If the two performances were positioned as a formal debate, Man Made Woman would serve as the rebuttal—though admittedly, a shakier one. A month or so after her daughter’s Miss Understood took the stage, Estar Kahuha delivers her own comeback, creating what feels like a generational discourse played out in real time.
Man Made Woman presents a hilarious yet poignant portrayal of a mother desperately trying to convince both her audience and herself that age hasn’t caught up with her. Estar Kahuha builds her case by pointing to her peers, whose very mannerisms ironically betray her central argument. Her recurring refrain,
I may have a few gray hairs on my head, but surely I am not that old”,
Becomes increasingly hollow with each repetition, growing tired as the performance progresses.
Her opening gambit, quoting Pastor Nganga’s “toa miaka kumi ya kuteseka na tano ya ujinga,” initially lands with the audience. Still, as she returns to this well repeatedly, it begins to feel desperate, like clutching at straws for validation. Whether intentional or not, this creates a compelling layer of desperation as she pleads for the audience to join her side of this intergenerational debate.
The performance becomes an exercise in memory jogging, with Estar Kahuha constantly revisiting her heyday as evidence of her vitality. Her logic seems to be: if I can remember, surely I’m not that old. The minimal staging forces all attention onto her, creating moments where she struggles to maintain her spell over the audience, only to recapture it in the next breath, the next memory, the next desperate bid for agreement.
This debate clearly speaks to its jury. Man Made Woman caters primarily to the older generation in the audience, those who catch the references and laugh knowingly at her generational jokes. The Gen Z contingent might struggle with some allusions, though they likely recognize the archetype, perhaps seeing their own mothers or aunts in Estar’s performance.
In this mother-daughter debate, there are no clear victors. Each performer commands their own constituency; each sells their own version of truth to believers already predisposed to their perspective. Yet perhaps Man Made Woman’s struggles; its pacing issues, its moments of lost attention, serve the larger argument. In its very weaknesses, the performance succeeds in embodying its message: a woman grappling with age, desperately trying to relive glory days through both her art and her relationship with her daughter. The debate continues, and in that continuation, both sides have already won.
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