Faiz Ouma in the one-man play, It's Such a Good Time [Courtesy]
The Dying Need No Shoes, a play by Dr Fred Mbogo, is one of the most haunting portrayals of fatherhood. It follows Prof Jairus Munanda, a father who is an academic severely obsessed with researching death.
Having spent much of his life looking for the meaning of life as the head of a university’s department of religion, he starts being consumed by a desire to know what happens before someone dies. This leads him to plan his daughter Purity’s death as a staged suicide.
It is revealed that he has been repeatedly abusing his daughter, who is now pregnant, and that Prof. Munanda’s father also committed the same abuse on his mother.
Themed around disturbing experimentations, psychological control, violence, obsession, and unresolved generational wounds, the play will be restaged in South Africa this year and is produced by the Kenya International Theatre Festival Trust.
