THEATRE REVIEWS

The play blends liturgical service and theatre in an emotional and sincere portrait of marriage.

From gutsy liturgical dramas to poetic solo acts, our theatre critic Tonny Ogwa picks his top 5 Kenyan stage plays of 2025.

As Gathoni, Nungari Kiore, Gathoni Mutua, Renee Gichuki, Joan Cherono and Ellah Maina capture the fragmented psychological journey of GBV survivors.

The play delivers an ambitious vision of AI, fear, agency and a collapsing future in a striking one-woman performance.

The play refuses to offer solutions, instead, it dramatises the persistent, systemic nature of the issues it lays bare.

Wakio Mzenge delivers a spellbinding one-woman performance that explores love, loss and identity.

Stuart Nash’s revival brings fresh urgency to the 1976 classic play by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Micere Mugo.

The play resists easy answers, dismantling simplistic narratives and urging the audience to reckon with Kenya’s complex legacy of justice, power, and impunity.

Ouma delivers one of the boldest and most emotionally honest solo acts on Kenya's stage.

ChemiChemi brings rebellious biblical women to life with bold theatrical flair

This stage play is a witty, avant-garde Kenyan comedy about love, crime, and chaos.

Too Early for Birds examines the triumphs, flaws and enduring legacy of Tom Mboya with an unflinching look at history, balancing tragedy with humour.

Satire meets local politics in Molière's Kenyan adaptation 'Mgonjwa Mwitu'.

The play will be staged again at Ukumbi Mdogo at the Kenya National Theatre on 3 December.

'Story Sosa' is a collection of stories from five different writers, all lacing to tell of different ideas of home they have grown up with.

'Graveyard Queens' delivers a heartfelt and resonant tribute, bringing the best of a generation of actors together on one stage.

The narrative doesn’t take itself too seriously for the most part, but when it should, it opens itself up and digs deep.

'Watatu' highlights youth radicalisation, religious extremism, xenophobia, economic disparity, corruption and politics at the Kenyan coast.

'Mama’s Mirror' brings a new taste, tackling the very heavy topic of losing a mother in the most unexpected way and time.

Just 'Hamlet' set in Kenya, sprinkled in with the reliable trope of twentieth century African pseudo-activism.

In 'Speak their Names', Silvia Cassini wields her mighty pen to present us a powerful tale set in the summer of 1587 in Triora.

In 'Blessed Be the Fruit', director Martin Kigondu takes us through a harrowing tale of a teenage nun.

The cast do their best with that they're offered, which just happens to be oftentimes, not good enough.

The play doesn’t quite fulfil its promise as it was marketed. It, however, takes a serious jab at how old, rich men pry on young girls.

This play is a step in the right direction to redefine Kenya's slapstick stage comedy by highlighting important issues like queerness.

A collection of vignettes detailing the lives, achievements and flaws of the great rulers of the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testament.

A conventional story told in an even more conventional way, a stage play with no illusion, no poetry, and no wonder.

'Irregardless' highlights the country's flaws, showing that it's upon citizens to step up and decide who the truthful custodian of Kenya is.

Although the play is an adapted work, the director and the actors flesh it out successfully, centering it on the middle-class Nairobian.