THE PHOENIX PLAYERS.
A VL Despatch from Kenya
by Oliver Langdon
([email protected])Housed in the basement of a white art-deco office block, ‘Phoenix Players’ are the only surviving perennial repertory theatre company in Nairobi and the greatest repertory success story in Kenya.
As their name suggests they ‘came forth with new life from the ashes of their past’, having been born at the same moment that the long-standing ‘Donovan Maule Theatre’ eventually accepted defeat and closed its doors in 1983. This was “a bad augury signifying, it was concluded, that Nairobi was no longer prepared to support live theatre.” Consequently, the ambitious proposal of four old-hands from the ‘Donovan Maule’, to create a community theatre in a disused functions room with 40 thousand shillings (around £35) and the goodwill of their friends was, to say the least, a gamble.
Eighteen years and nearly three hundred productions later it seems that the gamble has paid off.
One man, James Falkland, has led the ‘Phoenix Players’ through thick and thin since their conception. He has been “an actor since Moses was a baby, dear” but is now approaching retirement having come to Kenya from Britain over thirty years ago. He is recognized in-house as the savior of Kenyan Rep. but will himself only ever admit to “cautious grounds for optimism”. Chain-smoking and smiling wryly, he repeats his well-rehearsed publicity sound-bites for me on the company’s past, present and future.
Their repertoire is “international mainly, ranging from the Ray Cooneys to the Chekhovs, from the Terence Rattigans to the Strindbergs; Shakespeare usually every year. It’s a very white programme,” he admits “but there are one or two Kenyan playwrights coming up.”
His ultimate aim for ‘Phoenix’ though has always been to achieve a community theatre and this means working harder at developing local talent: “in the next fifteen months for us we will present probably three new Kenyan plays and probably take one or two classics and adapt them – rewrite them for a Kenyan situation, such as we have done in the past with ‘Government Inspector’ and ‘Enemy of the People’”.
He finds the process of choosing plays exceptionally difficult because “it’s a very wide, cosmopolitan audience. It’s Kenyans, Asians, Americans, Canadians, Germans, French, Italians, Japanese. There’s a very big international community here.” Looking through the records of their first two hundred productions they can certainly claim diversity. The intimate 120 seat auditorium, with its stage 14 feet deep, 28 feet wide and just 10 feet high has housed the broadest spectrum of productions imaginable - according to their classification: 74 Comedies, 8 Thrillers, 46 Dramas, 12 Shakespeares, 12 Musicals, 20 Classics, 22 Farces and 6 One-man shows. Looking at the postage-stamp space it is very difficult to imagine how they managed to stage the complexities of ‘Noises Off’ and whilst they have attempted a number of musicals, ‘Phantom of the Opera’ will always remain beyond the reach of their considerable optimistic imagination. Throughout what they have achieved though, the trend is predominantly western. The great diversity does not appear to represent the culture of the country at all and yet ostensibly “it is the Kenyan audience in the long run you want to build and build and build.”
However, at a performance of their current production, ‘Not Now Darling’, (another classic English farce to add to the records), only about 50% of the audience appeared to be African. The remainder was divided equally between Asians and Caucasians. In light of this, Falkland’s careful selection of plays makes more sense. The theatre is determined by the theatrical community rather than the reverse.
The question is why? Why is there such a low turn out from the Kenyan population? One reason is simply that going to the theatre in Nairobi is a high risk activity. Locals are scared to move about the city at night because of the high crime rate. Furthermore, comparatively affluent theatre-goers represent attractive prey to muggers, especially if taxis are an unaffordable luxury.
More significantly, the Kenyan economy as a whole is not in a position to support theatrical activity. There is no Government subsidy or allowance from the Nairobi City Council so ticket prices, whilst being a bargain on an international scale, are relatively expensive locally. It seems that to save this fabulous Arabian Phoenix from burning in its pyre it must rely upon the attendance of the large ex-patriot community with their personal drivers and relative abundance of foreign exchange. To attract such custom to their nest of spices, the players themselves must produce familiar works from the ex-patriot community libraries, occasionally dispersed with novelty indigenous pieces: “The drama’s laws/ The drama’s patrons give/ For those who live to please/ Must please to live.” This patronage is in a way the last bastion of colonialism. Despite inflation, exchange rate fluctuation and the introduction of VAT on theatre tickets in 1991, the Phoenix is defying legend by surviving through a steady Western membership.
A knock-on effect of this relationship is reflected on stage. In a cast of eleven for ‘Not Now Darling’, there was one American, one Asian and one glaringly British gentleman. There is no possibility of hiring Kenyan actors, as there are barely any professional performers in Kenya. Over one thousand actors have worked at the ‘Phoenix Theatre’, rehearsing evenings and weekends around full-time jobs elsewhere: “most of the people here are either students of various disciplines, or they’re lawyers or accountants. It’s a hobby. They’re enthusiastic amateurs. They get trained, it you like, on the job. There is no industry in Kenya, though we hope that in ten or twenty years there will be.”
If an industry does arise, Falkland hopes that it might come about through the company’s sporadic work outside their own playing space. They occasionally receive commissions to work in the community from the “Italian Embassy or the British Council; perhaps even the Germans might sponsor a production.” This gives them a much relished opportunity to advertise their wares at large. They tour to more affluent retreats outside the city to entertain those that are deterred by the security issue of Nairobi. More importantly, they also enter schools where they “do set texts to a high standard with seminar talk-backs. This bypasses the educational system, which is “very high pressure here: passing exams, passing exams, passing exams. Arts related curriculum barely exists.” At the same time as facilitating the curriculum, ‘Phoenix’ are “also trying to encourage the development of drama within the schools at a fairly early level.”
There is no doubt that ‘Phoenix’ is “fighting with (their) backs against the wall to keep the tradition of repertory theatre going”. It has single-handedly extended the tradition for nearly twenty years. However, if drama is flourishing on a large scale in Kenya then it is flourishing elsewhere. In any case, it is almost out of the hands of St. James Falkland. He has just one or two years left at ‘Phoenix’ and it is difficult to see how his vision will not flounder without his driving determination. In weary submission, he acknowledges that in this colonial hangover “so much depends on where we end up politically. It’s politics, politics, politics, corruption, corruption, corruption and if it doesn’t turn itself around, we’re really going to be in big trouble.” Since independence Kenya has struggled to identify and promote a truly Kenyan heritage. ‘The Phoenix Players’ are proud to defy western convention by surviving without box sets and big red curtains but they hardly represent the cutting edge of indigenous culture and they certainly cannot fly in the face of the Government.
Next: EXPLORING THE RIFT