International Women Stage Directors

Kenya

Kenya Margaretta Swigert-Gacheru It has only been since the 1990s that the directorial dynamism of Kenyan women like Mumbi Kaigwa, Mkawasi Mcharo Hall, and Caroline Odongo has been brought to light on the Kenyan stage. Before that, there were a rare few pioneering African women directors working from the 1970s—Janet Young from Gambia in West Africa and Mumbi wa Maina from the African Diaspora—who set high directorial standards for those who would follow. But it wasn’t until after the 1985 United Nations International Women’s Conference was held in Nairobi that Kenyan women began to come forward and seize the directorial baton. Women like Mshai Mwangola, Mueni Lundi, and Mkawasi Mcharo were among the first to emerge in the late twentieth century , laying the groundwork for Kenyan women to become some of the most prolific, innovative, and important directors in the country. Women’s Rights: Historical Context In precolonial Kenyan societies, women were widely recognized as storytellers and dramatists who performed important roles as educators, teaching children around the family fire through the use of folktales, riddles, songs, and dances that deliberately conveyed moral, ethical, and cultural messages about how young people were meant to behave socially and in their personal lives (Kaigwa “A History”). However, under British imperial rule (1895–1963), indigenous cultural practices were shunned for being “bestial,” “subhuman,” and uncivilized (Elkins 97). A few women’s organizations rose up in resistance to colonial rule and to the patriarchal practices introduced in the name of Christianity and the so-called “civilizing mission” of the colonizer. In the 1930s, for instance, women in the Presbyterian Church formed a group called Kia Ngo, meaning The Shield, aimed at challenging the patriarchy practiced by church elders (Kanogo Interview). As early as 1924 women created a wing of Kikuyu Central Association (KCA)—a group of Kenyan anticolonial activists—to ensure women’s interests were well represented in the struggle for independence (Kanogo Interview). Nonetheless, at the height of Kenyans’ political resistance to colonialism, resistance which resulted in the British colonial government’s declaring a state of emergency in 1952, women’s activism was intentionally undermined with the formation of Maendeleo ya Wanawake the same year. According to Canadian feminist scholar Audrey Wipper, Maendeleo was explicitly formed to channel African women’s energies away from political activism, especially from their working with the Land and Freedom Army (also known as the Mau Mau) and toward domesticity. The main focus of Maendeleo was teaching women to be good domestics, obedient wives, and self-sacrificing mothers. In essence, they were taught to be well satisfied with their subordinate status in society (Wipper 99–120). In contrast, the women who worked as Mau Mau were a different breed altogether. Women like Muthoni Likimani and Wambui Otieno served the independence struggle primarily as spies, passing information to the freedom fighters in the forest. Women also found innovative means to pass food, clothing, and essential supplies through countless colonial checkpoints (Likimani 78–87). In spite of the vital role that women played in the struggle for independence, which was finally achieved in 1963, they continued to be subject to patriarchal practices even in postcolonial Kenya; for while independence brought equal rights de jure to both women and men, including the right to vote in 1919, women’s and girls’ access to education, employment, and even credit to conduct small business continued to be constrained by customary laws and traditions for decades. Despite the discriminatory traditions, cultural strictures, and public policies premised on the notion that women are inferior to men, Kenyan women have excelled, especially since the United Nations (UN) declared the first women’s decade in the 1970s. In 1985 when the UN held its international women’s decade conference in Nairobi, the country itself went through an extreme mental makeover (Wa Gacheru, “African Renaissance”). The government was forced to address issues of gender equity for the very first time as the eyes of the world were focused on it. Since then women have made tremendous strides in the theatre arts as well as in many other disciplines and professions. Early Women Directors Decades before the UN came to Kenya to address issues of gender equity, European women were actively involved in stage productions. Even before 1952, when the British colonial government established the Kenya National Theatre in Nairobi, a number of amateur theatre groups were already up and running. All-white amateur groups like the Nairobi City Players, the Nanyuki Players, and...