Like all other art forms, modern theatre as we know it was born of religion. A glance at theatre history reveals that theatre and religion have had a more dynamic, reciprocal relationship.
The earliest records of theatrical performances came from ancient Egypt, which emerged, as part of rituals for the gods. Then came the Greeks in the 6th century with tragedies and comedies performed to honour Dionysus, the god of fertility and harvest. The Romans simply copied the way of the Greeks, and upon Christianization of the empire, the Roman Catholic church began incorporating theatre into mass – giving rise to the Christian liturgical drama.
From May 16 to 18, ChemiChemi Players, a Christian theatre company founded in 2022, brought a fresh and creative twist to the liturgical drama with their staging of Bad Girls of the Bible at Daystar University.
Adapted by Yafesi Musoke from Liz Curtis Higgs’ book of the same name and directed by Julisa Rowe, Bad Girls of the Bible slightly steps away from its source material. It follows eight biblical women – the “vamps and tramps” of scripture. There’s Eve, the first ‘bad girl’; the power-hungry Jezebel; the lustful Mrs. Potiphar; the deceitful Sapphira; the promiscuous Woman at the Well; the treacherous Delilah; Lot’s disobedient wife; and Rahab the prostitute.
The play is both gutsy and honest, retelling these stories with rollicking humour and deep insights into timeless themes of identity and belonging, the nature of sin and the grace of a merciful God. Most notably, Bad Girls of the Bible offers a rare, nuanced feminine gaze to biblical storytelling. The characters see themselves, and in turn, allow us to see ourselves in them.
The cast is a formidable ensemble of some of the most talented women working in Kenyan theatre today. Each performer, for the most part, fully inhabits her role in a way that most actors cannot.
Allow me to be candid: there isn’t a single actor in this country that could play Queen Jezebel the way Wakio Mzenge did. Mzenge, as always, is a true queen of the stage, magnetic and passionate, delivering her lines with a natural panache befitting an actor who has become just too good at it. Mrs. Potiphar, played by the nimble-voiced Joyce Musoke, comes alive with delicate force. Her scenes opposite Mzenge are hair-raising. It was like watching two giant eagles tangling in the sky. I was reminded of the emotional weight of the dialogue between Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Price on the film The Two Popes.
Lucy Kwe, as Lot’s wife, brings grace to her performance, spending every minute on stage just flexing her insane acting skills; while Kerry Kagiri offers an unexpected ‘dem wa mtaa’ take on Sapphira. Lucy Wache brings a refreshing amount of gravitas to the role of The Guide – later revealed as Eve. Nkatha Nkirote, Ivy Shiko, and Mwajuma Belle, as the Woman at the Well, Delilah, and Rahab respectively, share a dynamic chemistry, bouncing off each other effortlessly. Mugambi Ikiara delivers a charismatic turn as D.A. (the Devil’s Advocate), the game show host, while Justine Karunguru is hilarious as uhm, the Ad Man(?)
The premise is deceptively simple: these infamous women, across biblical timelines, are finally given a platform in the afterlife to share their side of the story. It’s the innovative execution of this premise that sets Bad Girls of the Bible apart from anything you’ve ever seen on stage, especially as far as spiritual dramas go.
There’s no fourth wall to be broken in this show because there’s no wall. The play unfolds as a live TV game show. Everyone in the auditorium, including the audience, is part of the cast. It’s a brilliant setup, really, because even as the characters ramble on about these biblical stories that we all know by heart, we’re still entertained by the gameshow host deliberately pitting these women against each other or goading them to reveal their “most shameful secret” for viral content. Or the hilarious scene-stealing ‘commercial breaks’ interludes from Karunguru’s Ad Man.
The characters engage the audience directly, who, as in any scripted live TV show, are cued when to applaud and to laugh. The crew members aren’t barricaded behind the curtains but fuel the frantic and chaotic energy on the set, filming the show, directing scenes, adjusting the cast’s makeup, and cleaning the brilliantly designed set, like an authentic live TV show.
Honestly, for the first half of the first act, I just sat there wondering what I was looking at, and a character, presumably reading my mind, co-asked, “What kind of show is this?” Because while it should be a Christian play, it looks and sounds nothing like it. Or at least nothing like any Christian play I’ve ever seen.
There are no crosses or church symbols or angels or portraits of the saints or Jesus anywhere on the minimally but meticulously designed set. This set looks good, by the way. But not nearly as creatively transcending as the work makeup, hair, and costume crew did – they created the characters and the cast just gave them words. Even before the play began and we got to know who was who, Mzenge was obviously Queen Jezebel if she lived in the 21st century, Kwe was undoubtedly Lot’s wife if Sodom and Gomorrah chanted Ruto Must Go.
When I think of Christian theatre, I don’t immediately think of theatre that’s creative, that captures and pushes, for instance, the revolutionary spirit of the biblical stories, tying them back to the modern world. What I see, and what often exists out there, is religious kitsch. An oeuvre of melodramatic stories, heavy-handed moral messages, and lackluster set designs. Defying all that, Bad Girls of the Bible is a welcome surprise. The production didn’t just bring us closer to God, it showed us that theatrical form itself can be enlivened through spiritual storytelling
As I said here in my earlier review of Molière’s Kenyan adaptation Mgongjwa Mwitu, give Wakio Mzenge all the awards. No one is more deserving,
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