Leaders and kings amplified – Enterprise Each day

Full solid of Chemi Chemi Gamers ‘Kings and Leaders’ at Braeburn Performing Arts Centre, Backyard Property, July 15, 2022. PHOTO | COURTESY

It’s tempting to recommend you received’t take pleasure in ‘Voices of the Bible: Kings and Leaders’ almost as a lot for those who don’t have a slight grounding within the Bible, particularly the Previous Testomony.

In case you haven’t learn concerning the trials and tribulations of males like Moses and Jeremiah and even John, who was exiled on the island of Patmos, you then received’t perceive how sensible Gillette Elvgren’s script is.

However for those who love watching sterling performances by a few of Kenya’s best actors alive on our stage and display screen at this time, you then received’t wish to miss “Kings and Leaders” as a result of these are the main roles they play.

In reality, scriptwriter Gillette particularly focuses on the main males in quite a few scriptural tales. He amplifies their innermost emotions as they replicate on their lives, and the explanations they’re within the Bible within the first place.

In Moses’s case, it’s to ship God’s chosen youngsters out of bondage in Egypt into the Promised Land which he’s destined to not attain himself.

Within the case of the prophet Jeremiah, it’s to lament the youngsters of Israel’s neglect of their God and the tragic instances they’ve gotten themselves in due to that forgetfulness of the blessings they obtained from Yahweh, their title for God.

And John’s the one who wrote these scary bits in Revelation, the which means of which students have been attempting to know for hundreds of years, particularly what he finally sees in ‘a brand new heaven and a brand new earth’.

However even for those who haven’t a clue about what occurred to guys like Aaron (Sam Psenjen) or Eli (Steve Katingima) and even Uriah (William Mwangi) who dies so masterly on stage, declaring his loyalty to King David who’d simply had him killed to conveniently snatch his spouse), all of them gave spellbinding performances.

William Mwangi as Uriah, husband to Bethsheba, in Kings and Leaders at Braeburn Performing Arts Centre, Backyard Property, July 15, 2022. PHOTO | MARGARETTA WA GACHERU | NMG

And most everybody (even heretics and atheists) can have heard about Adam (Elsaphan Njora), Moses (Justus Mirichii), and Paul (Mugambi Nthiga), all of whom had been equally riveting of their roles.

The lighting at Braeburn Backyard Property isn’t the perfect for such a manufacturing. However sound-wise, the eight actors introduced collectively on this Chemi Chemi Gamers manufacturing harmonized melodiously in acapella fashion on every little thing from common Swahili hymns to 1 Black American gospel tune to the present’s fruits with a deeply shifting efficiency of Kenya’s Nationwide Anthem.

In reality, ‘Kings and Leaders’ is the sort of present that sticks in a single’s head lengthy after you watched it. It leads you to understand how deeply the scriptwriter delved into the innermost ideas of these key characters. After all, it may be seen as fiction since she didn’t know any of her characters personally.

However take a man like Adam (Elsaphan Njora) who’s primarily remembered because the man answerable for ‘the unique sin’ of disobeying God. Elsaphan explores the loneliness that ‘first’ mortal man should have felt, having nobody to speak to however Eve.

That very same reflective, soul-searching standpoint is seen in nearly all of the characters. They embody everybody from Pharaoh (Kevin K1 Maina) who misplaced his first son, to Eli (Steve Katingima) the priest who additionally died on stage after confessing his ‘sin’, that of envy over younger Samuel’s listening to the phrase of God straight, not him.

But the play has a number of surprisingly humorous scenes, just like the reenactment of a light-hearted Sunday College Biblically-based efficiency of the solid enjoying faculty boys overdramatizing their roles.

It began with Purah (Mugambi Nthiga) who drew us into his enchanting childhood recollection of his Sunday College reenactment of the story of Gideon (William Mwangi) and the angel (Kevin Maina) from the e-book of Judges.

The opposite comedic second was captured by Sam Psenjen enjoying Matthew, the tax collector whom Jesus picked to observe him. Beforehand solely seen as a corrupt tax man, even by Jesus’s personal disciples who had been shocked at their grasp’s choice, Matthew was philosophical in his light-hearted appraisal of what number of methods folks cheat themselves, and even cheat God.

‘Kings and Leaders‘ may be very totally different from Chemi Chemi’s earlier manufacturing of the all-women present, “Unfold your Garment over me” which projected the lives and emotions of ladies characters within the Bible. The latter was a barely extra accessible script. However the high quality of the casts and the course by Julisa Rowe are the identical.

What’s additionally superb about this manufacturing, which shall be operating once more this weekend (so don’t miss), many within the solid have moved over to creating movies. So, we’re glad to see them again on stage.