Sanaa’s second theatre awards attract much needed support

Not since the 1980s when Mbalamwezi Players handed out theatre awards for the best of Kenyan productions, casts and critics has anyone bothered to give credit to Kenyan thespians.

That is, not until George Orido took it upon himself to start the Sanaa Theatre Awards a year ago. Mr Orido’s awards didn’t make big waves in the media last year.

But last Monday night at the Alliance Francaise, the second Sanaa Theatre Awards attracted a huge following of thespians and fans of Kenyan theatre, who had come to see who would win top awards at the event that Mr Orido has gotten serious sponsors for.

They included Dutch NGO Hivos, East African Breweries Ltd, Alliance Francaise, University of Nairobi, Zetech, Kenya Cultural Centre, Global Dialogues and members of Orido’s home media house, among others.

The jurists were headed by Chris Wanjala of the University of Nairobi and included an impressive array of theatre educators and media editors associated with the arts.

The big question for me in any award ceremony is how many of the numerous productions being judged did all the jurists go to see? For instance, how many jurists went to see stand-up comics and comedies staged by several local language companies?

How many went to see the Accidental Death of a Terrorist staged by Phoenix Players? If they had, how could they have called this biting but extremely witty politic satire a “tragedy”, as it was classified on the list of award nominates?

There were other categories – like best primary school production – that I also wondered if the university lecturers like those in the jury had had opportunity to go and see.

Nonetheless, I applaud Mr Orido and his team for giving heaps of credit where it is due. For instance, Sanaa Lifetime Achievement Awards went to no less than four outstanding thespians– David Mulwa, Raymond Ofula, the late Barnabus Kasigwa (who was actually a Ugandan) and the late Derrick Amunga.

Also giving extra credit to John Sibi-Okumu for being both an excellent playwright (of Kaggia and Elements) and director (of Elements) was an absolute must.

Giving the best original play in English to Kaggia also made lots of sense.

The evening virtually belonged to Mr Sibi-Okumu as lead actress in Elements, Natalie Variac, also won the Best Actress award.

This is one award I would have challenged, first because French is not a language everybody speaks so Natalie’s performance in French could not be easily judged despite Alliance Francaise and Sibi providing English subtitles.

Second, I felt that the two Kenyan actresses up for the award – Sitawa Namwalie and Fridah Muhindi – gave potentially award-winning performances.

I’m glad the Spoken Word award went to Sitawa’s Silence is a Woman, although I think more consideration needs to be given to spoken word poetry in the coming year since this category of creative expression has exploded with eloquent originality in the last few years.

But then, judging theatre, like judging all the other arts, is a subjective choice.

I must commend the judges for giving the Best Actor award to Harry Ebale and and Best Supporting Actor to Bruce Makau, both of whom performed well in every show I saw them in this year.

I also agree that Heartstrings Kenya deserved Best Comedy award, but it would be hard for me to say Kenya Made in China was better than all the other comedies Sammy Mwangi staged.

All were hilarious and had underlying social themes that made Heartstrings’ shows different from most of the escapist comedies that get staged in Nairobi.

Certainly, the Alliance Francaise deserved the award for Best Theatre Venue in town, although that could change next year when renovations to the Kenya National Theatre are complete.

Finally, I’m glad kudos were given to Harsita Waters of Alliance Francaise for playing a dynamic role in supporting up and coming Kenyan artists whatever their chosen genre has been.