Heritage

Holiday cheer begins on Nairobi stage tonight

BDhope

Members of Hope Theatre performing in Germany. PHOTO | COURTESY

Holiday cheer has already begun on the Nairobi stage with Braeburn Players opening tonight in their annual Christmas pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk. Then next week Phoenix Players open in their annual musical, entitled Joy to the World: A Kenyan Nativity 2014, written by Steve Muturi.

Muturi has written earlier versions of his Kenyan Nativity which were winning productions as he placed the Christian Nativity story within a contemporary Kenyan context to the delight of local theatre-goers. He has done the same this time round, following the Biblical narrative of Mary (played by Maureen Munene) and Joseph (Yusuf Ang’asa) getting stuck with no place to go. Where the baby gets born, you’ll have to find out for yourself; but it’s somewhere in Nairobi.

Muturi stretches the story beyond what some orthodox religionists might find inappropriate, especially when he replaces shepherds with local ‘celebs’ and even matatu touts have a place in his story.

But a younger generation of Phoenix Players are having fun with the script and it is likely to re-introduce Muturi (who’s been off writing more for television in the recent past than plays for the stage) to a new brood of local theatre lovers.

With a chorus of 15, including a band led by Jackson Anduru, this year’s Christmas musical at Phoenix should remind us of days of old, when the Players staged seasonal productions that were memorable.

Last night, Friends of Creative Arts opened in Consequences under the direction of Veronica Wacele amd Mbeki Mwalimu. It’s only being staged this weekend at Alliance Francaise.

Starring Xavier Nato, Maina Olwenya and Robert Agengo as well as Nice Githinji, Melissa Kiplagat and Umi Rajeb, Consequences is one more romp between irresponsible adults who don’t serve as anybody’s ethical role model, but Nairobi audiences never tire to be amused by FCA shows.

The production that should not be missed this weekend opens today at Goethe Institut’s auditorium. Water! Scenes and Beats as Basis of our Life is being staged by the Hope Theatre Nairobi under the direction of Stephan Bruckmeier and David Thuku.

Bruckmeier began working with young people in Kariobangi and Korogocho in 2009 and quickly got hooked on the idea of starting a theatre company made up of Kenyan youth who could build what he calls a “cultural bridge” between Kenya and Europe.

Austrian by birth, Bruckmeier worked as a director and set designer both in Europe and Southern Africa before coming to Kenya; but the energy, enthusiasm and improvisational skills of Kenyan youth coming from the so-called slums compelled him to not just launch Hope Theatre Nairobi in 2009 and initiate the Slum Theatre Festival in 2010.

He’s also been able to take his Hope Theatre team to Germany four times where the troupe has performed in Hamburg and Stuttgart, and been very well received.

Operating on a shoestring, Bruckmeier didn’t come to Kenya with some well-funded NGO or UN agency. He began working in theatre in Austria as a professional pianist for cabaret shows. That exposure to theatre convinced him it wasn’t music that he wanted to pursue.

Coming to Kenya, he met the then-new director Johannes Hossfeld who was receptive to his work with slum youth and helped get Hope Theatre Nairobi off the ground.

Johannes also assisted with the photographic book that Bruckmeier put together called Meeting Nairobi. But the collaboration was mutually beneficial to both men, especially as Bruckmeier introduced Johannes to the theatre concept of ‘Six in the City’.

Johannes brought the concept back to Kenya in 2013. Inviting six local writers who are not typically scriptwriters to create short plays of the show, Six in the City was staged last year on the roof of PAWA254 and was a resounding success.

Bruckmeier enlisted Judith Kunz, a young German to write for Hope Theatre Nairobi. Her first script was The Dream of getting a Job. Her latest script on Water! premieres this afternoon at 2pm and be restaged at 7pm and on Saturday.