Relief for Thespians As Local Plays Gain Wider Acceptance

John Makeni

13 May 2011

Nairobi — A buzz spreads through the house as the curtain rises. It is the third night of Oh my God, the latest farce by Heartstrings Kenya to captivate Nairobi theatre-goers. It is 6.30pm, on a Saturday at the Alliance Francaise, and the turnout for the Heartstrings Kenya play is impressive.

A fortnight earlier, the Festival of Creative Arts (FCA) production of It’s Now or Never sold out all performances at the Kenya National Theatre. In fact, they had to do a re-run.

Though there has been heightened interest in live theatre for the past few years, never before has theatre in Kenya embraced locally scripted stage plays. The British bedroom comedies that once dominated theatre halls have been pushed to the edge as locally scripted plays take over.

A few years ago, British playwright Ray Cooney’s Caught Red-Handed, Johnnie Mortimer’s and Brian Cooke’s When the Cat’s Away and Dave Freeman’s Kindly Keep It Covered were the most common stage plays by Nairobi theatre companies.

Not any more. The scene is changing and Nairobi is experiencing enchanting stage plays, storylines developed by homegrown actors, actresses, directors and producers.

Theatre critics and playwrights like John Sibi-Okumu in the past questioned Heartstrings dependence on British plays. But in 2009, Heartstrings did stage sold-out performances of Sibi-Okumu’s Minister Karibu.

Local theatre companies are taking advantage of the topical issues and developing them into stage plays. In their recent production Oh my God! Heartstrings Kenya interweaved social themes with the Ocampo Six.

Ken Waudo, one of Heartstrings Kenya directors, says there was a lot of pressure from theatre fans to perform local scripts.

Heeding their fans’ criticism, Waudo says, was a challenge.

“We didn’t know where to start because we did not have playwrights who could effectively tell a Kenyan story,” he says.

Despite intermittently taking a stab in 2003 and 2006 at locally scripted stage plays, the group made a breakthrough in 2009, and to this day has never looked back.

“We asked ourselves how we could do it continuously,” he says.

Dan Ndambuki, a theatre stalwart and the renowned comedian in the NTV’s ‘Churchill Live,’ came up with a concept and the directors alongside one of the actors engaged in a brainstorming session. The workshops took two weeks and at the end whatever was agreed upon was the responsibility of the director to translate into a workable script.

The entire process of script development, Waudo says, takes five weeks.

But at the Festival of Creative Arts, it is done differently. Eliud Abuto, the producer, says they develop a concept collectively and everyone goes and does a little research.

“What we formally do is allocate members the scenes, then come together as a team and harmonise. As much as we do it collectively, one person has to write the script,” says Abuto.

He says when the company first hit the stage with its first local script, Christmas in Nairobi in December 2009, the audience wanted more.

George Mungai, the Creative Director of the Professional Centre-based Phoenix Players sheds light on the perception that theatre hardly includes works by Kenyan playwrights.

“In a given year, out of the 16 shows, four have to be by Kenyan playwrights,” he says.

Cajetan Boy, Andia Kisia, Oby Obeyrodhiambo, Okoiti Omtatah and JPR Ochieng Odero are among the Kenyans whose plays have been produced by the Phoenix Players.

Sibi’s Minister Karibu, Oby’s Wanjiku’s Dilemma and Loiuse Karimi’s Smoke have been slated for this year.

“Original scripts are not easy to use. A lot of thought has to go into it. We have a lot of criticism session before we decide to use the play and the entire process takes up to two months,” says Mungai.

He says Kenyan playwrights are paid double royalties.

Rogers Otieno, a theatre critic and the training manager at The Theatre Company says Kenyans have millions of stories to tell.

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