The Betrayal of Man by Patriarchy: Reading Too Early for Bird’s Play Tom Mboya in the Eyes of Francis Imbuga’s Aminata and John Sibi-Okumu’s Role Play

This chapter argues that the Tom Mboya portrayed in Too Early for Bird’s 2019 staged play Tom Mboya, in Nairobi, invites us to consider the plight of man or masculinities within structures that have hitherto been said to be favourable to men as opposed to women. So, therefore, despite Tom Mboya’s supposed privileged position wrought by his being a man of influence and wealth, he still ends up being assassinated by the very structures that should prop him into greater power. This chapter argues further that Tom Mboya’s assassination is akin to the impotence suffered by men within the hoi polloi class who hope to “make it” despite, or in spite of, a structure that seemingly should be on their side, but which makes them seem indispensable. But man is a concept that is not necessarily fixed; at any given time, Tom Mboya, or any man for that matter, is an entity composed of so many pieces—whether as physique, ethnic, literate or illiterate, macho or not, and so on. How does a man, especially a Kenyan one, perform himself within these structures? This chapter discusses Too Early for Bird’s larger project which has tended to, in its three other staged performances, suggest that it is presenting accounts that have been neglected by official (government) sites such as the school curriculum, commemorations, public holiday celebrations, and monuments. The theatre company reimagines the way we can see historical figures such as Tom Mboya. The chapter looks at this portrayal of Tom Mboya through the eyes of Francis Imbuga’s (Kenya’s renown playwright) understanding of how Kenya’s seemingly patriarchal structures have been changing so that they seem to accommodate women, sometimes in a fashion that piques men’s attention to the nature of the changing world. Such a changing world is brought to light in John Sibi-Okumu’s character Mzee in the play Role Play, where there is a troubled exploration of the hopelessness of imagining that power structures are on the side of man, any man, because they necessarily are historically patriarchal.