It is common to hear the tales of city men outdoing themselves by dividing their time between their legal wife’s “matrimonial” home and their side chick’s house, which is usually just a few miles away from the main woman’s place.
This scenario is what Deno, a taxi driver in Nairobi city, finds himself in, except that he is already dead when we learn about his life in this slapstick comedy play, Deno Says He Is Dead. The theatrical play was produced by Millaz Productions and directed by Robinson Mudavadi, Terry Munyeria, and Calcine Antonette. Deno (played by Robinson Mudavadi) is a taxi driver who is married to Mary (Florence Okonji), and they both live in Kasarani. Or rather, Mary lives there since Deno spends almost all the nights warming his side chick Shaniqua’s (played by Red Brenda) bed in his Pangani high-rise apartment.
While savoUring this play as an audience member, your brain is tasked with fast-flying jokes on marriage and lots of sexual undertones. The director seemed to have deliberately incorporated many euphemisms and blockings that had superficial meanings but observed them with a keen eye and thinking through them, you’d definitely know his intention. On matters seriousness, Deno Says He Is Dead is the first play from Millaz Productions to feature a cross-dressing character. You get mixed feelings, including curiosity and excitement, seeing Marashi (Carlton Gandani) and interacting with her for the first few minutes into the play. Marashi is the flare and the flavour of the show, carrying a lot of femininity and know-it-all energy with her. Through her, the weighty social issues in the world of the play are unpacked.
The director uses Marashi to express the topic of queerness freely. Through her, we are subtly presented with the complexities of homophobia, transphobia, and mixed reactions towards the LGBTQ+ community. Sergeant Clinton (Faiz Ouma) walks into Deno’s Pangani apartment and finds him in a compromising position with Mshamba (Allan Shioso). To counter any premature judgment by the sergeant, Deno quickly shouts, “I am not a member of the Rainbow coalition,” to clarify his sexuality.
Similarly, when Mary eventually walks into Deno’s apartment in Pangani and finds Shaniqua there, Deno shields his cheating behavior by saying that Shaniqua is a cross-dressing man and that he is called Lofti. It is almost hard for Deno to keep up with his lies of now referring to Shaniqua as Lofti and that she is a cross-dressing man, especially when Shaniqua decides to join them in the living room. It seems easy for Deno to quickly shift the blame from himself and package the lie in a way that he feels will quickly get him off the frying pan until his other friends keep saying that he lives with Lofti in the same apartment and that they are close. At this point, Deno senses that his wife, Mary, will think he is gay, and he must find a way to redeem his image and maybe marriage.
The stereotypical representation through Marashi is one aspect of the play that felt overstepped. She is a diva, and it seems the character was just included to add some “flavour,” which become overbearing as most of her actions in the final act seem unmotivated and remain as mere appearances and vanishings.
On the other hand, Mshamba is the unforgettable character who made us laugh while still giving us something to ponder. The way he’s able to deceive smoothly, without any struggles. In the first encounter with Mshamba, his speech is flavoured with symbolic terms like cucumbers, carrots, and influential talks. Later, we realise, he is just a mere gardener living a wannabe, ‘double entendre’ life. The only inconsistent part was his accent, which at some point kept shifting, but overall, the character Mashamba did the most in supporting the main character Deno and moving the story forward with his comical actions and utterances.
At first, when I saw Sgt. Clinton’s outfit, I was asking myself: why on earth would a senior sergeant at Kasarani police station be given a dull, oversized suit? I later realised that Deno Says He Is Dead is set in the 60s and that its fashion has to reflect just that. However, the fact that most of the jokes in the play are hugely borrowed from the present day, including some popular phrases influenced by the 2022 general elections in Kenya, it was easy to quickly lose the focus of the play. Moreover, having only one set that serves as Deno’s main house in Kasarani, his private apartment in Pangani, and the office of Sergeant Clinton at Kasarani police station demanded a lot of imagination from the audience. The set designer chose to use minimal resources, which worked for them, just that there was an opportunity to go the extra mile.
I loved that sound was not too much in every moment of the play, and that we had the time to just watch and enjoy every moment worth our cracking.
Still, Deno Says He is Dead is a step in the right direction to redefine Kenya’s slapstick stage comedy by including other serious issues worth the attention of the public like marriage, family, queerness, and work-life balance. We can only wait for the next show that Millaz Production will bring to theatre loveRs at the Kenya National theatre.
