From the horrors of the Congolese civil war in Ruined to the hilarious Barbershop Chronicles, Play Reading Club Kenya has taken our imagination on a wild tour around the globe, and forced us to face some cold everyday realities.
Having showcased the diverse cultures of life from far and beyond our borders, last weekend they brought it all home on Friday, July 4 at Goethe-Institut with a play reading of Sitawa Namwalie’s Room of Lost Names.
Curated by Esther Kamba and set in the ancestral plane from Luhya mythology, Room of Lost Names takes the audience to a cosmic adventure of its characters as ably brought out by Arthur Sanya Muiruri, Mufasa the Poet, Checkmate Mido, Auudi Rowa and Lucy Wache.
It is a story of girl who finds herself in a different realm inhabited by two entities (played by Checkmate Mido and Mufasa the Poet) who reveal to her that she is dead. While trying to process the information, she realises that she doesn’t remember her name. A name being crucial in the ancestral plane, the entities help her remember it by performing a ritual in adoration to the creator ‘Were’, a ritual that also reveals how the girl died under the hands of a crime lord called Ben (Arthur Sanya Muiruri).
Checkmate Mido and Mufasa the Poet’s camaraderie in portraying the banter between the entities was hilarious to watch. Auudi Rowa who portrayed the dead girl took the audience on a trip through time, from the past when she got murdered, to the present in this mystical plane.
A unique story from home and to top it all, Cosmic. Play Reading Club Kenya told a captivating story that honoured our roots.
In case you missed this compelling Play Reading experience, watch it now on Facebook via the Link below https://fb.watch/lR8dA7qNkv/?mibextid=Nif5oz
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Edited by @peterndoria
