‘Story Sosa’ Review: An Inventive Stab at Live Storytelling That Plays It Too Safe But Well Enough

Outside the Louis Leakey auditorium at the National National Museum rests a carved sculpture of a ragged old man. He doesn’t stand in the self-grandiose posture reserved for the memory of those honoured with their likeness imprinted in metal, but rather Louis Leakey, the man credited with discovering East Africa as the cradle of mankind, seems to be sitting on a random walk with his weathered clothes and shoes after a day of digging. This weekend, he got to welcome a stream of people congregating to bear witness to the same story started by primate bones, a story that every artefact in the museum is a prop for. For these people, however, they get to hear this story of the enduring Kenyan spirit straight from the five writers who birthed it and, for the most part, those who lived it under the direction of Mugambi Nthiga. 

Story Sosa, wittily named after the Kenyan tradition of ordering an extra morsel of ugali to finish the stew, is a collection of five stories, all lacing to tell of different ideas of home, both as the mannerisms and scenes they have grown up with and as the people they grew up around. With the writer rooted to a spot, they are forced to conjure up these stories that they have drilled inside them in the course of the rehearsal for a live audience, with the aid of sketch animation and photography. What looks like a stage set for a TED talk becomes an experimental mix of elements of journalistic writing and theatre narration, with a cast of writers who at times stumble in a form of delivery they are not used to but who permeate their stories enough to each deliver with the heart and charm that their stories need to enthuse their audience.

The format, which is daring and refreshing, doesn’t extend itself out of its comfort zone, and though the visual elements add to the mystique of the narratives, there is still a lot of room for a more immersive experience with more complimentary visual and audio contributions. For a first show, Story Sosa’s selection of storytellers and theme blend seamlessly for a worthwhile episode.

The Parable of the Monkey by Christine Mungai

Opening the doors, the event’s executive producer and curator, Christine Mungai, regales us with an amusing tale of the menace of the monkeys that have evolved and adapted to the human settlements around our city’s national park, in full annoyance but also some awe at their familiar yet primitive resemblance to our own nature. This serves to introduce the audience to a well-articulated and ingenious inspection of the topics that range from the emergence of artificial intelligence and neural networks to the stereotypical and racial connotations that liken black people to apes that are finding their way into this new technology. These grand and potent ideas, though intricately analysed, don’t find a rhythmic conclusion to work within the format of a story, tied together to open a discussion of new technology as TED talks usually do but not narratively tethered to the parable in focus.

Home by Luvitini Majanja

Luvitini takes us on a journey through her life. Visibly anxious on the stage at the start, her narration hurtles the audience through a journey that begins on the western end of the county, and with it, so does her confidence to tell it. Tied together by the lasting connection humans have to the mundane and disregarded stuff around us, she welcomes us into the conventions and habits of her family over the course of two generations, beautifying and exemplifying everything that changes, everything that doesn’t, and how everything grows smaller over time.

Siku za Mwizi Ni Arobaini by Wanjeri Gakuru

Another one that takes a more journalistic approach to its narrative, Wanjeri opens into the apprehensive moments before brutalised mob justice, continuing to analyse the practice of lynching throughout history, both in its modern associations and its origins within the cultures of our own people. Using direct citations from a professional psychologist and localised Kenyan examples, she guides the audience through the mentality of not just the victims but those of the perpetrators too, allowing for a space to dissect the issue to its bare essence and find a compromise that properly describes justice as intended.

Mama Onyango’s Hair by Paul “Paushinski” Otieno

Having known Paushinki from his witty and elaborate Twitter threads, I was looking forward to putting a face to the humour and hearing one of his tales from his own mouth this time. Told through the lens of his mother’s hair, Paul stammers at the beginning and is quick to win over the audience by tapping into his Luo charm and well-timed comedic interludes. Then comes a story that begins in the 1950s within the national state of emergency about the journey of his mother with her hair, going all the way into the relationship of his own sisters to Kenyan hair, infused with 80s and 90s cultural references that seem to find their intended target among the crowd, al before settling into a brief immersion into this evolution through live photography that offers a glimpse into a time machine through our storied history.

100 Years of Samosas by Aleya Kassam

Radiant and ever smiling, Aleya Kassam never misses a step, ensnaring us into a journey that spans into our neighbouring countries through a brief recap of the economic, political, and racial identities of our newly formed nations and the effect it had on a family that had dedicated their lives to making samosas for Kenyans. With a stream of pictures taken over the course of the decade celebrating both the mundane and the major life events of her family, Kassam weaves a beautifully narrated story of endurance, loss, dissolute hope, and rebirth of a family and their attachment to samosas, which they were more than willing to share with the audience.