Finding The Footlights

Fifty is a bit old to be breaking into a career--especially in Kenya, where the average life expectancy is 43. But playwright John Sibi-Ukumu is doing just that. His new work, "Role Play"--an unapologetic look at racial stereotypes in modern Kenya--was chosen to premiere at the historic reopening of Nairobi's National Theater this fall. Such gratification has been a long time coming for Ukumu, who studied linguistics at the University of Nairobi and then worked as a French teacher. He put off his desire to write for fear of the repressive regimes of presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi; one of his professors, the prolific and outspoken writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, was among those routinely censored, persecuted and tortured by government thugs. "There always has to be a group of people who pay this really heavy price, and then everybody else gets to enjoy the fruit," Ukumu says.

Today many Kenyans are enjoying the feast. Ukumu is just one of a number of artists and writers flourishing under the new democracy of President Mwai Kibaki. His election in December 2002 marked the first time in the nation's 43-year history that an opposition party had tasted power, and it unleashed a wave of national optimism. The government began supporting and funding the arts, sparking a cultural boom. New works by Kenyan writers are filling bookstore shelves and local stages. The Godown, Nairobi's first arts center, just opened, featuring an art gallery, a dance studio with performance space, a painters' studio, high-tech recording facilities and a coffeehouse. "The floodgates have been opened," says Ukumu. "We're moving forward. This is the second liberation."

This cultural resurgence has also inspired the homecoming of an icon: Ngugi, who stepped onto Kenyan soil last month for the first time in 22 years. When the author fled in 1982, his departure signaled the start of a cultural collapse that lasted for two decades. Now the rebuilding has begun. "There has been a huge renaissance," says Rob Burnet, east Africa program officer for media, arts and culture at the Ford Foundation, which recently footed the bill for the Godown.

Binyavanga Wainaina started the renaissance in 2002 with "Discovering Home," the first Kenyan novel to win Africa's top writing award, the Caine Prize. "Wainaina is the driving force of the young literary community," says Burnet. "He really broke the ice." Wainaina, 33, writes bluntly and humorously, sometimes using slang to depict day-to-day life in Kenya. He says the new generation is less concerned with old hatreds than with contemporary issues like gender roles and AIDS. Last year Wainaina started the country's first literary journal, Kwani? (slang for So What?), similar to Britain's Granta. The magazine has become an outlet for dozens of talented writers and artists to publish their works, and has produced other Caine Prize winners, including Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, who won in 2003 for "Weight of Whispers," and Stanley Gazemba, a Nairobi gardener who recently won the Kenyatta Literary Prize for his book "The Stone Hills of Maragoli." "It is the coming of age of another generation, questioning values and claiming our space without apology," says Owuor.

Perhaps the most visible sign of Kenya's cultural awakening is the restoration of the National Theater, which had come to resemble a public toilet by the 1990s. "[Moi's] government wanted to run it into the ground" as a way to clamp down on free speech, says Burnet. To mark a new era of liberalization, Kibaki's government and the private sector together raised $150,000 to refurbish the theater, which was built in 1952 and has been restored to its art deco grandeur. In addition to Ukumu's, the new season will feature works by Cajetan Boy, who is considered the "woman's playwright" for his liberal commentaries on gender roles. "We wanted plays that are representative of our society and community," says George Abungu, chairman of the Kenya Cultural Center, which decides the theater's program.

To be sure, freedom of expression still has a long way to go in Kenya. Ukumu admits he felt apprehensive when the curtain went up on "Role Play," which contains a scene of police torture. But it would be "much harder for the government to get away with censorship today," he says. And censorship may be the least of the country's problems; Ngugi recently became a victim of Kenya's rampant violence when he was robbed and beaten in his home, and his wife raped. "There used to be a lot of fear," Ngugi told a crowd of young writers at a workshop last month. "What happened to me since I've been back has not diminished that fear. Changes still have to come." He implored the next generation to be bold and fight for their freedom. "The artist must always push the envelope. We have to believe that we can bring about a better Kenya and share that vision with the world." Even if it's only one play at a time.