BY JECKONIA OTIENO It has taken Coast Province 17 years to break the jinx of not winning any meaningful trophy during the National Schools and Colleges Drama Festivals in the secondary schools category. The last school to make it to the gala of the festivals was Mama Ngina School in 1995. Even most intriguing, in the spirit of national cohesion, is the fact that it took a man from western Kenya – Nyanza Province to be precise – to break the spell. Stephen Omondi co-scripted and co-directed the play that won a host of accolades during the just concluded festivals in Kakamega. The Swahili play, Operesheni linda utu, was written by Omondi and Joseph Akwiri; it took position two in the secondary schools category bagging with it other prestigious awards like best actor, best male artist and runner-up best actor. Omondi confesses that it took pain, sweat and sheer diligence to pull through from the zonal level to the national finals. He says that the crew literally had to work through odd hours because they knew too well that the standards of competition in the festival are always high. Says Omondi, “We started to script the play last but we did not write the whole of it because we would only block and direct it according to the progress of the scenes – one at a time.” He reveals out that at one point he even contemplated giving up on the whole idea of the school performing at the festivals arguing that they found it hard creating a thrust in the first scene. “The first scene should always be the core of the conflict in the play while other conflicts should be exposed as the play progresses,” argues Omondi stating that the play did not have any central conflict. This forced him and Akwiri to go back to the drawing board and start afresh, in January this year; they knew too well that it was already late because some schools had their items for the festivals ready before schools close for the December holidays. The motivation to write the play came from watching what the Kenyan society is like currently. He notes that the country is so polarised that he thought of doing something through theatre to change the trends. The play kicks off with two distinct classes in society. The society is made up of two clans, the Wanyazito and Wanyakonde. A rich man, Bazuka, is from the Wanyazito. His character trait is such that he does not have any regards for anybody unless you are from either his class or his clan. Omondi says that as they wrote the play, the settled on the name Bazuka because it means a gun and ‘when a gun is on fire, it does not discriminate – it clears all and sundry that appear before it.’ After creating Bazuka the character, Omondi says that they would write the scenes that followed separately after which they would compare the two and settle on the best. At times they even settled on merging the two different scripts together. He says this worked for the good of the play because they ensured only the best scenes made the script. This he says worked for them until they got to the resolution where a major problem lay in wait. “Try as we would, we could not just get a befitting resolution to all the conflicts we had created, yet we also wanted to avoid escapism and come up with a reasonable conclusion true to real life,” states Omondi. The emotional nature of the first scene was the strongest point of the play according to Omondi. Bazuka, the MP, collects all the young men of Wanyakonde and Wanyazito clans with the promise that he will give them jobs only for him to force them to labour in his minefield. This showcases the typical example of leaders that Kenya has, leaders who have a lot of care for only themselves and pretend to have the interests of their community in mind which is all hypocrisy. “The truth is that whether you are from their clan or not, as long as you are poor, they will always ride on your back.” Nevertheless, after trying hard to come up with a suitable resolution, Omondi and Akwiri decided to consult widely which made them gather many more ideas from people in the theatre world; they picked the best one which worked and pulled the play through. Bazuka’s fate ends with the judge which is true to the Kenyan scenario where many politicians’ fates are left with the Judiciary. Omondi was born in Nyando District and went to Otieno Oyoo Secondary School before joining Moi University to study English and Literature. After graduating in 2003, he taught at the coast. Before joining Malindi High School in 2007, Omondi was a teacher at a private school in Malindi. “I might not be a media personality to reach my audience but I must say that I can use the pen and paper to bring change to the society,” remarks Omondi. He knows too well that getting to the top is not impossible but staying on top is not very easy. It is for this reason that he and Akwiri have floated two ideas that they are currently working on for next year’s festivals. Omondi now hopes to start concentrating on film. They have started a theatre group in Malindi to nurture local talent and distract young men from engaging in vices like drug abuse.