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.