Phoenix’s ‘Butterflies are Free’ sensitively deals with issue of disability

Kenyan theatre is getting more interesting by the day as local playwrights are coming forward to expose their works and express their creative capacity.

The exception of course is Phoenix Players which is still addicted to plays by Westerners which they indigenise.

But Phoenix can be forgiven this time around since Leonard Gershe’s classic script, Butterflies are Free (which opened last weekend and runs up to September 7) addresses an issue that has yet to be tackled by Kenyan playwrights which is the disability of blindness.

Billed as a “romantic comedy” (while sensitively treating the delicate issue of disability), the show also has an outstanding cast as Lenana Kariba plays Don Ngatia, the young blind man who’s had the guts to move out of the protective cocoon prepared by his overly protective mother (Melissa Kiplagat) while Fridah Muhindi is ever vibrant and energised as Jill Musuve, Don’s new next door neighbour, an aspiring actress who falls in (and out) of love with the blind man.

The play addresses real problems that blind people must face; but it also does a superb job enabling us to see life from a young blind man’s point of view.

The one disappointment of the play is that Harry Ebale was billed to play the role of Fridah’s would-be boyfriend but as he was directing the show he handed his part over to his under-study, Tim King’oo, a young actor who did his best but was challenged to work with skilled professionals like Fridah, Melissa and even Lenana, who hasn’t spent much time at Phoenix but handled being blind quite well.

Phoenix also redeems itself later this year when two of John Sibi-Okumu’s original plays will be staged. His brand new play (yet to be named) will be staged in October and Elements, the one-woman monologue performed by the Francophone actress Natalie Vairac, will be on at Phoenix in November.

Elements will also be performed this coming Wednesday, September 3 at the Alliance Francaise. Natalie is a professional actress and Sibi-Okumu actually had her in mind when he scripted the play.

The one challenge for some of us about the script is that Sibi wrote it in French, Natalie’s mother tongue. But fortunately, Alliance will flash English sub-titles translated by the playwright on a wall beside the stage, so the public need not shy away from seeing this lovely, expressive actress tell a fascinating story.

Meanwhile, The Theatre Company is staging no less than five original scripts this weekend. And one more script being produced by Spiel Works Theatre and Interacteam Media this weekend at the Italian Institute of Culture was also conceived by TTC.

Githaa was devised as an improvised piece in 2006 by the first set of actors who had gone through TTC’s initial training programme.

Currently, Githaa features a fabulous cast, including Melvin Alusa, Lydia Gitachu, Christine Savane, Bilal Mwaura, Willy Rama, Helena Waithera, Iddi Achieng’ and Rogers Otieno. The other five plays are short pieces, all related to the one theme (and title of this year’s Fire by Ten programme) Kimbea.

Catejan Boy, another one of Kenya’s best known playwrights (and one who’s also become a filmmaker who writes, directs and produces his own films!) has written The Race especially for this year’s Fire by Ten.

The same is true of Joseph Muringu who wrote When the Door Opens, Edward Nthiga who scripted Just a Man, Ogutu Muraya who wrote Doping and Joseph Gichinga who wrote Usiguskong (Don’t look back in Sheng).

Keith Pearson, TTC’s managing director, is committed to advancing Kenyan theatre, especially through the performance of original Kenyan scripts. To facilitate that process, TTC sent researchers to find out all that is involved in making prize-winning Kenyan runners.

That research was then shared with the five playwrights who produced the works you can see tonight at Casual Bite Café & Coffee House in Westlands.

Finally, Kuldip Sondhi is an old hand at playwriting and in addition to Beach Access, which will be staged this Sunday at Louis Leakey Auditorium of Nairobi National Museum as part of the Samosa Festival. This award-winning playwright has scripted more than nine plays (plus countless short stories), most of which have been staged at Mombasa’s Little Theatre.

Trained in the UK to be an aeronautical engineer, only to come home to Kenya where he designed, built and continues to manage the Reef Hotel at the Coast, Kuldip won the BBC playwriting prize for Beach Access in 1997, but it’s just as fresh and relevant today as it was back then.