Young, Rich and Famous: Crucial lessons for aspiring playwrights

One lesson from the Dorian Production, to be Young, Rich, and Famous’ staged last weekend at Kenya National Theatre, is that it can be hazardous to aspire to such a materialistic goal.

Even deadly, as one saw in the final moments of Derrick Wasswa’s latest production.

Another lesson that might be wise for aspiring playwrights to learn is that it doesn’t necessarily pay to serve your production as both scriptwriter and director.

Every writer needs a second (or third) pair of eyes to appraise their work critically. Otherwise, they might discover on opening night that there are glaring gaps in the show or loose ends that don’t get tied up or resolved.

In Wasswa’s case, one has to wonder, what happened to the guy behind bars in the first scene?

Was he left to languish in jail simply because, after joining the military, he didn’t follow his commander’s order to shoot everyone in some village where terrorists are said to exist?

What I learned from one kind-hearted cast member after the play was that the young woman Claudine (Wahito Mwai), who’d come to help the man get out of jail on ethical grounds, was the baby Claudine, born to the rich and famous woman who apparently died at the story’s end.

Twenty-odd years had seemingly elapsed since baby Claudine was born to Clara (Cheryl Margie), the young woman who’d aimed to be rich and famous but might have died in childbirth. We also can’t be sure who the father is.

It would seem Kingstone (Zakayo Odhiambo), the rich sugar daddy who had given Clara Sh5 million before he had her shot, was Claudine’s dad.

In the show, the adult Claudine is then transformed from a social worker into the story’s Narrator. She takes us back in time via flashback to meet her mother, the young woman wanting nothing more in life than to be rich and famous.

It doesn’t matter to her that she was disrupting another woman’s life, Kingstone’s real wife, Angelic (Angela Otieno).

Clara had already let him buy her a fully-furnished flat where she stayed with her mum. He has even given her his credit card to shop without limit.

The one thing that turns his love into deadly intent is her insistence on having the baby that he has insisted she abort.

That becomes his grounds for getting rid of her. He let other men carry out the deed, but somehow, her baby survives. But that’s how fast one can lose wealth, fame, and life.

The third and final lesson learned from Wasswa’s play is that it’s rarely a brilliant idea to create a complicated plot, and then include lots of exotic, erotic dancing to titillate audiences.

BDLife could only unravel the story’s complexities with the aid of that kind cast member who helped me draw two family trees, one for Clara whose mom was supposedly Angelica, a woman whose lover had been Kingstone until he got involved with her daughter.

Claudine at Kenya national theatre on August 13, 2023. PHOTO | POOL

After that, she became Kingstone’s accomplice in his scheme to get his money back and the baby eliminated.

The other family tree was for Kingstone and his wife, who’d discovered her man had left zero cash in the bank. She also learned where the money had gone. After that, she got involved in selling Clara an insurance policy that included a clause ensuring that, if anything happens to her, all her funds would go back to Kingstone.

Okay, that’s a bit crazy, but if Clara saw through this scheme, it was too late for her to change the insurance policy.

She didn’t see what was coming, for in the blink of an eye, she was attacked, and then, bang! She apparently dies.

But that’s not the end of violence. One other person wanted revenge for the assassination of her real father. It was Claudine who knew Kingstone killed her real dad. She had never really warmed up to her stepdad Kingstone, so she hired hitmen to finish him off.

But then, at the last minute, she got cold feet and tried to stop his murder. When she got to the scene where the murder was scheduled, she tried to stop it.

Instead, the lights went off; then we heard a shot, and we assumed Kingstone was hit, but maybe not.

If it sounds like an easy story to understand, think again Mr Wasswa. Don’t be surprised if your complicated story was too much for me.

→ [email protected]