JOHN SIBI OKUMU - "I have not aimed to tell people what to do...and I shan't abandon the thread of my thinking!"

"I do not share the nostalgia for the supposedly good old days when ‘theatre was theatre.’" - John Sibi Okumu, 2016.

Mwalimu John Sibi Okumu, actor, playwright, director.

JOHN SIBI OKUMU (known more affectionately as JSO) is a prolific Kenyan-born actor, playwright and director who has narrated and voiced award-winning documentaries and commercials in English, French and Kiswahili. He has acted in a number of local and international films, including The Constant Gardener (as Dr. Joshua Ngaba); Shake Hands with the Devil (as UN envoy Jacques-Roger Boh Boh) and The First Grader (as the Chairman of the Board of Education). He has appeared in leading roles on the stage, including Sophocles’ King Oedipus; Shakespeare’s Romeo, Oberon and Shylock; Beckett’s Krapp and Vladimir; Creon in Anouilh’s Antigone, Percy in Mtwa/Ngema/Simon’s Woza, Albert! Robert Mugabe in Fraser Grace’s Breakfast with Mugabe, and Serge in Yasmina Reza’s Art (played in French).

Under his direction, Kenyan musician Eric Wainaina’s Mo Faya! played to great acclaim in the USA as part of the New York Festival of Musical Theatre 2009, before enjoying a jubilant, homecoming reception at The Godown Arts’ Centre in Nairobi. He has authored nine plays, to date namely: 1) Role Play – A Journey into the Kenyan Psyche; 2) Minister, karibu! 3) Meetings; 4) Dinner with Her Excellency (for radio); 5) Elements (a monologue); 6) Kaggia and also the devised 7) In Search of the Drum Major; 8) Like Ripples on a Pond and 9)  Milestones – a Showcase for African Poetry.

For younger readers, he has written the short book Tom Mboya: Master of Mass Management. Besides the theatre and film, JSO is a teacher, an engaging public speaker, trilingual facilitator, moderator and master of ceremonies.

Welcome to the News-by-Fish: People and Peopleism blog, John Sibi Okumu. We are excited to have you here and we thank you most kindly for your time.

Straight away, theatre has been your favorite tool of exploring human experiences and communicating your observations and proposing alternatives to obtaining 'conflict' of life. Please share with us the critical lessons you have gained in your over four decades of practice.

JSO (shirtless) in the inaugural production of MUNTU (1975)

With that phrasing, you seem to have foisted your own view of my creative project upon me. Most certainly, I have incarnated, as an actor, and researched and observed, as a director and playwright. But with the words ‘proposing alternatives’ there is the suggestion of a didactic agenda. Whereas, the truth is that I do not like didactic theatre at all: I have not aimed to tell people what to do but rather to have them go away and think about what they had seen on stage and, perhaps, to arrive at a new perception of their reality. That’s all. Nothing quite so grandiose, I’m afraid, as changing the world.

You have, as a performer, lent your acting prowess both in stage theatre and in film. (And Lupita Nyong'o is actively doing that too). What unique opportunities do these two forums of projecting performance provide to today's actor?

The significant change is that, for my generation, for many years, we did what we did for love. And now, more and more, it can be done for money. So much so that theatre and film have become viable professions and not just pastimes.

You worked quite closely with Francis Imbuga, Kenneth Watene and David Mulwa. You also worked with Eric Wainaina when you directed his musical Mo Faya and acted with him in Tinga Tnga Tales. How has been your experience working in theatre with different generations of performers?

J. Sibi-Okumu as Lion in the production of Tinga Tinga Tales.

Of course, when I found myself on the same stage as Imbuga, Watene, Mulwa in the inaugural production of MUNTU, directed by its author, the Ghanaian maestro Joe de Graft himself, I was just a stage struck undergraduate who had no idea that I was being part of a landmark production featuring, serendipitously, many other significant practitioners of the years to come – apart from the ones that you have mentioned. A couple of years later, I had made my National Theatre début as Romeo in a contentious but highly successful ‘black and white’ production of Shakespeare’s play, with Pat Smith as Juliet. But all in all, I was raw and, above all, keen to please. Fast-forwarding to being Lion in the children’s musical, Tinga Tinga Tales, I was 19 years older than the next actor down. And there, I was struck by the enormous talent and, most importantly, the discipline of everybody on stage with me, including some first rate musicians. We Kenyans seem to persist in craving validation of our capability and maybe some national counselling is in order. But I do believe that the finest of our actors are as good as any in the world, particularly having had the opportunity to see some really excellent plays in the so called ‘West’. Or is it the North, these days?

Following on from the previous question, what opportunities and collaborations do you see the veterans of theatre forming with the new generation of tech-savvy performance artists? What can we lend each other in today's new world to further theatre?

JSO with other beasts in Tinga Tinga Tales, April 2016.

I am very much against the prescription of Creative Recipes and so, whatever your line of questioning, you are going to find me always pumping for the “Everything is Valid” corner. Question: Would I like to work with people who could be my sons and daughters and grandchildren? (I don’t think that great grandchildren form a biologically possible category, quite yet…) The answer is, yes. But first of all there has to be a vehicle for such collaboration. Let me try to explain: I didn’t go into Tinga Tinga Tales because I had some sort of messianic calling to impart my knowledge and experience to others but quite simply because I was seduced by the challenge of playing to drowsy three year olds and above and also because the script called for an older actor in the role of Lion. A great sadness is that there aren’t enough older actors, like myself, who have kept the faith over the years. So it is that in my own plays MEETINGS and KAGGIA, Lydiah Gitachu played Grandma and Mrs. Kaggia, both women who were decades older than she was at the time. There is something to be said for maturity and, excellent as Lydiah was in both instances, I would love to see an interpretation of those roles by an actor in her 60s, for example. As for tech-savviness, it can make for higher production values but not necessarily better performances.

Please share with us a critical reflection of your plays. Put another way, what do you say of the plays you have written?

JSO in Driving Miss Maisy, Braeburn, 1995

I would much rather leave that to the critics. However, not to be dismissive, I can speak about what has been my creative project to date: and that is to shine a light on Kenya’s history in the years after independence, as experienced by people of my generation, generally speaking, born in the 1950s. Thematically, that decision has brought in the predictable preoccupation with race relations (between wananchi, wazungu and wahindi), politically stoked ethnic rivalries, the expectations of marginalized groupings, to include, women and young people; the preponderant and often nefarious role of religious or, some would say, spiritual beliefs and, lastly, lack of tolerance for deviation from the norm. Now, such a summary makes my plays sound very portentous but anyone who has seen them would tell you that they have all been anchored in very accessible story lines.

You are currently the most prolific theatre practitioner (writes and produces a play at least once a year), and it seems that you have chosen not to be distracted by the cries of 'no support of theatre from Serikali' and gone ahead to prove the efficacy of theatre as a craft. Share with us the philosophies behind your project.

JSO directed Nathalie Vairac in his play ELEMENTS in 2013.

A correction, perhaps. I think that my good friend, David Mulwa whose 70^th birthday I helped celebrate publicly last year, has a much larger play count. As would someone like the late Barnabas Kasigwa, if I were to consider him, to all intents and purposes, a naturalized Kenyan. But once again, I have just got on with it. Good performance elects its own society, to steal the formulation (regarding the heart) of the American poet Emily Dickinson. When we have done good shows, be it In Search of the Drum Major, all those years ago, or more recently, Role Play, Minister, karibu!, Meetings, Kaggia and Tinga Tinga Tales, people have come to see them. The thing is, people thirst for good, challenging entertainment. Blaming Government is a bit like saying you can’t make something of your life because your father was only a cobbler. My injunction is: “Do something!” And the rest will follow.

How has theatre been significant to your teaching, broadcasting and interviewing duties?

The theatre is an excellent provider of communication skills. Under my (benevolent) dictatorship, performance arts in general and drama, in particular would have to be part of every curriculum from kindergarten to university. I have made a fulfilling living largely because of my ease with words and the theatre gives wonderful practice at speaking words aloud and getting to know and love them. I guess that as a substitute, I would recommend being/becoming a preacher. You also learn things like how to stand up straight, how to project your voice, how to pace yourself, how to wear a costume that communicates who you are, and so on. There are ‘how to’ authors who make millions imparting advice on correct behaviour which an actor has learned to display quite naturally.

Please share with us your reflections on the state of theatre in Kenya today.

            

Another weighty question. And I hope that I shan’t abandon the thread of my thinking in answering it. In short: what it is, is what it is. I believe that Kenyan theatre is in a good place inasmuch as it is the place to which we have evolved in 50 odd years as a nation state.

JSO with Sam Otieno (RIP) in King Oedipus, 1991

I do not share the nostalgia for the supposedly good old days when ‘theatre was theatre.’ As self-styled observers, when we look around us, we see that the days of the elders sitting around a tree sipping various types of brew whilst the women till the land are over. We think it a bit of a joke – albeit it a titillating one - to see muscle bound and bare-breasted ‘tribal’ dancers greeting the president at the airport runway. For the best educated among us, the measure of success is based on bourgeois aspirations and Money is the living God. Devolution in its gestation period is encouraging singularity rather than homogeneity. In other words, I am not talking down to anyone when I state that times have changed and tradition and culture are not what they used to be. I believe that the adjective ‘Kenyan’ is often used self-servingly and in vain. The focus should not be on Kenyan theatre but on theatre which is made in Kenya, by, with and for people who live in Kenya. So, others are welcome to hold an alternative view, and passionately so. But as for me and myself, I would wish to explore specific conduct rather than point to a desired, national sublime, on topics that interest me as an individual as opposed to giving treatment that might be of interest to the entire country, more than half of which I have never seen in my life. I hope that doesn’t sound too bloated and strident, in which case I would gladly soften my syntax.

Finally JSO, kindly take a moment to highlight for us some of the contemporary practitioners who are lending a useful hand to Kenya's theatre (as actors, directors, producers, critics etc.) In other words, celebrate those you consider to be adding value to our craft.

Harry Ebale (RIP) appeared as Bildad Kaggia in KAGGIA, 2013.

The selfish answer is that I would celebrate those I have worked with, who have all been wonderful and cherished collaborators. It would be unpolitic to single out specific actors but I was shattered by the untimely death of Harry Ebale who, white shoe-polish-for-grey-hair notwithstanding, was a magnificent Bildad Kaggia.  I can also single out one director who has been, by rights, the premier interpreter of my work as a playwright. And that is Nick Njache. As for

the work of others, I am a great admirer of Heartstrings Kenya. For those of us who have 'eaten much salt', Heartstrings have taken original, satirical, social commentary to the next level, since the days when the wages of taking the mickey out of the Great and Good was a protracted spell in a maximum security prison or in a torture chamber. If I were to go back to school to do a PhD thesis on theatre arts, it would be on their work, whose conception and execution I have found really fascinating.

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OBY OBYERODHYAMBO: "...probably the biggest threat to theatre in Kenya, is a growing middle class with absolutely no sense of culture!"

"The first question to ask is whether there is a ‘theatre practice’ in Kenya". - Oby Obyerodhyambo

Oby Obyerodhyambo, right, shares a light moment with this interviewer.

Oby, welcome to the 'News-by-Fish' and give the reader a brief on your good self.

I was born in Nairobi slightly before the Kenya nation attained Independence. My father was a civil servant and, with my house-maker mother, we traveled the country every time my father was transferred. I spent some years in Mombasa and eventually we returned to Nairobi where I grew up and considers to be my home even though I now live in Nkoroi, Kajiado County.  I went to Our Lady of Mercy South 'B' and Kapsoya Primary Schools before joining The Jamhuri High school for ‘O’ levels.  I proceeded to Kerugoya Boys High School for my ‘A’ levels and then joined Kenyatta University to study English Language, Literature and Linguistics.

After graduation, I taught at Gendia Boys High and Maseno School before joining the Literature Department of the University of Nairobi for a Masters of Arts degree specializing in Theatre Arts and Drama. I was a strong member of the UoN Free Travelling Theatre (FTT) troupe and later a founder member of the Theatre Workshop Productions (TWP) among whose best known productions are: Trial of Dedan Kimathi, Can’t Pay Won’t Pay, Dream of Monkey Mountain, Kifo Kisimani and the piece I authored called Drumbeats on Kerenyaga. I then taught at Kenyatta and Egerton Universities before shifting to Advertising Copy-writing.  Later I set up Mzizi Cultural Enterprises Ltd. and began providing creative expression consultancy services to NGOs using Theatre for Development Approaches.  I have authored several plays, theatrical performances and work-shopped material.  I was with Odero Aghan, (Publisher NOTE: Aghan Odero Agan is currently the CEO of Kenya Cultural Centre incorporating the Kenya National Theatre) the originator of the Sigana genre of narration and dance drama under which banner we produced acclaimed pieces like 'Mfungwa Tuliyemsahau', 'Jomo’s Tero Buru', 'Fumo Liyongo', 'The Sheroes are not Yet Born' and others.                

     Thank you for that eloquent introduction. Now, in your view, what is the state of theatre practice in Kenya – What is happening? What are we achieving? What are the opportunities and threats to theatre in Kenya?

A pictorial rendition of Sigana performers.

     The first question to ask is whether (or not) there is a ‘theatre practice’ in Kenya. There are people performing plays, but is there a practice?  A practice would suggest a way of engaging in a certain activity that is guided by tradition, convention and certain rules and parameters. In Kenya the theatre scene is a free-for-all market place! We have not developed a tradition or a form that is distinctly Kenyan. This is what we endeavored to do when we evolved Sigana with Odero Aghan, the late Bantu Mwaura, Amadi Adziaya, Lillian Indombera, Otieno Wakake, Gordon Atito and others.  We set out to define our craft into something that we set parameters for. We defined what Sigana was - a seamless performance of narrative, percussion, folk music, song and dance, banter and riddling. We deliberately combined traditional Kenyan art forms like the active narrative tradition that encapsulated participation and interaction; we infused ngonjera and ndai na gicaandi; we included dance-drama and pakruok (praise poetry); and totally re-thought the spatial relationship between performer and participant. Our sigana pieces were performed ‘in the round’ and engaged the audience fully they were spoken with, engaged in banter and riddling, encouraged to sing-along and dance, and even critique the performance as it was going on. That was an attempt at practice.

Today, by contrast, what we have are renditions of plays from all over the globe. There are those that are European West-End wannabes and those that do not really have any tradition. There are those that are en-vulgurated renditions of classical comedies laced with profanity, sexual innuendo and bawdy tardiness supposedly in response to the audiences' demand. Then there are those ‘work-shopped’ drama skits titled as plays that do not even have author credits. These are a collation of jokes and sketches and thought billed as plays that the ‘Come watch another rib-cracker’ line always gives them away. The titles are also an indicator of the ribaldry. These performances have apparently achieved great commercial success and in a nation where money is a bench-mark for success, have been labelled as ‘successful’ shows. Indeed they succeed to draw in a crowd who seek cheap pleasure and easy laughter, but in terms of artistic success I would not rate them highly. 

There is also the school set-book tradition that has always thrived with amateurish productions of the examinable books presented on stage to script-auditing students seeking to interpret the meaning of the plays. Somehow there is a myth that watching a performance eases the comprehension of a play. The quality and interpretation of many of these ‘school productions’ are nowhere chose to the interpretation that the authors tried to portray, but then the aim of the patronage of the performance by students and their wards is not clear. I am not sure that anyone has ever tried to evaluate if after the performance the students comprehended the play better or if they simply just enjoyed an outing.

The Schools and Colleges Drama Festival has been running for so long that it should have established a tradition only that it is not meant for that. If it were not modeled as a cut-throat competition ,with each producer out to outwit the other and win accolades, there would have been a gradual evolution that would have yielded a tradition. The competitiveness forces producers to think of ways of bamboozling the adjudicators in the hope that the ‘wow’ factor might win them the completion.  The Schools and Drama Festivals are similar to doping infested athletics where winning by all means necessary is the driving force. If there were less competition there would have by now emerged a Kenyan tradition of theatre because today’s producers are third or fourth generation children of this competition. 

The ‘death’ of Phoenix marked the end of the British tradition that was kept alive there.  Despite the struggles against the ‘colonial’ aura of the Phoenix it was true to a tradition - something that is grossly missing in our theatre scene.

That being the situation, what thoughts would you like to share to provoke reflection on a Kenyan journey towards acknowledging the threats and creating a theatre practice, a tradition (with a form)?

Kenyan Theatre needs to re-invent itself just like Kenyan music has. The biggest threat to our theatre is the disconnectedness between the past and the present. There is no place where the past practitioners and the present ones meet to share, engage, revitalize, learn and celebrate. There is no forum for passing on, for mentorship, for influencing.  There is not place where the historicity of the Kenyan Theater tradition can be passed on.  Secondly, there is a dearth of scholars engaging actively with Kenyan Theater.  In the past before Kenyan universities had Departments of Theatre Arts and Drama we jealously looked at the Makerere School of the late Rose Mbowa and University of Dar-es-salaam’s Peninah Mlama and concluded that once we had these departments we would have more in-depth research into the cultural traditions of performance; so that we too would have our own Ozidi Saga, Sundiata or Epic of Shaka Zulu, but this is yet to happen.  Our schools have not been able to study, document and teach the performance traditions of Kenya.  They might have studied individual dramatists, but I have yet to encounter any in-dept study of form.

Oby 'Kings' in a production in his acting heydays.

Thirdly, resources allocated to the arts in Kenya are laughable.  There is no commitment or investment in culture in general. I have argued elsewhere that re-furbishing the Kenya National Theatre, while a great gesture, is not indicative of commitment to performing arts and culture. We need to have dedicated funds channeled through County-based Arts Councils to promote the cultural heritage of the 47 counties. Real commitment means real budgets and not empty rhetoric. One wonders why 50 years into independence there is only a single Bomas of Kenya! Why has it not been possible to establish such cultural show-cases all over the country? Not only would it improve on authenticity in cultural expression, we would also be able to increase marketing opportunity for talent.

Fourthly, and probably the biggest threat to theatre in Kenya is a growing middle class with absolutely no sense of culture, their own (and not) that which they have aped. This middle class is responsible for the proliferation of Mexican soaps, Naija movies, pirated Hollywood blockbusters downloaded at the cost of a packet of milk, illiteracy and ethnocentricity. They are the biggest promoters of Luo, Kalenjin, Kamba, Kikuyu, Luhyia, Coast nights where, under the pretense of promoting their ‘home’ culture, they perpetuate the ethnic identity. If they were promoters of forms of cultural expression definitive of their regions I would have no problems with them, but they do not.

These 'nights' are forums for being in their most primal, most ethnic and jingoistic.  It is a place for the cementing of ethnic stereotyping and profiling.

Oby joins the late Opiyo Mumma and other Kenyan actors.

Before I am misunderstood allow me to state that retreating to celebrate ones culture is not a problem; we see that in every multi-ethnic society. Recently we saw celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day and while people of Irish heritage had good reason to wear green and celebrate, what were those Kenyan middle class dressed in green celebrating? We have seen how Halloween has become a huge middle class fad!  What cultural significance does it have? I will not even venture to go into Valentine ’s Day. Why have these middle class persons not found individuals or days to celebrate even during those days where food and dance are the only identifiers? Is it that they cannot find cultural icons worth identifying with? The Kenyan middle class is a schizophrenic wannabe class! They want to celebrate other traditions complete with wearing their colors and also superfluously identifying with their ethnicity. The material for Theatre, as all other art, rests with these cultures that the middle class do not support.  They would rather dress in green on St. Patrick’s day!

Ahsante sana! And with that you have set what I hope will be the agenda for further exploration by this blog. Now, you wrote the masterpiece 'Drumbeats of Kerenyaga' for which you got into some trouble with the KANU government. A quarter of a cetury on, what reflections do you have to share on this artistic piece?

When I wrote Drumbeats on Kerenyaga we were very idealistic, and believed that the Moi government narrative - that Kenyan’s were too tribalistic to form political parties for the expression of their political views - was wrong and needed to be challenged.  Drumbeats renounced the idea that freedom of expression had to be muzzled by Moi lest the county implodes.  Moi was using ethnic identity as a political tool to create conflict and hatred among the Kenyan masses so that mass movements based on political ideology and not ethnic bigotry would not work.

A king and a servant: Oby on stage.

Today, more than during Moi’s time, his political progeny are doing the same.  Drumbeats is more relevant today than it was when we produced it for one night in 1990.  Today, the nation has been so ethicized that the idea of statehood is a pipe dream, and more so among the middle–class. The level of ethnic polarization is so intense and so severe that it can be likened to America in the Jim Crow era. We have today in Kenya a clear divide between ethnic identities. There are those who literally face social, economic and political lynching. There are ruling party ‘red-necks’ who, were it possible, would string up persons from certain regions like they did blacks. The skewed nature in which opportunities are provided and shared mirrors the racist and apartheid regimes. The interlopers in Drumbeats were driven by selfishness and greed and so are the Kenyan Ku Klux Klan today. I think that there needs to be a production of Drumbeats on Kerenyaga to remind us of the prophetic message of that production.  It is a message of strength and hope; it is a message of revolution; an assurance that the oppressors will be overthrown and a just system restored. Odera Outa has criticized me for being too idealistic but, then as now, I have faith in the redemptive power of the masses.

I hope that the offer of the production of Drumbeats of Kerenyaga will be taken up seriously. I can't wait to watch the play myself. Now, our politics and religion is increasingly borrowing and using 'theatricity' to deceive the masses. (Not that they are creatively artistic). But, do you have any fear that politicians and the clergy - pastors, apostles, name it - are running away with theatre at the expense of ‘artistes’?

Artists have themselves to blame if their space is occupied by the politicians and the religious leaders. There are issues that need to be addressed using art and the politicians cannot do that neither can the religious leaders. There is a vacuum and currently the theatrics of the political class and the religious type are playing out. There are serious issues that need to be addressed and having a low audience turn out is not an excuse for the committed.

A note to playwrights?

Playwrights write plays: use that art form the way that it has been used since time immemorial. I would like to see plays on the Kenyan history like what Shakespeare wrote.  I want to see plays about political oppression like those Soyinka wrote. I want to see plays about dictators like Kongi’s Harvest and Betrayal in the City. I want to see politically satirical plays like Dario Fo wrote. Plays about retribution like Ariel Dorfam wrote. Even in hard times, Athol Fugard wrote plays with Winston Tshani.  People need to remember that they cannot out-porn porn, so writing plays that are salacious is just not right.

A note to theatre-goers?

I have nothing to say to say to theatre goers since they already go. Those we need to entice are those what do not go. We need to market our shows.

Beyond stage-theatre: Experience and lessons from your managing the (Scenarios) 'Global Dialogues'?

There are very many young talented Kenyans just looking for an avenue to vent. The Scenarios project just confirmed that we have issues that need to be responded to creatively. We just need to get the channels that can allow that creativity to flow. 

Thank you a trizillion for sharing your thoughts and experiences Oby Obyerodhyambo. I look forward to listening to the discussions that your thoughts will elicit.

Thank you.

John Sibi Okumu has far outlived Ngugi wa Thiong'o in the Kenyan Theatre Scene - Dr. Fred Mbogo

"Do they eat well from theatre? I don’t know. Do they make sacrifices that are admirable? Yes!" - Dr. Fred Mbogo

Dr. FRED MBOGO is a Playwright, Critic, Actor, Director and Lecturer of Theatre and Drama at the Moi University's Department of Literature, Theatre and Film Studies. This interview, a first in a series of PEOPLEISM forums, was conducted with Oluoch-Madiang' on February 21st, 2016.

Theatre in the academia: What has been the Moi University Theatre Department's contribution to the actualization of drama in the country?

Dr. Fred Mbogo, don & theatre professional

Moi University has been producing theatre graduates now for the last fourteen or so years.

If you follow closely where these graduates eventually end up you would be impressed in parts and somewhat excited in others. There are those that have joined the media (broadcasting) in such capacities as editing, writing, directing and all that. Others are copywriters, film makers, and one or two have become regular actors in short advertisements for television. There are others involved in teaching at high schools and Universities. The world of Non-Governmental-Organizations has taken in most of them in capacities to do with mobilization of communities. There are some who from time to time have been producers of theatre works in Nairobi.

Dr. Mbogo's students in action, Moi University.

But none has actually made the practice a permanent business. Of course there is no one measure of knowing whether as a University we are producing theatre practitioners worthy of engaging in the Kenyan environment sufficiently. Perhaps what has betrayed the majority of the graduates who may have loved what they do has been the nature of theatre business in Kenya.  It seems difficult especially as it does not have sufficient or reliable funding. For this reason, consistency in the practitioners can be an uphill task. From its onset with Dr. J.B Okong’o and Prof. C.J. Odhiambo, Moi University has succeeded in training theatre experts. Practical exploits by the department have resulted in notable performances not only within the University but also in other public spaces. This has been essential in the production of storytellers who are not merely tethered to theatre, as live performance, but have moved on to other areas where storytelling is essential such as in film and television.

Dr. Mbogo on stage in 1999 with this interviewer

The department has also grown with other instructors making contributions such as Evans Mugarizi and the late Ezekiel Alembi, as a part timer. There have been international collaborations for productions and research with such institutions as Bayreuth University and the University of Stellebosch. With time the department has grown to incorporate courses in film and music, with Prof. Mellitus Wanyama heading a very essential part in processes of producing graduates with a keen awareness of the place of music in the creation of live performance. Recently, with energies of Cosmas Bii, the theatre division has benefited from the engagement of film production so that there has been training of actors and actresses towards the collaborative production of films such as Cycle 28, and Let’s play pretend.

Of course there are numerous challenges in the processes of training. Funding remains a big issue, but also the idea that attitudes towards the performing arts haven’t changed over time. There should be more energy employed in encouraging students to take themselves seriously, but parents an society in general have failed to see the potential of the performing arts despite the exploits of Lupita Nyong’o and the living excitement that Nigeria’s film industry has brought to our television stations. There is also a sense that diversity, in terms of areas of the performing arts that one should engage in, has not been developed. But we must have hope. Attitudes might change; and all could end well.

LEFT: MUKABIRA, written and directed by Fred Mbogo.

You have read and practiced and shaped theatre for eons! What do you find to be the most succulent thing about theatre?

Mbogo's play 'Eulogy of a Neat Man' poster, Nakuru, 2013

Well, the idea that you are exposed to the elements, from scratch. Unlike in film where there are so many practitioners involved, theatre is living; you can write, direct, and act in small or big projects. At the same time, you are close to the process of production in that you struggle, as an actor, for example, to get your lines, understand what they mean in context for your gestures and plot movements and think about little things like hand props and the effect of light on your face. You are so exposed, you must feel vulnerable but in the end there is the joy of discovering victory when in that difficulty you have delivered your play to an applauding audience. Isn’t that so human? What is more human than its unpredictability, the idea that every time you perform you are uncovering something new. There is something organic in that, it is like peeling into life from above.

But also as an audience there is the idea that nothing can be faked, you can see through to the actors and see them letting you down or pushing you into areas of your emotional self that very few things in life can let you grasp. It is that magic, that flesh and blood closeness that theatre is best for. The theatre too can cheat you into being intellectual without “feeling” it. It easily can lead you into debates that are so easily availed through gesture and half sentences that are played in the minds of your fellow audiences that applauding or silence become part of the performance- you cannot find that through TV!

Lets talk about the state of theatre in Kenya: Challenges and opportunities?

Dr. Mbogo nurtures upcoming actors and actresses in Kenya

It has potential. It can grow. But it must move from Nairobi - in the journalistic sense, we need to see more coverage of theatre experiences in places like Mombasa or Kisumu, Eldoret and also other smaller towns where it takes place in forms that are not those that we teach at University. I think it has to be given space to be nurtured. This means starting to teach aspects of theatre in primary school. So that people appreciate it from then. Through these efforts there can be a cohort of graduates who appreciate theatre and who eventually become its consumer. It can be an interesting site for the growth of intellectual citizenry if taken seriously, which is why I suggest that it ought to be taught from Primary School through to University. There should be more participants than are participating at the School’s Drama Festival through, not mere extra-curricular ventures, but as part of the curriculum. For why isn’t theatre essential as part of communication studies, for example?

Dr. Mbogo performs in 'Thieves as Humans', 2009.

Having said so, I must observe that there are people who have been in the production of theatre in Kenya for a long time through thick and thin. It is almost as though they have been welded to the art. Do they eat well from theatre? I don’t know. Do they make sacrifices that are admirable? Yes! I am talking of names I have heard since I started being interested in theatre, people like John Sibi-Okumu, and David Mulwa. Others like Sammy Mwangi and Abuto Eliud, Simon Oyatsi, Millicent Ogutu, George Mungai, Keith Pearson, Oby Obyerodhyambo, Mike Kamunya, Oluoch-Madiang’, Silas Temba, George Orido, Gilbert Lukalia, Lydia Gitachu, Mumbi Kaigwa, Obat Masira, Caroline Odongo, among many others. These are the names one wants to respect; they have been there through hard times- whether there has been funding or not. So, yes, there has to be a frontline that keeps the fire burning; this is the group that we should emulate. Somewhere along the way, theatre might gain its prominence to an extent that we cannot do without it.

Kindly provide a brief literary appreciation/critique of John Sibi-Okumu’s efforts in scripting and putting up shows in Kenya.

John Sibi Okumu in his ELEMENTS. Most committed thespian?

Surely, there has not been a more committed individual in Kenyan theatre than Sibi-Okumu. People talk of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Kamirithu and so on, but forget that there are people who have been here longer acting, directing, writing, producing, teaching!  I don’t think anyone has done more than Sibi on this score. But what is interesting is that Sibi-Okumu’s work has become even more committed in the last decade or so, in terms of written plays. These plays have been political in nature, pricking into our consciousness. The best must be in the fashion of the character of Mzee in the refreshing Role Play, who takes us through the  paces of how so badly we have been betrayed- but also how we have been complicit in that process. Should we be fearless and fight back to try and gain some dignity? It seems so, Sibi-Okumu suggests in his Minister Karibu where there is a sense in which people have become selfish: we must be stirred to come alive again, regain a semblance of something good for ourselves. Kaggia refused to go to bed with the powers that be, in Sibi-Okumu’s play then we must take up a spirit like that; of refusing, of being angry enough so we don’t side with the exploiter. But who is listening to Sibi-Okumu? It is the intellectual, or some class, that can pay for the price of a ticket at Phoenix Players or at Pawa 254, perhaps there is need for these plays to be seen by more people. They haunt so effortlessly, but they must be seen by the people on the ground who, in my view, must refuse to be kneed into submission by corrupt exploiters. So, yes, Sibi-Okumu’s contribution is admirable. I wish there was more of him and others that prick our conscience!

- END -

Fred Mbogo continues is based in Eldoret.