Too early for birds but not too late for Mboya

If we’re to rank theatre groups as if they were national schools, then the theatre group Too Early For Birds would definitely be Alliance or Mang’u, seated at the top, completely clear of the rest.

‘Too Early For Birds’, for those not familiar, is a theatre group that was started in 2017 by Abu Sense and Ngartia to stage diverse stories from Kenyan history.

Their first show, titled ‘Unsung Heroes’, was on May 17, 2017, where they focused on people who never made it to mainstream history, such as Otenyo Nyamaterere and Muthoni Nyanjiru.

After this, they did three more shows: one more in July 2017 and two in 2018. The last one, held in July 2018, focused on telling the stories of heroic women in Kenyan history, and featured a team composed entirely of women, both in cast and crew. When that was done and dusted, the team took an indefinite break in order to look for stories.

In January 2019, Ngartia received a call from William Magunga. Magunga had just had a conversation with Anne Eboso, the founder of Rusinga Festival, an annual two-day celebration of the culture of the Abasuba people. Since the year would mark 50 years after Mboya’s death, they wanted to do something huge around him. And so, in all this, Ngartia was asked to just do a ‘skit’ around Mboya. A ‘skit’.

Well, Ngartia pitched the idea of the ‘skit’ to his team, and together, they reached out to people who could work on it. From researchers, to writers to cast. The skit was finally held on October 2019, and it was so good that people demanded a re-run, which was held in November 2019. Five years later, the Mboya ‘skit’ is back! But what exactly was the process of staging it?

RESEARCH PROCESS

Idil was the lead researcher of a team comprising Ngartia and Mercy Mutisya. They spent three months unearthing documents at the Kenya National Archives, as well as on the Internet, to get as much information on Tom Mboya as possible.

There were, however, numerous obstacles in this process. For example, most of the information on the Internet existed behind paywalls and, therefore, was quite inaccessible. At the National Archives, they found that some information in the documents had been scribbled out and deemed ‘CONFIDENTIAL’. Therefore, they only worked with what they had found.  

Since a lot of information about Mboya has come to light after the pandemic, they have made sure to include this in the new show. Some examples include the issue of Mboya’s Zionist ties, starting from his wedding honeymoon in Tel Aviv to his suggestion of the formation of NYS after seeing a similar programme in Israel.

With this information in mind, some people on Twitter have been pointing fingers at the 'Too Early For Birds' group for hosting a show to sanitise a person who was, apparently, in bed with the West.

Idil, in defence, says, “People forget that he was young. Having been educated by the US, he felt like he owed them something. An allegiance of sorts. That’s why he did what he did. Additionally, his knowledge was only limited to the few years he had lived on this earth. You can’t fault him for pacts he made at age 29.”

SCRIPTING AND CASTING

Mercy Mutisya has taken part in the project from research to writing the script to being part of the cast. Besides Ngartia, she’s also become one with the script, marrying it and going to bed with it.

She did the writing with Magunga, Ngartia, Wanjiku Mwawuganga and Hellen Masido. The writing process, she says, was quite interesting. Despite having believed they had captured everything during the research, they uncovered even more stories on Mboya during the writing process.

This process involved making a theatre script that would be entertaining out of the goldmine of facts that had been dumped by the research team. She admits that the research was far too wide, and that there was no possibility to document Tom Mboya’s whole story in entirety in three hours.

In their case, for example, the original script as provided from the research ended up being eight hours long. Therefore, they had to go back to the writing room and cut it down to three hours.

As a side note, Mercy Mutisya tells me that Kasmuel McOure is giving Tom Mboya vibes. Everything, from the hair, to the eloquence to the sartorial style is the same. Also, due to the fact that no one wants to debate Kasmuel, just as was with Mboya. Well, maybe we should watch him carefully from now on.

Shiviske attended all the prior 'Too Early For Birds' shows in 2017 and 2018. She loved them so much that, in her heart, she made a commitment to act in them in future. And every passing moment, this thought wandered in her mind.

Therefore, each and every time she met Ngartia and company, she ensured that she made her intentions clear, telling them that she’d love to act for them in the next show. “You miss 100 per cent of the shots you never shoot,” Shiviske tells me. 

Come August 2019, and 'Too Early For Birds' released their posters for the Mboya show. Shiviske was quite heartbroken upon the realisation that her dreams had not come true. Nonetheless, since she loved the crew, she went ahead and bought early bird tickets. In her case, Shiviske neither hated the player nor the game. She was, matter of fact, locked in.

Two weeks later, she received a call from Queen Gathoni, asking, “Unajiskia na 'Too Early For Birds'?” She couldn’t believe it. Immediately, she attended the first rehearsal meeting. There, she got to read the script. It was some heavy historical content, unlike what she had learnt in school.

Having been used to acting out in regular plays, where the cast just talk to each other casually, here, she realised that she had huge chunks of monologues by herself on stage. Therefore, she was so scared and nervous. However, being her dream of a year now, she had to see it to fruition, and so, had to get rid of the anxiety before the performance day.

TAKING THE STAGE

Elsaphan Njora, currently the host of NTV’s Twende show, says the 2019 Mboya show was his best-ever performance on stage. When he walked on stage, he felt like he had the whole world on the tip of his arms.

Having started acting in 2006, this performance, 13 years later, was a totally different experience to what he was used to. First and most importantly was the fact that they got a chance to workshop the play.

The cast weren’t just picking lines and then regurgitating them on stage. Instead, they would read through the whole script together with the whole team. Afterwards, the researchers and writers would give a history on those particular events, so that the cast would know, in actual sense, what they were performing out there on stage. This way, Njora embraced his role completely.

This went to the extent that he even added some lines to his script. His most famous ones is “Balls!” After narrating how Mboya talked to accomplished people fearlessly at his young age, Njora acknowledged that he had balls (confidence) by shouting, “Balls!” on stage. Well, the line was a crowd-pleaser, and so it stuck with him. Will he say it this coming performance? Only one way to find out!

Anubhav Garg, one of the actors, got the recasting message from Mugambi Nthiga, the director, when he was busy practising playing his flute. “Immediately I received the news, I dropped everything I was doing. I cancelled all the plans I had for the rest of the week. I checked my calendar and cancelled all the plans I had on the weeks prior to the show.”

Anubhav was quite ecstatic. More than the call-up itself, he was surprised that the restaging of Mboya was actually happening. To him, participating in the show feels like being part of history in the making. The show itself is amazing, but now imagine going down history as one of the people who made it a success? Anubhav grins.

Ever since he started rehearsals, Anubhav says the show has been a mix of difficulty and ease. Difficult because the script has changed, and a lot more information has been put in. Therefore, he has to read the script everywhere he goes. At home. While commuting. In his leisure time.

However, the ease comes through in the sense that whenever he reads the lines, he gets some memory from his acts in the 2019 show. Therefore, all he needs to do is piece together the flow and, through that, he’ll perfectly recreate his act.

PRODUCING THE SHOW

“Why restage Mboya now?” I ask Queen Gathoni, alias Gathorny or Gathyonce, who has been the producer for 'Too Early For Birds' since it started.

“First of all,” she says, “it’s now 55 years since Tom Mboya died. Matter of fact, we intended to stage the show on 5th July. But unfortunately, we couldn’t find any venue to do so. Both Visa Oshwal and the Jain Bhavan Auditorium were booked. Therefore, we had to reconsider the dates,” she said.

“Secondly, since it was our best show, we’ve decided to restage it for all those who didn’t watch it. That would be our way to bait new theatre enthusiasts.”

They also considered the fact that people rewatch popular series such as 'Game of Thrones', 'The Office' and 'Friends'. And every time they do, there’s some value they derive from it.

“That’s what I want to create for theatre. And that’s why we’re restaging Mboya,” Gathoni said.

“It is very perfect for the times. Just like the current youth are fighting against the government, so was Tom Mboya, at 23 years old, leading the Kenya Federation of Labourers (KFL) against the colonial government. Therefore, we could learn a thing or two from him.”

When I reached Abu Sense for comment, he just said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. Therefore, I will also be playing many parts in this show.”