Clever courtroom drama glues audience to their seats

Who wouldn’t be angry knowing both your mother and abusive step-father as well as your ‘‘shrink’’ and even the State are getting set to ‘‘put you away’’, meaning locking you up in an insane asylum for the rest of your life?

Her rage might be mistaken for her being Nuts+ which also happens to be the title of Festival of Creative Arts’ (FCA) latest play staged last weekend at the Kenya National Theatre.

The better alternative for Claudia (Helena Waithera) is to stand trial for murder, a crime which she apparently committed, but her argument is that it was in self-defense.

In her line of work, namely prostitution, she is often exposed to all sorts of creepy men, including the one who’d been out to violently rape her.

Fearing for her life, she allegedly ‘‘offed’’ the guy and got charged with murder. But to Claudia, getting jailed for murder is preferable to being deemed insane, especially when her parents are merely trying to avoid the scandal of both their daughter’s lifestyle and her alleged murder charge being publicised.

But even more worrying for them is that Claudia might spill the beans about the step-father (Bilal Wanjau) who’d sexually abused her for years.
Her mother (Marrianne Nungo) apparently knew about this travesty all along, but never lifted a finger to save her child.

The whole of Nuts+ is set in a courtroom where Claudia’s long-standing rage against her parents certainly looks like the girl is mad. The court’s psychiatrist (Mourad Sadat) claims she is and her violent outbursts against him, her parents and the prospector seem aligned to his point of view.

The judge (Agnes Waruinge) wisely keeps a cool head through all the insane behaviour displayed not just by Claudia but by both her mother and step-father who give brilliant performances as they gradually allow their guilt-infused minds to reveal their own mental imbalance.

Nuts+ is definitely a grand departure for FCA who typically put on farcical and fluffy comedies which invariably elicit good theatre crowds, audiences who apparently love shallow humour but who seemed just as glued to their seats as I was the night I saw this clever courtroom drama which also had its moments of humour — especially when the parents slipped out of their air of propriety into mad reflections that swept them into wild realms of recollection that they’d been carrying around most of their married life.

I hope Nuts+ marks a turning point for FCA which often features shows that don't challenge us to think deeply and explore different realms, including the dramas of everyday life.