A Review of Mumbi Kaigwa's Performance of TALKING HEADS: 40 Years of Toil!

Mumbi's tonation nailed the first play.

 Yesterday, 22nd February 2012, Mumbi Kaigwa began celebrating her 40 years of  (and in) acting. She began at age 10 with a performance in Wole Soyinka’s ‘The Strong Breed’ in 1972. Yeah, you read that right, 1972! I must surely take the time to congratulate and celebrate her for that. I do not know how long 40 years feel like; being as it is that I am yet to hit that magical number. But all the same, I tip my hat to Mumbi Kaigwa for the years she has given to the art. As a line in her latest performance stated, art is giving, and I know Mumbi has given art a lot.

Mumbi in her elements. No butterflies!

However, the question begs; in performing Alan Bennett’s “Talking Heads” monologues “Her Big Chance” and “Bed Among The Lentils” in a jumbo production at Nairobi’s Alliance Francaise’s Wangari Maathai Auditorium, did Mumbi Kaigwa’s 40 years of performance profit her or did, ‘acting begin at 40’ for her? Was Kaigwa successful in rendering a solo act to the satisfaction of her Kenyan audience? Were the two plays actualized to the ‘best of Mumbi’?

I will insist here on ‘Kenyan Audience’ though being aware that Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues were created in the early 1980’s for the British setting, both television and the theatre. Mumbi (assuming she was the producer/director/re-writer) succeeded in ‘Kenyanizing’ the play to take cognizance of the audience’s experiences. Though most of the localization was done via re-naming of the characters’ abode and towns, it must be noted that these places (Lavington, Kawangware, Hazina and Kilindini) carried with them into the plays the audience’s idiosyncrasies and understandings, (say prejudices and attitudes), that enriched their ‘take-home’ from the performance. In Her Big Chance, Mumbi was commendably successful in that. In Bed Among The Lentils, the Kenyan audiences experiences with spiritual conmen and entrepreneural Indians were functionally used to localize the drama. The behaviors, mannerisms and stereotypes were well woven to bring Bennett’s intentions to a local people. To be sure, the audience that Mumbi attracted for this performance was certainly not the same that would stand the spectacles of the Heartstrings Ensemble, and so their demands are a bit of a ‘crossword’ comedy/fun. Dealing with them calls for a certain performance mien: calculated, genteel and almost Queenish! And this is where I suppose Mumbi strictly adopted the Queen’s English rendition twang.

In her enunciation, delivery and accent, Mumbi succeeded generally in the first performance (Her Big Chance) to caricature the wanna-be high-class hookers that bestride Nairobi’s middle-upper class. She took the characters manner of talk well enough. She was even able to capture well the mannerisms of the protagonist.

Mumbi came alive in Bed Among Lentils

But then Mumbi found it difficult to tackle the intricacies of a solo performance. The challenge of a solo performance is the ability of an actress to act out all the characters in the story while at the same time doing justice to the point-of-view character. Whereas she was good in playing the role of the persona, she failed in her attempts at personifying the rest of the cast. This led to the performance seeming dreary and monotonous and the salvation for the audience was more on the interesting story of the play rather than the inspiring rendition of it in a performance. You nearly would have got the same kind of fun just sitting at your couch and reading the script. In a way, therefore, Mumbi seems not cut out for a solo act, a monologue, but for a team drama where she has a specific character.

In both performances, Mumbi decided to limit herself in stage use. In the Her Big Chance, all the performance took place while seated stage right. Whereas this worked well in bringing out the tone of an intimate musing by a hooker, it to some extent limited her connection with the audience. A level of detachment was evident. The way Bennett has written the play is such that it is a narrative for sharing with someone else. In a way of speaking, the protagonist is ‘gossiping’ with her ‘gossip-buddies’, rather than reflecting in her head, thinking on her own, reviewing her life experiences. Mumbi chose not to use the storytelling approach, and that was the reason for the performance’s downfall. Besides, some of the stage businesses that she chose were such that she was limited in using her body to perform but entirely rely on her mouth. The putting on of cutex, doing her hair and a sipping of the wine limited her to that monotonous pose and a near complete lack of paralinguistics. She may have been left to work on tonal variation but then, she needs a lot of help here too.

One seems to wonder whether or not Mumbi Kaigwa had the benefit of a director. For the most part, this seemed like a self-directed performance, hence lacking an external eye to polish it. It would be a grave pity if the decision was made to self direct, because the premiere seemed more (to an experienced eye) like a rehearsal session before colleagues to determine the level of comfort of the actress with her lines prior to blocking etc. Mumbi was tentative with her rendition, confused character names and severally caught herself messing up.

To be fair, Mumbi nearly nailed the second performance, Bed Among the Lentils. Here she was more confident, used the stage well, mastered her stage business and connected with her audience well. I do not however think that using the same accent and enunciation for this play as in the first one was effective. It would have been best to adopt a totally different character trait because the upscale hooker in the first play was is miles apart from the philandering wife of a Pastor in the second.

The final bow! Congrats Mumbi on your 40th.

In the end, I would give Mumbi a technical ‘above average’ score. (Mind you she is 50 years old and rendering performances for characters in their late 20s and early 30s…for which attempt I would give her a credible 65%). I still would say that, barring the cheerleaders who ‘support’ one of their own, Mumbi’s enanctment would still interest a keen theatre goer. Certainly it needs some polishing, but then, Mumbi’s boldness in trying to pull this off provides exciting lessons and experiences in localizing performances. My parting shot then would be to advice Mumbi to take in a good director and also watch Rowan Atkinson’s monologue sketches.