THE FACT THAT YOU WERE BORN IN A GARAGE DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE A MOTORCAR!

THE FACT THAT YOU WERE BORN IN A GARAGE DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE A MOTORCAR!

Improving Narratives and Narration at the Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festivals

by

Oluoch-Madiang’

The National Workshop for Drama Teachers and Adjudicators

Tom Mboya Labour College, Kisumu

24th January to 27th January 2005.

In The Beginning…

This paper seeks to invite participants in this workshop to reflect on some of the sticking points that have for long bedeviled the narrative genre in the schools and colleges drama festivals. At the onset, this paper acknowledges, appreciates and salutes the positive effort of participants that has contributed to the improvement of the narrative genre and its performance. In some instances, the paper will set the record straight while at other times it will address the contribution of narrators and/or their directors, which may have been contributing to the lowering of the standards on the narrative genre.

This paper will also try to challenge narrative producers to creatively use the repertoire of stories that abound in our cultural heritage to address contemporary issues. A reincarnation of Mzee Kobe, Sungura Mjanja, Kaka Mbweha, Fisi Mlafi, Nyamgodho wuod Ombare, Abunuwasi, Wangu wa Makeri, Simba Marara, Ogres and even gods should be considered, as narrators engage their audience in reflecting on the social, economic, physical and political realities that obtain in our times. It will be a most interesting and fulfilling experience to see these characters adapt to our current lifestyles and interact with us as we seek to come to terms with the occurrences in our daily lives.

Finally, this paper will also seek to raise the bar for producers and narrators to cover new ground and explore numerous possibilities of stories and storytelling techniques. Overall therefore, this presentation aims at improving the quality of the narrators and the narrative genre in general

How Many Male Angels Can Dance on a Pinhead?

A recurring perplexity amongst narrative producers has been determining the number of narrators to perform a story. The history of this bafflement can be traced to the original and experimental thinkings that defined narrative performance at the festivals and the subsequent guidelines for the narrative genre.

Not only was a ‘narrative with a stage audience, e.g. by the fireplace’ identified, but also a maximum number of 15 participants set for the narration. Simultaneously, narration possibilities in terms of numbers and methodology were offered. Thus we had solo narration, multiple narrators’ narration, mimed narration and sung narration. Producers were left dazed and confused. What followed were preposterous inventions and innovations on stage, where narrative settings in the days of yore were dramatized and student performers took advantage of the confusion to lynch the narrative genre and instead promote an alien genre of part stand-up comedy, part clowning and part stupidity. And as the charred remains of the narrative lay in makeshift coffins ready to be dumped in shallow graves, pseudo-adjudicators emerged from somewhere and proceeded to invent and prescribe diverse misinterpretations of the genre. Some thought that the narrative was a wall, others a spear, others a tree, others a fan, others a snake, others a rope, and still others thought it was an afterthought! Arguments and counter-arguments flew on numbers. Narratives nearly became a statistics course dealing with peddling of numerical matters.

Now that the funeral is nearing a close, I think it is time for us to do unto the narrative as the Christ did unto Lazarus. With him we must shout, ‘Narrative, come forth!’

A peep into the methodologies that have been existent over time bears testimony to the fact that all the abovementioned arguments have only been about the number of female angels that can dance on a pinhead.

• Classical oral narration of stories on earth has been universally a solo, individual and/or personal affair. It is the one person who has the story and who tells it from his/her perspective, subjective point of view, capacity, idiosyncrasies, wisdom and foolishness. If another person disputes the story, then he/she also gives his/her own individual account.

• There is evidence of two-man storytelling, amongst the Khoikhoi of the Namib Desert and also amongst two children caught stealing sugar. While the Bushmen have baffled us with their competitive and simultaneous two-man narration, the guilty children have always respected turn-taking, each other giving their own accounts in a cooperative attempt to tell of their innocence. Never ever does their narrative degenerate into noise.

• Relay narration of extremely long and epic narratives has also been practiced. One narrator picks the story and runs with it like crazy up to a certain point and hands the baton to a colleague, who bolts with the story in renewed vigor until he/she pantingly gives another storyteller the story to continue. On and on until the marathon narrative has been told.

All these are acceptable and classical possibilities. For these festivals, it would make quite some educated sense if the number of narrators was limited to one or maximized to two. Thus we should allow and contain only the solo and tandem narration styles.

Without prejudice, storytelling, like creativity, is a solo affair. It is the individual that perceives the world and chooses what to narrate. In his/her narration lies his interpretation and instantaneous creativity as he/she re-tells a chosen occurrence. This creativity and narration may ignite excitement in the listener, who may react in several ways, either contributing to that story or choosing to retell it totally.

Multi-narrator presentations must be approached with this in mind and be considered as a creative exploration of cooperative rendition of human ideas and experiences. The challenges it presents have to be appreciated and considered if one is to embark on it. I will address this in the topic on 'Tandem Narration' below.

There is nothing like a ‘stage audience’; the audience is already in the auditorium. When some distracting crowd is assembled on stage and directed to behave in a certain manner in a purported rendition of a story, we violate the boundaries of narration and trespass into a different genre. Significantly, the spontaneous and instantaneous principle of the storytelling genre is compromised. The narrator’s audience must be identified as that gathered in the auditorium. Anyone who uses his head to assemble backstage staff and force it to sit before the auditorium audience to be told a story should have his head removed from him so as to prevent him from further sinning lest he misses the glory of the final days.

Let’s Chew This Tandem Narration Thing

Sometimes an institution may decide to have two narrators perform their story. I choose to call this, ‘Tandem Narration’. In this scenario, two narrators work alongside each other to effectively communicate a story to and relate with the audience. Tandem narration comes with its advantages, the most obvious being the provision of variety. The two narrators may effectively depict the different characters, moods and actions in well-timed turn-taking and cooperation.

Apart from variety, tandem narration offers the audience different points of views and interpretations of a particular episode. The narrators may use this opportunity to draw different albeit appropriate deductions from a single issue and thus engage the audience in a deeper reflection of the matters at hand.

As a social development experience, tandem narration offers student-narrators an opportunity to improve their capacities to work as members of a team. The respect of and cooperation with each other needed for this sort of narrative performance dictate that tandem narrators develop individual skills of tolerance and open-mindedness.

Tandem narration may also be advantageous in situations where the oral narration needs to be simultaneously accompanied by the use of stylistic devices like songs, chants or instruments for mood creation and effect. This possibility of labor division may be significant in achieving narrative credibility and audience appreciation of the story.

On the other hand, tandem narration presents its own difficulties and challenges. The most glaring is dealing with the individualism and spontaneity of a story and its performance respectively. A story is more of an individual and personal genre. No two people can see the same thing in an identical manner. This human nature may interfere with the plot and flow of the story in a tandem narration situation. Narration is also an art that accepts spontaneous creativity, on the spot improvisation, adoption of the occasion and incorporation of the audience’s interests and needs. This instantaneous enrichment of the story based on observations of the storytelling venue and participants may cause confusions and conflicts between the two narrators, especially when one is ambushed by an impromptu episode that he/she has no clue how it arose. One narrator might infuse something in the story that totally throws the other off balance.

Another challenge comes from reconciling the capacities of the different narrators. If one is evidently stronger, then the other will only act as a counterweight, pulling the one down and with him, the story. Dissimilarities in language mastery, observatory skills, creative manipulation and even voice engineering may wreck havoc in the course of the storytelling. Before embarking on tandem narration, these capabilities must be checked. It is better to have a solo narrator than to burden him/her with a back-rider!

A common challenge in tandem narration is timing and cueing. If turn-taking is not timed well, then cases of ‘noise’ may occur. These are situations where both narrators are talking at the same time about the same thing but in their own individual interpretations. In some cases, embarrassing gaps are realized because the one to take the cue is absentminded or overawed by something in the audience. Cueing and timing may be resolved by agreeing earlier on who will tackle which part of the story, and also by improving concentration skills of the narrators.
Finally, a challenge of tandem narration has been what space the passive narrator has to occupy when his/her colleague is taking the turn to tell the story. Some co-narrators have been seen to get stranded on stage and become distracters. The best thing is for the one to stay off a little and listen unobtrusively to the other’s narration, then appear as appropriate when his/her turn comes. Silently slipping into the audience space or audience role should be a skill of tandem narrators. (Ironically, this explanation just means episodic solo narration!) When situations demand, the one may accompany the other in songs or instrumentation. Ideally though, it is important for tandem narrators to agree on each other’s space and how they will alternately take the limelight or the shadows.

A point of caution here is in order. Tandem narrators should resist the temptation of alienating the audience and telling the story to themselves. In some instances, we have witnessed two narrators alternately take the position of audience and enjoy their story themselves with total disregard of the audience. Again, there has been the temptation of turning the narrative into a choral verse, where a whole episode is collectively told. Similar to this is a scenario where tandem narrators take advantage of their numbers to present a skit in the place of a narrative. All these temptations must be acknowledged and directions given on how to avoid them while on stage.

Striking a Balance Between Content and Comic Relief or Entertainment

A story, in the context of these festivals, is an oral account of happenings within the real and imaginary environments of human beings. Most stories are therefore functional, with the aim of informing, explaining, educating and entertaining.

Emmanuel Obiechina in ‘Narrative proverbs in the Africa novel’ contends that,

‘The story itself is a primary form of the oral tradition, primary as a mode of conveying culture, experience and values and as a means of transmitting knowledge, wisdom, feelings and attitudes in oral societies.’

It is in the story’s content that this functional nature is to be found. The design and choice of subject matter epitomizes the profit that an audience gains from a story. It should be expected therefore that all stories presented at the festival are sound content-wise.

Now, the delivery of this content, commonly understood as narration, must of necessity embrace the use of stylistic devices to spice up the rendition and the story. Appropriate stylistic devices help the audience to chew and swallow the story. The desire by the audience to listen to a good and enjoyable story gives stylistic devices their place in narration. These stylistic devices may include comic relief or deviations, songs, chants, mimics, pauses, speech distortion, accent exaggerations, metaphorical references, etc.

The function of these devices is to enrich the story. At no one time should they subordinate the content. There have been situations where narrators have presented narratives too saturated with stylistic devices, so much so that the audience is forced to take the story with a lot of water and mouthwash. Your narrative should not be too spicy. It should not be like cooking salt with a little sprinkling of meat and a pinch of sukuma-wiki.

The adoption of an old, wrinkled man’s voice and tonation, costuming in tattered, crumpled and dirty clothing, adopting a crooked walking stick and uncoordinated gait, exaggerated and frequent facial malformation, elongated episodes of laughter and mirth etc. have reduced the narrative genre into an unpalatable and mis-spiced food!
The mark of a good narrator lies in resisting being carried away by the audience’s reactions as a result of his/her masterly application of a stylistic device. The narrator should control the audience despite drawing his/her spices from them to enrich the story. The story is lost the moment the audience grips the narrator by the neck and has him/her play to their whims. It is at such times that the spices grab the story’s content in a death-lock and re-enact Okonkwo’s conquering of Amalinze the Cat!
So be watchful. Elevate the story’s content and functionality before occasionally sprinkling a little salt or trying out a wee pinch of pepper.

It is all in the Detail

The credibility of any story lies in the narrator’s attention to detail. The weakness of most narratives presented at the festivals is evident in their sketchy and skinny nature. Not enough information is given to the audience so that they can imaginatively reconstruct the story's experience and hence relate to it.

If we are telling the story of a rapist, for example, we want to know the 5Ws and H about him/her and the story. Who is he/she; Where is he/she; What does he/she; Why does he/she; When did he/she; and How does he/she. We might want to know her age, his name, marital status, how his eyes look like, his size, her reputation, how he got that mark on his thigh, her friends etc. The audience wants to know and understand this character, his motivations, his actions and their consequences.
Seldom however, do our narrators describe the characters and settings of the story so that the audience understands and enjoys the story to the fullest. On the contrary, they rush it through and leave a lot of gaps and unknowns in the story. Engaging in a descriptive telling of the story may be a solution to this problem. And resorting to figures of speech, amongst others, can do this.
A dismal percentage of our narrators use figures of speech to enrich their stories. Similes, oxymorons, proverbs, idioms, hyperboles etc. are shunned or left unexplored. Yet these are the tools with which we can achieve detailed and vivid description of events and characters.

Our directors should encourage and train our narrators in giving detailed descriptions of scenarios. Holding back detail and presenting a sketch instead is like inviting a hungry mob to your kitchen to admire the utensils and crockery!
The other point is to explore techniques that would help in improving the audience’s retention and remembrance of the narrative. Repetitions, exaggerations and use of particularly peculiar traits or names of characters would help us achieve this. Repetition of particular instances that form the turning points or key dramatic moments of the story not only heightens the expectations of the audience, but also helps them to live with the story longer after it has ended. Exaggerations may be useful as the narrator, who is all-powerful and omnipresent in the lives of the characters, conjures instances and aspects beyond human ability to enable the story move forward or flow to a certain direction. The case of Lwanda Magere’s body made of rock is an example.

Finally, poorly composed or scripted narrative texts and the insistence by some teacher/producers on text mastery has also robbed narratives and narrations of their richness and glitter. When institutions present narrative compositions whose texts are thin in information and descriptions, the narration's decline immediately begins, especially for weak narrators who depend on being spoon-fed by the producer. Further, drilling narrators to cram a narrative text word-for-word robs them the opportunity to creatively enrich their narrative with occurrences at the festival venue. Cramming also means that the narrator does not work to understand and own the story. They only mutate into dubbed cassettes filled with words, words, words.

In a test of one student/narrator who asked that I help him with his production, he could not re-tell the story (which was in English) in either his mother-tongue or Swahili. When I interrupted him in the midst of his strained regurgitation of his tutor's text, he could not proceed without starting all over again! Let us compose fully detailed narratives and encourage our storytellers to understand and own them, rather than photocopy them in their minds and engage in an exercise of vomiting frozen pseudo-stories. (Because we anticipate audience involvement and narrator creativity and improvisation as the narration goes on, it is virtually impossible to faithfully stick to the narrative's text.)

Chiffon or See-Me-Through Narratives

There are narratives that are so predictable that they are as embarrassing as the see-through shirt of a potbellied, bloodied and hairy butcher! The audience gets frustrated, especially when they can predict the sequence and results of actions and events in the story, only for the narrator to confirm their predictions. A narrative becomes useless the moment the audience can piece together the jigsaw.

Narrators need to learn how to temporarily hoard or suspend some information and create teasing and unforeseen twists and turns in their story. As some information is suspended, the narrator introduces new ones that are equally intriguing. In essence, the audience should be sweetly invited and escorted to the edge of Canaan and then be unexpectedly and rudely frustrated by an entry into the Sahara desert! They should be taken through a frustrating waiting game, the kind that soon-to-be fathers go through at the hands of tight-lipped and everlastingly busy birth attendants. This can be achieved by designing stories that have several points of suspense. Suspense ensures audience anxiety, involvement and interest. Their desire to ultimately get to the crux of the matter ensures that they will provide an environment conducive to enjoyable storytelling.

So do not dress your story in chiffon. Wrap it into an onion ball and tease the audience to join you in the painful revelation of the mystery behind the watery eyes! It is not unwise either to end a story in suspense and leave the audience to guess what went on.

Gadgetry: The Alien Narrators From SONY

The narrator’s personification of characters in the story, facial expressions and malformations, gestures, dialogue imitation, chanting, singing and general voice manipulation are significant in tickling the audience’s imagination so that they may understand and relate to the story. All the abovementioned stylistic appropriations must be automatic to any narrator. The competence and effect to which they are employed determine the rating of a narrator as either good or poor. This is because narration is a human, verbal art that targets the recipient’s imagination for effect.
For this reason, and in particular, in a festival scenario, the use of gadgets robs the audience of a chance to test the worth of a narrator. When mood, sounds and songs are delegated to gadgetry, a robotic and strange narration is realized. The narrator’s weaknesses are bared naked and the arising incompetence reduces his/her credibility and that of his/her story. It is unwise to aid the narrator with any pre-recorded elements of style. The role of the narrator is well-defined: to use his body to tell us a story!

Granted, instrumentation is an accepted element of narration. But instrumentation must be understood as totally separate from gadgetry. Whereas in gadgetry the electronic inventions of man robotically take over the narrator’s duties, in instrumentation the narrator’s skill in the manipulation of the instruments for effect are observed, tested and interrogated. The difference is between actual drumming and pressing a button to realize a sound of a drum from some gadget.
Gadgets deny the audience their rightful chance of witnessing the narrator’s all-round skill and competence.

The Fact That You Were Born in a Garage Does Not Mean You Are a Motorcar!

Like any other genre of performance, narratives too need a lot of preparations, from composing to the final rendition before an audience. It is true that preparations may not be conclusive, as it is understood that circumstances within and around the narration venue provide fodder for improvisation and creativity in performance. This notwithstanding, narrative production and direction by the teacher-producer-director must be as professionally conclusive and competent as possible. When the master of ceremonies announces that the narrative coming next is produced by Mwalimu Mkubwa, who is the Senior Principal of Hadithi Academy, the quality of the narrative presented must be directly proportional to that alleged title!

A director-producer needs to understand the festival rules, narrative genre guidelines and the intricacies of storytelling. He/she must help the student/narrator to understand the use of body and mouth in the performance of a narrative. Giving directions and suggesting possibilities to be explored by the narrator are duties, which, if carried out satisfactorily by the teacher-producers, then the quality of narratives at the festivals will go up.
Unfortunately, some of our teacher-directors are abdicating this important role to quacks and cons in a very shameful and shocking manner. Propelled by the desperate desire to be winners by all means possible, our teacher-directors obstinately cling to water snakes for survival as they drown in two-foot deep rainwater!
There is a growing trend of teacher-directors hiring school leavers and past narration winners to mis-produce and mis-direct their narrators. In the most horrible scenario, I have seen a teacher-director hire a quack whose only claim to narration prowess is having attended the same school as a past winning narrator! It was even flabbergasting for this hired goon to attempt to explain to me the principles of narration with a stage audience as presented by one Dr. Oluoch-Madiang’ from Kenyatta University. When I pointed out that the only Oluoch-Madiang’ that I know of is neither a PhD holder nor a University don, the impostor suggested that I increase my presence in the school drama festival circles and I will surely bump into this animal propagating narration untruths. You can imagine the shock and near paralysis that gripped this nitwit when he was informed by his employer that I am in fact the Oluoch-Madiang’ he is referring to! I still can’t believe that I did not have the presence of mind to split his skull!

What I am saying is that our producing institutions are shockingly naïve and are being fleeced of a lot of monies, and abetting a scenario where the festivals are robbed of quality productions. Teacher-directors of narratives must be intelligent enough to see through the fallacious association of narration competence with personal proximities. Neither should teacher-directors depend on the accidents of history to determine how successful their items might be at the festival in future. The fact that one is born in a garage does not make that person a motorcar! This applies too to those pseudo-adjudicators who imagine that past fame and success are the parameters with which current winners are chosen! Narrative expertise is not acquired by osmosis or lineage or the kitenge or agbada that challenges your gait!
Quackery also continues to lower narration standards on a different front. This is the case where producer institutions purchase shoddy items from peddlers and hawkers of stinking incompetence. I need not belabor this point. Instead, I want to dramatize the sleaze we are engaged in by producing herein-below (verbatim) evidence of our laziness and insensitivity. This is a ‘story’ that was bought and presented by a provincial institution in a certain province. Read it and be ashamed. Really ashamed!

THE KEY
It is said that every community has a person who exhibits peculiar characterized and who becomes he fulcrum on which a lot revolves. Such a person once lived in the hilly areas of lower, lower, few remembered what his real name was because they used to call him Ben, Benu, Benson, but he was lucky to be brought up in a victory why women were not allowed to carry a key. They believe that old job like cooking, belong to women, washing; women, magic of maize to become flour women and eating no no, it was a work of men oooooh.
Ben at last he make the right choices and one year, two years and thanks went smoothly and he thought he was a chief in his own house. He walked with keys whenever he go even his wife had to wait for him to come back home. One day Ben and his wife leave the village to go visit a friend in a nearby village and the elders warned him not to give his wife the keys because it bring curse to him into the village. He thought the different between men and women that men wore trousers and women wore dress beyond that there was not much of a difference and so he had over the keys to his wife.

Somewhere along the way, the Lord left him and his eyes grown dim and his voice fail in the wind. It was a compulsory retirement the shame he brought upon his people, the crush of his dream. So he took his cross into the darkness and began to think think think until moments ago when he found the answer that truth is the only thing that last and he was about to die where he say to his wife “take my body back to the land of lower lower and bury me in our family burial grave”. He died with disbelieving wife staring at him but which is worse my friends, cursed or death. At the village emotions welled over but everyone have a reason to have a sad memory of happy ones depending on which side of the fence you are and after some few days his wife decided to use the key and she that we all have one life to live here on earth and because history tends to carry on what is better forgotten.
At the village people started to count days and mourns. At the third moon whispers ere heard and by filth everything was obvious and to God of the eye of the rising sun. curse did not follow them so they believed that a woman can also carry the keys and elders were wrong.

That is the caliber of some of our teacher-producers and the level of stories we rely on! But this is the exception rather than the rule. We have some tremendously wonderful narratives that have been produced by our more dedicated teacher-directors. And we have also had insightful performances by our student-narrators, facts that bode well for the narrative genre in these festivals. These must be encouraged and nurtured for all to be proud of.

Return to Roots?

In light of the above shame, one shudders at the thought that we cannot trust ourselves to compose or access competent, relevant and interesting stories and present the same for the festivals. The lack of confidence in ourselves is appalling, and it is this low self-esteem that is giving the quacks a field day, making easy money. We must arrest this situation.
Our oral traditions have numerous stories that are relevant and entertaining, even in their as-yet-un-narrated state. A lot of ‘traditional’ tales have been recorded in books and others are forever etched in our minds. I think that it is time to explore the possibilities of going back to these stories and creatively applying them to our contemporary life. For whatever it is worth, we must consider and try to understand our present times by borrowing from the wisdom and characters of the past.
This past presents us with stock characters that we may superimpose to our friends and foes of today. Therefore, Fisi Mlafi, Kaka Mbweha and Simba Marara must be given seats in our noisy parliament; if the Ethiopians are proving too tough for our runners, then Mzee Kobe and his family - who won the race against hare - must register and compete in the Nairobi Marathon; Beautiful Gazelle should compete for the Miss Malaika beauty contest; Sungura Mjanja who beat the combined team of elephant and hippo in a tug of war must be called up to play as a scrum-half for our rugby team; Wangu wa Makeri must ressurect and take over the leadership of Maendeleo ya Wanawake and sit on all those men who hold executive positions in women's organizations; Ugly Vulture, Lying Snake, Stinking Mongoose and Ng’ef Ng’ef Monkey must form a coalition of perfidious political parties and Abunuwasi must adjudicate at the zonal level of the Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festivals.
On the other side of the coin, today’s characters must also be matched against those of yore. Our politicians must be compared and contrasted with Odera Akang'o and the chiefs who used to lead hunts and provide for their subjects; our abortion doctors must be pitted against the Ajuogas and medicinemen of days past who could remove chickens from one’s stomach without touching the body etc. etc.

In so doing, not only will we be enriching our present life by drawing on the familiar and popular tales of yesterday to tackle the emerging unknowns of today, but we will also be utilizing our popular wisdom and repertoire of stories. We shall thus be winning the war against the cons and quacks that have for long been eroding the glitter of the narrative as a genre.

In conclusion, let us respect and adore the narrative just as the warthog respects its food. We must kneel before stories in supplication, even as we drink from their reservoir of wisdom, just as a warthog kneels before its fodder as it profits from its nutritional value.

That is my story…like it or like it, that is my story!