Theatre Journal

Perhaps because I Will Marry When I Want is a stage play that carries Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s name, the Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi was a flurry of activity in May and October 2022 when it was mounted there. It is a producer’s delight, for anything carrying Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s name is bound to sell. This play, which was first staged in its original Gĩkũyũ-language form as Ngaahika Ndeenda, was co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii in 1976. And no matter how popular it is now, its first performances in the 1970s, carried out under the guise of public rehearsals in the village of Kamĩrĩĩthũ, were a nervous affair, attracting violence from the police and statements of political condemnation for its playwrights and performers. In the end, Ngũgĩ wa Mirii, and later Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, had to flee into exile on account of this work and what it birthed. A glimpse into the meanings of the play is given by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o in Detained (1981) as well as in Decolonising the Mind (1986). It seemed, at the time, that the work was a necessary tool in the conscientization of the people of Kamĩrĩĩthũ, who were beginning to question, like every other Kenyan, the meaning of “independence” thirteen years after it had been formally achieved. Its themes which so irked the government of the day, under President Jomo Kenyatta, included land—a constant problem, which, given the history of the freedom fighters in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (also known as the Mau Mau), came alive in warrior songs and dances. The characters in the play asked whether they fought for independence only to replace the white colonialist with a Black one—who seems to be a sellout.

The staging of I Will Marry When I Want and Ngaahika Ndeenda (the performance was staged in Gĩkũyũ and in English on alternate nights) in May and October 2022 was a spectacle that attracted hordes of viewers. It was entertaining; it had song, dance, movement; there was even the sound of a gunshot; there was color in the costumes and idioms and sayings; and the audience clapped and laughed and was engaged throughout the play. The acting was superb, particularly given the energy required to play characters like Gĩcaamba, as Martin Kigondu showed. Gĩcaamba is a rabble rouser unionist, stirring the minds and hearts of workers towards a revolt against a shoe company that torments its workers by overworking and underpaying them. Martin Kigondu, in playing Gĩcaamba, whose monologues run throughout the play, was able to deliver his words in as evocative a manner as a unionist must. He succeeded in painting the picture of a disturbed mind that captures the imagination of his fellow workers and other villagers who in the end will attack Ahab Kĩoi wa Kinoru, the representative of the new elite that has replaced the white colonialist, and force him to “walk on all fours…and… eat grass…like Nebuchadnezzar” in a triumph for ordinary Kenyans seeking “true” independence and not merely that of “the flag.”

I think the easiest part for Stuart Nash, the director of the play, was the creation of a performance that could delight. The harder part lay in answering the question: how is it possible to watch I Will Marry When I Want from a position of privilege without feeling as though one is eavesdropping on people plotting how to get out of their pain and suffering? Tickets went for 1600 Kenyan shillings, to a public that was largely composed of middle-class Kenyans and wealthy expatriates, not ordinary everyday Kenyans suffering the indignities of poverty as suggested in the play. In other words, any surviving actors from the original production of...