A 400-year Old Tale Of Paranoia And Betrayal

This weekend will be activity-filled for theatre enthusiasts as Alliance Francaise in Nairobi has embarked on a project to reintroduce classical French plays to the Kenyan audience. From the team that brought Mstinji, The Miser, Sirano wa Begeraki and Antigone is yet another classical comedy play to be showcased at the Alliance Francaise Auditorium. Mgonjwa Mwitu is a Kenyan adaptation by Gadwill Odhiambo of the French literary classic Le Malade Imaginaire by Moliere, France's most celebrated playwright. In this story, our protagonist, "Mgonjwa Mwitu" is Agani played by Bilal Wanjau, a man who believes in every word coming from the mouth of his many doctors who have a prescription for millions of non-existent maladies afflicting him. The medics make a killing from his paranoia and his naivety seeing as he believes every word of their diagnosis. Agani who lost his wife, is remarried to Belinda, a savvy, carefree youngling who has an eye on his wealth and is involved in an illicit tryst with his lawyer as they scheme to fleece him of his wealth. Belinda has little affection for Agani or his children who have been raised from childhood by the house help Toneta who has a faux love-hate relationship with his employer that would lean towards inappropriate to the naked eye. Agani plays antagonist to his daughter Angelica love life and in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, he tries to marry her off to the son of his friend who is a doctor to get free treatment for his endless infections. Angelica plays the role of a girl naive to the nature of romantic relationships but with defined boundaries on the state of her life in a comical play that takes a witty crack on the afflictions of human interactions. In the end, the play promises to entertain as much as it relates to the happenings in Kenyan society in terms of political and social wit. Wakio Mzenge who plays Toneta says, "this is a story about how Agani is so taken by modern medicine that it has enveloped fear which makes him constantly on medication for things that he doesn't even know. He has a string of medics around him and is constantly taking prescriptions, perhaps to his detriment." Is he going to be saved? "The audience will decide," she responds. Bilal Wanjau, playing the role of Agani, describes his role as one of showing the thin line between vulnerability and stupidity and how these distinctions are brought about by his relationship with his young and pristine wife Belinda whom he married after the death of the mother of his children. "The beauty of this play is the adaptation of a 400-year-old French classic to resound to a Kenyan audience now. Not much needed to be changed and in it, we are always reminded that the world is always going round and round in circles," says Wakio. "Our only workaround Mgonjwa Mwitu was to contemporise and contextualise it to our surroundings and references in a manner that encourages us to laugh at ourselves to find out what ails us and to eventually find redemption. It is advertently a comical look at life," says Wakio, who is also vying for Secretary at the Kenya Actors Guild. "The play will showcase how information can imprison us and how in the search for knowledge, we have moved away from the simple things that used to work. It is an encouragement to move away from the ideology that only one person has the power to change our lives," Bilal states. The two main principals have been in theatre for over two decades and they promise to bring out the best in this adaptation of a French classic. The director, Stuart Nash, notes that the play was written originally by Moliere in 1673 and his biggest challenge as a director was in adapting it and moving it to fit into the Nairobi of 2024. "It was a tricky venture but it has been done through a very collaborative process between the director, writer and the cast to bring it to life," he says. "The audience should expect to laugh a lot," he promises. "Most of the plays I have directed are very heavy but Mgonjwa Mwitu by far is the lightest comedy I have ever directed, and I think the audience will get to have a lot of fun with it," he tells the BDLife. ? muyomziegmail.com