DRAMA-KENYA: Pub Theatre Pulls in Crowds

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Charles Wachira

NAIROBI, Feb 27 1996 (IPS) - Aspiring drama groups in Nairobi unable, or unwilling, to pay high fees to stage their productions in proper theatres are taking their shows to where there is always an audience – in the pubs that abound in the capital.

“Since we began showing our skits in bars we have attracted tremendous crowds,” enthused Joni Nderitu, Secretary-General of the Kenya Dramatists Association (KDA).

“It’s been interesting to note that people who previously believed drama was performed merely for the heck of it, now realise the usefulness of drama as an education tool,” he added.

To see a play in one of the Nairobi’s leading theatres sets a playgoer back 500 Kenyan shillings (around 10 US dollars). That’s about one-eigth of the monthly salary of the average primary school teacher and, as a result, few Kenyans ever go to see a play performed in a commerical theatre.

On the other hand, Nairobi’s bars are almost always full and when a play is performed no one baulks at a cover charge equal to two dollars, or the price of two bottles of local beer.

While religious organisations also allow theatre groups to use their premises, they usually insist that plays have a religious message. There is no such restriction in the bars and performances there usually deal with social and political evils encouraged or perpetrated by African regimes.

One such play is ‘Mugaathe Mubogothi’ the Kikuyu words for ‘The Hallucinating Leader’. Written by journalist Wahome Mutahi, a former political prisoner, it revolves around the emotional theme of armed struggle.

The main characters are freedom fighters dischanted with a politician – stage-named Mugaathe Mubogothi – who propels himself to power in an imaginary African state.

“I love you citizens and that’s why I want to carry the burden of thinking for you,” Mubogothi tells his people. “As your leader I shall use the state resources the best way I know and I have decided today to buy five underpants for myself with state funds.

“Plus I shall purchase a ship that will not sail on the high seas but will fly in the air.”

It does not take too much imagination to see the parallel with President Daniel arap Moi, whose purchase not so long ago of a multimillion dollar jet created quite a stir in Kenya. (MORE)

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