There’s something unsettling about watching someone read from their diary. Even when they’ve invited you to listen, even when they’re performing on a stage they’ve chosen to occupy, the act feels transgressive, like witnessing something you shouldn’t.
Nyokabi Macharia’s Index One lives in that discomfort and transforms it into something extraordinary.
The title itself is a misdirection; this isn’t about being first in class or achieving academic excellence. “Index One” refers to the people who shaped you, who were there when you needed them most. It’s about the human infrastructure that builds an artist, the relationships and encounters that become the foundation of who you become.
This isn’t another autobiographical solo show where an actor plays themselves. Macharia has done something more radical: she’s excavated her actual journals, 200 of them, spanning her decade in Kenyan theater, and turned some of the entries in them into a walk through her artistic evolution. You experience her at 23, uncertain and pouring her confusion onto paper, then watch her grow, stumble, recover, and transform. The result feels less like theater and more like being invited to witness someone’s decade-long becoming.
What strikes you first is how unpolished some of these stories are. The tale of a 23-year-old drama school student in a relationship with Lorenzo doesn’t follow neat narrative structure. The panic of someone who’s just blown their shot with Professor Hamo at Tamasha comes out raw and unfiltered. These are real experiences, told without the polish of hindsight, and watching Nyokabi share them creates an extraordinary intimacy; you’re not just observing her present self, but walking alongside her younger selves as she navigated love, loss, and artistic ambition.
Those who attended her recent excerpt showcase got a taste of this journey. The audience came hungry to see what Nyokabi was made of, and she revealed just enough glimpses of vulnerability and flashes of the emotional territory she was prepared to explore to leave them craving the whole experience. It was strategic restraint: showing her willingness to be completely open while maintaining the mystery that makes live performance essential.
Nyokabi moves between singing and speaking with an ease that suggests years of live performance, but it’s the quiet moments, when she’s simply reading her younger self’s words, that hit hardest. Director Nice Githinji understands this, keeping staging minimal and letting the text carry its own weight.
The show’s central arc follows this journey, not just Macharia’s evolution from Miriam, the singer in Nakuru, to the artist she is today, but our evolution as witnesses. You find yourself growing protective of 23-year-old Nyokabi as she navigates early heartbreak, celebrating with her when she finds her footing, and grieving with her through losses that shaped her work. It’s a rare thing: a performance that makes you complicit in someone’s healing process.
Remember when she described shaving her head for Sketchy? How the baldness exposed the bumps? And how others noticed too? This project mirrors that—choosing to reveal the flaws rather than hide them.
Writers Ngartia and Kagichu have helped shape these entries into a coherent narrative without sanitizing their original form. The movement between past and present feels organic, driven by emotional logic rather than chronological order.
Index One succeeds because Nyokabi takes genuine risks. She shares the journal entry about messing up a huge chance with Tamasha, the romantic entanglements, and the moments of doubt that every creative person recognizes but rarely admits publicly.
This is part of her Nyokabi at 10 project, a celebration of a decade in the industry that refuses to be celebratory in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s an examination of what it actually costs to build an artistic life in Kenya, complete with the mistakes and recoveries that never make it into press releases.
Producer Denise Kibisu and the creative team have created something that feels both intimate and universal. When Macharia talks about her specific journey, you hear echoes of every artist who’s ever struggled with the gap between ambition and ability.
The show’s greatest achievement is making you forget you’re watching a performance. Nyokabi’s presence is so natural, her relationship with her own material so unguarded, that the theatrical frame falls away. You’re not watching someone play themselves; you’re watching someone discover themselves in real time.
In an age of curated online personas, watching someone deliberately expose their unedited thoughts feels like a radical act. Nyokabi isn’t performing vulnerability, she’s actually being vulnerable, and trusting her audience to meet that honesty with respect.
Index One runs July 25-27 at Braeburn, Gitanga Road. Shows are at 7 pm on the 25th and 3 pm and 7 pm on the 26th and 27th. Early bird/ Machopi tickets are sold out, but backbencher/advance and top layer/last-minute tickets remain available at Mookh.com.
This is the kind of work that reminds you why live performance matters. Some stories can only be told in person, in real time, with the possibility of genuine human connection hanging in the air between performer and audience. Nyokabi has created one of those experiences. Don’t let it pass you by.
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