuki.

The cost of hiring lapel microphones (which I painfully remember) weighed against the income lost as a result of a large part of the house being taken up by the band, may have pitched the director George Mungai and his team into the precarious balance between profits and creativity.

This may explain why the singing on stage was amplified by use of three microphones suspended from the loft at centre stage right, centre stage and centre stage left.

This meant limited movement of the cast and ineffective use of stage space. Ideally, the choreography, which is integral to the acting, should involve intricate floor patterns with actors moving around, interacting with each other and using the set. However, for the most part, the cast sang lined up, facing the audience, which gave the overall effect of a music concert rather than musical theatre.

In addition, because of the limited space on the Phoenix stage, which is no fault of the creative team, the backup vocalists, were at the back of the auditorium with the band while they would have formed the chorus line, which is the group of dancers on stage, whose synchronised routines and backup vocals give musical theatre its strength.

Perhaps it was this limitation in space and other resources that led to what I inferred to be the idea that the performance was actually a rehearsal. I recognise the attempt at innovation to circumvent these challenges but the result was a potentially good musical marred by the presence of decoration clutter on the stage throughout the entire performance.

David Opondoe as Jerry Mabogo and Lorna Irungu as Anna

Curtains fell on George Mungai’s Propose Me at the Phoenix Theatre on 20^th November 2010.

This is a light and entertaining comedy in two acts with a climatic structure, which shows encouraging progress (or should I say renaissance), in playwriting in Kenya.

Jerry Mabogo (David Opondoe), who has just secured a contract to supply computer dust covers to the government intends to run for the parliamentary seat of Shida West, in the coming general elections.

In addition to hiring a ‘development officer’ called Nestor (Sam de Brouwer), he is also depending on the support of his ‘head in the clouds’ wife Hilda (Nyokabi Gethaiga), his son Cliff (Charles Karumi) a student of the ‘Code Matata Dejay and Genge College’ and his mobile phone chatter box daughter Tanya (Stella Nyawira).

His brother Pan (Joshua Mwai), has also been called upon to support the campaign and he has rallied his wife Anna (Lorna Irungu) and son Dan (Brian Munene), the latter having a secret affair with the Mabogos’ househelp, Roda (Jane Abiero).

However, Anna and Hilda have their own plans and decide to support Dan for the seat, little knowing that their children also have their own agenda, which brings an unexpected twist at the end of the play.

I say ‘unexpected twist’ because I assume this was the intention of Mungai, the playwright. However, I think I was not the only one in the audience who saw the twist coming, which I would attribute to an oversight on the part of the director, Nick Njache.

Roda’s presence in that last scene gave it away. The surprise element may have come off better if she had been called in at the time when the youngsters announce that they will support her in the elections.

Furthermore, the reversed role of power that ensued may have been heightened if Njache had made better use of the staircase, having Roda talk down to the rest of the cast from an elevated position and having her say her lines with calm deliberation, as opposed to shouting as if in a tantrum, which actually weakens the character.

This twist of events in itself I also found a little lacking in credibility in that, it is unlikely that three spoilt, middle class brats would shun the opportunity to run for a parliamentary seat in favour of their househelp, notwithstanding her recently inherited fortune, but perhaps their ‘airy fairy’ demeanour, particularly of the Mabogo children, may give this story some weight.

Hilda (Nyokabi Gethaiga) Pan (Joshua Mwangi), Anna (Lorna Irungu) Jerry (David Opondoe)

That said, the show I watched on November 13 2010 was lively, hilarious in some parts and well paced. The cast was in good form but Irungu stole the show.

The conflict in the play resided in the contrasts that Mungai portrays: Women against men. Young against old. The dysfunctional and eccentric city family against the organised and level-headed (at least on the surface) upcountry family. The exploited working class against the affluent middle class.

I will refrain from bemoaning the predominant theme of ‘the corrupt Member of Parliament’ in Kenyan theatre, since theatre is only a reflection of our society. If there is too much politics in our theatres, then there is too much politics in our society and collective life.

The other recurrent theme whereby the man of the house, in this case Jerry, making outrageous passes at the househelp, is rather reminiscent of The Marriage of Figaro, in which the 18^th century French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais highlights what was known as “The Lord’s Right” which apparently allowed the lord of an estate to sleep with peasant girls on their wedding night.

In fact, Beaumarchais is credited with having triggered the process that led to the French Revolution, with the famous line by Figaro to Count Almaviva in Act V, Scene 3: “Qu’avez-vous fait pour tant de bien ? Vous vous êtes donné la peine de naître, et rien de plus.” (What have you done for such fortune? You went through the trouble of being born, and nothing else.)

The power struggle between social classes, which is the premise of Beaumarchais’ play, is also a recurrent theme in Kenyan theatre and I wonder if it reflects tensions seething beneath the surface of our outwardly peaceful society.

©Anne W. Manyara 2010

Photo from: www.mariopirovano.it

The Italian actor Mario Pirovano was in Nairobi last month- courtesy of the Italian Cultural Institute- performing his English translation of Francis The Holy Jester by Nobel laureate Dario Fo, which has received critical acclaim since his first performance at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2009.

This is one of those performances that are very difficult to describe- one of those you have to have seen for yourself.

The performance shed a new light on one of the most venerated saints- not just in the Catholic Church but in many other churches and Christian communities including the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal and the Evangelical Lutheran Churches in America and the Evangelical Church of Germany.

Forty years after the death of the saint, Bonaventura di Bagnoregio, being appointed to write St Francis’s official biography, ordered the destruction of all previous writings on the life of the saint.

However, several documents from various witnesses around Europe have survived, which Dario Fo has used as the basis for his research to come up with his text, which recounts various events in the life of St Francis, in four episodes.

The first story was about the wolf that terrorised the people of Gubbio, followed by the one where St Francis preached to the birds, then the one where he travels to Rome to ask Pope Innocent III for permission to preach the gospel in the language of the people instead of Latin, and start a holy order.

This third story begins with the narration of how some friends asked Saint Francis to tell a story to a wedding party, to cheer up the guests. Francis then told the story of the wedding at Cana. A friend of his, a priest, informed him that he would be in trouble with the Holy Inquisition for preaching the gospel in a language other than Latin, hence the trip to Rome.

The final story recounts the death of the saint, in his favourite abode, the Porziuncola, singing Psalm 141.

Fo discovered from his research that the title ‘jester’ is not one that had been attributed to St Francis by “someone of great imagination and subtle humour”. Francis himself declared, “I am God’s jester.”

In Italy, due to the political and economic crisis of the time, jesters started travelling in groups performing plays featuring stock characters like Arlecchino (Harlequin) and this became a type of drama called the commedia dell’arte.

Needless to say, the political satire presented by these comedians did not please the ruling elite. Thus, in 1220, Frederick II of Swabia (of the Hohenstaufen family, who were also the Holy Emperors of Rome- a title given by the Pope) issued a law called the Contra Joculatores Obloquentes, which decreed that all ‘disgraceful’ jesters should be beaten and even killed if found speaking in public places.

Despite this, St Francis still delivered his famous harangue, in Bologna in the summer of 1222.  In his speech, instead of reprimanding the people of Bologna, he ‘praised’ them for being so astute at fighting wars and shedding so much blood and for the Crusade in Jerusalem, where six thousand people died, to which he added, “six thousand new graves, to save one empty grave.” The people of Bologna saw the irony in his speech and called for a truce with their enemies.

With the captivating skill of a true storyteller, Pirovano transported his audience into the European middle ages at the height of the papal power and the crusades, when the Christian armies invaded the Middle East to recapture the holy land. This was a time that was rife with bloodshed in the name of God and this history- little taught in our schools- has led to misinformed opinions between Christian denominations and between Christianity and Islam.

Photo from: www.mariopirovano.it

The performance brought to life fascinating characters like St Francis, the nasty wolf of Gubbio, and the Cardinal Bishop of Sabina (who was in such good terms with the Pope, he could call him ‘Innocent’ without saying ‘the third’) daintily holding his robe as he went down an imaginary spiral staircase at the end of which he had to do a half turn in the opposite direction to stop himself from spinning.

Through the performance, we encountered St Francis, a man set to serve God amidst the turmoil around him, as the Pope, princes and feudal families struggled for power, yet, it was not a sermon.

©Anne W. Manyara 2010