Category | Arts & Living

Kenyan stories come to life on stage

Published on March 20, 2007 by The Sentinel

    “You Always Go Home,” an original work from the KSU Theater Department, incorporates traditional theatrical elements as well as rhythm, music, rap and motion to explore the lives of Kenyans living in and around Kennesaw and at home in Kenya’s developing cities.

    The play was written by assistant professor of Theater and Performance Studies Margaret Baldwin and co-directed by associate professor of TPS Karen Robinson.

        Production began in March of 2006 with a storytelling exercise done in Swahili by one of Baldwin’s students. Interviews conducted by Baldwin, Robinson and students involved with the production began soon after.

    Among those interviewed were present and former students originally from Kenya and their families. From these interviews thirteen vignettes were developed that explored their stories and the commonalities among them. The scenes are then woven together with creative staging and connective dialogue.

    The play begins, appropriately, with the arrival of a new student at KSU and the culture shock inherent in such a drastic shift. It then continues to take a look at their lives and the lives their parents experienced in both villages and cities in Kenya.

    “Intermingled throughout is this motif of the idea of home, and the theme is asking what exactly does home mean to Kenyans and investigating the strength of that bond to home,” Robinson said.
       
    She went on to say that students should expect “a journey that gave [them] a sense of having gone somewhere and experienced a diversity of emotional weight… some of it is illuminating and some of it light and comic, but then some of it you have to grapple with some weighty issues that are tougher human experiences.”

    After each performance the cast and crew will hold a talk-back session, where students may ask questions and give feedback about the performance.

    “We did this in the fall and… it opened up this great doorway for people to ask questions and to reflect on some of these issues of culture and identity,” Baldwin said. “One of the things that a lot of students said… was [that they] felt a lot more commonness than difference.”

    The talk-backs follow shortly after the performance and all audience members are encouraged to stay and participate.

    The Friday night performance will be presented as part of a conference held by the KSU Institute for Global Initiatives entitled “The Role of the Kenyan Diaspora in Kenya’s Development.”

    One of the topics to be discussed during the conference is the issue of brain drain versus brain gain: whether Kenya is on the winning or losing end in this cultural migration toward study abroad, which is also one of the final topics discussed in the play.

     “I think what was daunting at the beginning, and was especially what made it appealing, was not knowing much about the culture… wanting to portray this culture and these people in a way that was honest and that was not misrepresenting in any way,” Baldwin said.  

        “We made friends with a few Kenyans who have continued to advise us on the script. Some of it was as simple as language issues: how would you do this or how would you say that?” Robinson said.

    The production, featuring KSU students Briana Brock, Ashley Cooper, April Fore, Katye Jordan, Jonathan Minich, Kelly Natividade, Mannie Rivers, Omar Siddiqi and Sarah Vaughn runs in Stillwell Theater Wed. March 21 through Fri. March 23.

Tickets are $5 and may be purchased online or at the KSU Box Office.