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| transformed into scalding drama |
"Kill Me Quick"
By Margaretta wa Gacheru
MEJA MWANGl, twice winner of the Kenyatta Prize: for Literature, has
transformed one of his award winner, Kill Me Quick from a novel into satiric,
witty, and scalding drama. In so doing Mwangi has again made an important
contribution to Kenyan literature and culture.
This time it is to what has been termed the "national
theatre movement." Mwangi writes pointedly about contemporary Kenya,
about most of the most pressing and stirring social an£ local issues which
confront the country today. From the wealthy ex-patriate landowner who still
cub his workers ' 'boys'' to the waste and wanton crimes which come out of
sheer boredom and, poverty, to so many associated' dichotomies between
the propertied rich and the disenfranchised poor — Mwangi writes in the style
of what he calls "the machine gun age.''
G.G. Githere, the director of the play has picked up on Mange’s spirit as have
all of the Kenyan cast. All are eager to make the production a box-office
breaker. Many simply believe in what the playwright has to say.
For a number of the cast members, the issues of unemployment, cultural and
economic oppression, and the struggle for survival and sustained dignity,
have immediate significance. They have been real life' problems for some of
them.
This kind of identification of so many of the gutsiest, gritty social problems is
what will very likely bring Kill Me Quick instant success. Mwangi himself has
gone to the heart of many people's perceived problems:
Their poverty and all the other effects which derive from being in the ranks of
the unemployed.
The two main characters, Meja and Maina, played by Edwin Nyutho and Tom
Mwangi, defy the colonial myth that the poor are lazy and dumb. Well-
equipped with all the intellect and academic credentials, their energetic efforts
in seeking employment are all for nought. What ensures is a sad, but telling
social commentary.
In real life, Nyutho and Mwangi, like so many of the other cast members, are
also eager employment seekers, especially when it has come to the stage.
Nyutho has performed in de Graft's Muntu, Watene's Kimathi, and Rythm of
Violence just to name a few. While Tom Mwangi has been in The Lion and the
Jewel by Soyinka, Desperate Hours and Muntu. But these two are not
exceptions. The cast is largely made up of well-seasoned actors.
The one challenge I have with the overall production is actually with the writer,
Meja Mwangi himself. With all his creative ability and penetrating observations
and insights into the Kenyan scene; still his final Interpretation of his social
reality is desperate, dead-ended, and bleak.
Without the understanding of these young people's potential for changing
society and for having a transforming influence in history, Mwangi seems to
be an "exception" in his own way — he himself is able to creatively change his
own production, the novel, into theatre. He loses the opportunity of Standing
not as an exception but as an example of the historical rule of the continuity
of social change
MEJA MWANGl, twice winner of the Kenyatta Prize: for Literature, has
transformed one of his award winner, Kill Me Quick from a novel into satiric,
witty, and scalding drama. In so doing Mwangi has again made an important
contribution to Kenyan literature and culture.
This time it is to what has been termed the "national
theatre movement." Mwangi writes pointedly about contemporary Kenya,
about most of the most pressing and stirring social an£ local issues which
confront the country today. From the wealthy ex-patriate landowner who still
cub his workers ' 'boys'' to the waste and wanton crimes which come out of
sheer boredom and, poverty, to so many associated' dichotomies between
the propertied rich and the disenfranchised poor — Mwangi writes in the style
of what he calls "the machine gun age.''
G.G. Githere, the director of the play has picked up on Mange’s spirit as have
all of the Kenyan cast. All are eager to make the production a box-office
breaker. Many simply believe in what the playwright has to say.
For a number of the cast members, the issues of unemployment, cultural and
economic oppression, and the struggle for survival and sustained dignity,
have immediate significance. They have been real life' problems for some of
them.
This kind of identification of so many of the gutsiest, gritty social problems is
what will very likely bring Kill Me Quick instant success. Mwangi himself has
gone to the heart of many people's perceived problems:
Their poverty and all the other effects which derive from being in the ranks of
the unemployed.
The two main characters, Meja and Maina, played by Edwin Nyutho and Tom
Mwangi, defy the colonial myth that the poor are lazy and dumb. Well-
equipped with all the intellect and academic credentials, their energetic efforts
in seeking employment are all for nought. What ensures is a sad, but telling
social commentary.
In real life, Nyutho and Mwangi, like so many of the other cast members, are
also eager employment seekers, especially when it has come to the stage.
Nyutho has performed in de Graft's Muntu, Watene's Kimathi, and Rythm of
Violence just to name a few. While Tom Mwangi has been in The Lion and the
Jewel by Soyinka, Desperate Hours and Muntu. But these two are not
exceptions. The cast is largely made up of well-seasoned actors.
The one challenge I have with the overall production is actually with the writer,
Meja Mwangi himself. With all his creative ability and penetrating observations
and insights into the Kenyan scene; still his final Interpretation of his social
reality is desperate, dead-ended, and bleak.
Without the understanding of these young people's potential for changing
society and for having a transforming influence in history, Mwangi seems to
be an "exception" in his own way — he himself is able to creatively change his
own production, the novel, into theatre. He loses the opportunity of Standing
not as an exception but as an example of the historical rule of the continuity
of social change
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