IV - The Lion & the Jewel in Mombasa

Summary

In December 2013, I took responsibility for a Kenyan production of The Lion and the Jewel at the Little Theatre in Mombasa. This show was the first step and project that I took into the world of directing and I must say it was quite an experience. After I finished my Trainer of Trainees level of performance training, The Theatre Company of Kenya (TTC) put me in charge of the project as the director. I have always had an interest in directing but didn’t know it was going to come that soon. With TTC overseeing the whole process, I worked closely with Cyrus Ng’ang’a, who was the dance choreographer, and Hillary Namanje, who was the company’s Coastal Manager.

The show required a lot of energy and physical fitness and thus required a flexible team of ten actors with the crew included. Every rehearsal day would start with an hour of yoga. The practice of yoga is key in our way of working. Apart from physical fitness, it warms up the body and enables the actors to be energetic throughout the day. It helps in body alignment and balance, which brings unity to the body system, directing the group’s focus for the day. Dance warm-ups and routines would follow through theatre exercises and then work on the text. For all of us I must say it was more of a learning process since we incorporated the project with the six-week performance training programme that the company uses. It basically tackles the topics of the actor, use of voice in speech, music, percussion, characterization, devising work and also working with the text, which was reworked as a mixture of English and Swahili. We learned in the best and most fun way we could.

Growing up as a young girl from the Bukusu community in the Western part of Kenya, my grandmother would use proverbs (mafumbo) to teach me about life lessons. Relating to how Wole Soyinka wrote The Lion and the Jewel always reminded me of my roots and grandmother when I heard:

…aaah! Ailatu that was gentle, be sweet and sharp

like the swift sting of a wasp for there lies the pleasure

– to describe the notion of grabbing opportunities while they are presented to you there and then.