Shakespeare’s Kiswahili play on tour of India

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By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU margacheru@gmail.com
Posted  Saturday, November 10  2012 at  00:30

IN SUMMARY

• Kenyan theatre group landed invite after impressive show during the London Olympics

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It is conceivable that Shakespeare had never been quite as accessible to Kenyan theatre-goers as when the Bard’s colourful comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor, was translated into Kiswahili as Wanawake wa Heri wa Windsor.

It was staged at Kenya Cultural Centre’s Ukumbi Ndogo by The Theatre Company last Sunday.

Billed as the “Preview Show” prior to TTC’s departure on its first tour of India, Wanawake’s accessibility was partly due to language, as Kiswahili is the mother tongue of many Kenyans, and partly due to the comedic character of the slapstick performance by the nimble-footed Kenyan cast – which included Tanzanian Mrisho Mpoto, who played the lead role of Sir John Falstaff with gusto and gregarious charm.

Set in the present day in the small town of Windsor, in Windsor County, what also contributed to audience appreciation of the play (which is more than 500 years old, having been scripted around 1602) was the sheer physicality of the production.

According to the show’s London-based director Daniel Goldman, the focus on physical comedy was intentional and something he and the cast worked long hours to perfect.

“We wanted to make sure that audiences who didn’t speak Swahili would understand the play,” said Goldman, who admits his own Swahili vocabulary doesn’t exceed 20 words at most.

But being a seasoned director of Shakespeare’s plays and also having studied physical theatre for several years at L’Ecole Jacques Lecaq in Paris, his special affinity for the Bard’s comedies made him a perfect pick for directing a show destined for its premier performance at the Globe Theatre in the UK.

Wanawake wa Heri wa Windsor went over very well during the “Globe to Globe” Cultural Olympics, which was held in London shortly before the 2012 London Olympics, between April and June.

So well, in fact that the Guardian newspaper’s theatre critic Andrew Gilchrist gave it five stars and pronounced it “visually intoxicating” and “slapstick ... tinged with genius” which was “must-see” theatre!
The Theatre Company only gave two performances of the play in UK, but they were so impressive that one Indian theatre company that watched it invited TTC to visit the sub-continent and perform Wanawake at several venues this month.

The troupe left Kenya straight after their Sunday KCC show.

Showcasing some of Kenya’s finest actors, what was clear during the TTC matinee was that there was genuine chemistry between Goldman and the East African cast, which gave a seamless performance providing hilarity non-stop.

Steeped in sarcasm and sexual innuendo, it’s the story of Sir John Falstaff’s failed seduction of two merry wives (Kitt Nyangaya and Veronica Waceke), who discover early on in the comedy that Falstaff is a silly rogue and fortune hunter who would shamelessly seduce married women for the sport and the spoils from it.

And, as is typical of Shakespeare’s style, there are several sub-plots interwoven in the play, making it a medley of merriment performed by eight enchanting actors who perform no less than 21 roles in total.

TTC will be back in Kenya in two weeks, and will stage Wanawake several times around the countryside. May I recommend that everyone who’s up for a good laugh go and see the show.