Back home after 21 years

Nyambura Waruingi did not come back home after 12 years living in Canada for want of a job.

The former film producer and production manager with the National Film Board of Canada did not have a burning need to return.

What is more, she had all the professional credentials she required to work practically anywhere in the world that she liked.

Nyambura was even thinking of shifting jobs from Canada to Spain and had already filled out the necessary forms to move on to “greener pastures” since she had “been there done that” in the field of film production in Canada.

Her work had taken her all across the region, from Vancouver in the west to Halifax in the east, so she was ready to try something new when she came for what was intended to be a brief visit with family and friends.

But then something happened. She met an old family friend, Mumbi Kaigwa, who used to work with Nyambura’s mother, Lucy, at the United Nations headquarters at Gigiri.

That was years before Mumbi left the UN to start The Theatre Company and take up acting, directing, and script-writing full-time.

“Mumbi was aware of my theatre background and asked me if I’d like to direct her in Wit,” said Nyambura, referring to the powerful play by Margaret Edson, which was successfully staged by Mumbi’s new company, The Arts Canvas, at the Braeburn Theatre early this year.

OPPORTUNITY NOT TO BE PASSED

Nyambura realised that this was an opportunity not to be passed up since she had been very active in theatre throughout primary and secondary school, both at State House Girls and St Mary’s, where she did her International Baccalaureate (IB).

True, she had focused on film when she went abroad to study multimedia production (everything from film, TV, radio and theatre) and communication at Concordia University in Montreal, where she earned both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. But her first love had always been the stage.

“I’ve always been writing,” said the current director of Phoenix Players’ forthcoming play, Steel Magnolias, which opens tonight at the Professional Centre.

Having enjoyed the revival of her directing career with Mumbi, Nyambura confessed that there were things she simply could not easily break into in Canada such as theatre, especially as her work since graduation had primarily been in film (not stage) production.

“I had many opportunities in the Canadian film industry for several reasons,” Nyambura noted.

“One is that Montreal is in Quebec Province, which is primarily the Francophone part of Canada.

And as I’m fluent in French, I was able to serve as a bridge between Anglophone film companies and Francophone film crews,” she said, recalling how she first started to learn the French language.

FRENCH BOOK

She was a child, around eight years old, when she found a book on her grandmother’s bookshelf entitled Teach Yourself French.

“That’s how I got started. Then, several years later I enrolled for French classes at Alliance Française,” said Nyambura who eventually won a Best Actor’s award in the French Students Drama Festival while she was doing her IB. (She had already won acting awards for her English-speaking roles in the Schools Drama Festival!)

The other reason she easily found work in Canada’s film industry was because she says Montreal, being in Quebec Province, is the one region of the country where there is a star system comparable to Hollywood, meaning that films from there actually make a profit, so the industry has been thriving for several years.

But writing for both the stage and screen as well as acting and directing have all been Nyambura’s preoccupation since secondary school.

When at State House Girls, her drama teacher encouraged students to learn and do every aspect of stagecraft, including writing and directing.

“Ms Kabue was exceptional in that she encouraged us to write the scripts that we staged during the Kenya Schools Drama Festival,” Nyambura recalled.

WROTE SCRIPT

“I acted in plays my first two years at State House, then I directed in my third year, and finally, since we were already in the 8-4-4 system, in my fourth and final year, I wrote the script for that year's school play.

It was called Handsome and the Hag.

It was an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, for which we couldn’t get the rights to perform but we wanted to do something like it anyway,” she said.

Nyambura has been writing scripts since. “I’ve always written poetry and short stories. Plays came later,” she said, noting that right now she has a number of writing projects in the pipeline.

They include one feature screenplay, a 13-episode TV series, and several scripts for stage.

“I’m thinking about reworking the screenplay, Always, which I wrote when I was 23,” said Nyambura who is a bit older now and undoubtedly wiser.

“As the story is about a relationship, I may find it gets resolved differently from the way I saw it back then,” she added.

Steel Magnolias is also about relationships, said Nyambura, who had not read the play before she went to Phoenix Players and told Ngethe Githinji, the theatre’s former managing director, that she would like to direct a play.

“He brought out a bunch of scripts and told me to pick the one I wanted,” she said, marvelling somewhat at the ease with which he trusted her capacity to direct.

But then he had seen Wit and respected Mumbi Kaigwa, who only had good things to say about Nyambura, so it was really no surprise.

Steel Magnolias has six women in the cast and is set in a beauty salon.

BEST FRIENDS

It is a site where a wide range of women come for beauty treatment, but Fridays are specially reserved by the owner for her best friends to come and share.

I have not read the script or seen the film either, but from Nyambura’s description, the story is filled with lots of laughter, intimate banter, and heart-wrenching moments.

In other words, it will be a touching production featuring some of Nairobi’s finest female actors, including June Gachuias as Truvy, Nyokabi Gethaiga as M’Lynn, Kaz as Ouiser, Fridah Muhindi as Shelby, Stella Mungai as Clairee, and Shiviske Shivisi as Annelle.

Despite the fact that Wit and Steel Magnolias are woman-centric, Nyambura is not especially oriented towards women’s scripts.

“I expect my next production will have an all-male cast,” she said, although Always has a mixed cast and is scheduled to be staged at Phoenix later this year.

Nairobi does not have many female directors, the main ones being Mumbi Kaigwa, Mbeki Mwalimu, Caroline Odongo, and Millicent Ogutu (I welcome the names of others) and we look forward to seeing Nyambura directing many more plays. In addition to stage, her television series, entitled Rush is getting ready to premier soon on Kenyan TV.

So, Canada’s loss is clearly Nairobi’s gain.

We have seen Wit move audiences to tears — a response that had as much to do with Mumbi’s sensitive performance as Nyambura’s inspired directing skills.

In fact, the two women have excellent artistic chemistry, a heap of mutual respect, and form a dynamic duo in performing.

By Margaretta wa Gacheru