Mukabira, the play

This is the story of a watch repairer who wakes up one morning, scratches his head and sets out to finish his enemies. He works in a desolate street in Nanyuki town and wants to know: “Why do people look at me as though I have a strange disease?” A loaf of bread and the bible become part of what he imagines can offer him the passage to dignity. But what must he do to regain the trust of his son? What must he do to get back his beloved wife? Must he change his ways to be accepted by the people who he has known all his life as his own?

We should like you to take the main character as a serious member of your society. And like all who sometimes suffer as a result of forces such as nature that are beyond them, we present his “raw” self to you. Will you take pity on him? Will you side with some of his ideas? Will you want to look at some of his thoughts as your own? And will you want to look at him as an adult you can adopt in order to refashion his thinking?

Sometimes people behave the way they do because they are ignorant and are therefore susceptible to manipulations by forces such as misinforming rumormongers, mis-communicated ideas, changing cultural attitudes, contradictory situations, unexplainable phenomena, untested tastes and trends…Our main character may be deemed to bear out-of-the-way thoughts that in the end are sorted by some reflection…Our hope is that you may let your prejudices, idiosyncrasies and generally improper ideas go through a process as similar as our main character’s. Reflect!

Mr. Odongo, the main character, is played by Oyatsi S.O. Oyatsi is an accomplished actor who has toured around the country with plays given by various groups including Rift Valley Ensemble and TheatreScope. He has been involved in a number of Fire By Ten series produced by the Nairobi-based The Theatre Company. He is also the Rift Valley representative of the company.

Fred Mbogo, the writer and director is an Eldoret based theatre artist whose plays have toured various towns in the country. He also teaches at The Department of Literature, Theatre and Film Studies at Moi University.

My take

The play is characteristic of Mbogo's style characterised by its few characters and abstractness, with a dialogue that takes you back to Becket's "Waiting for Godot" or even closer home "Amezidi". Oyatsi is undoubtedly a good actor and depite a few slips he delivers a powerful act, compelling in both its intensity and social commentary status.

Catch phrase: "Why does it only happen to the Odongo's of this world?""
Mukabira refers to a person from another community
The play ran at the Alliance Francaise, Nairobi, last weekend.