[iDC] BrooKenya! in The New York Times

[Kate Gardner]

Kate Gardner
Director
Community Theatre Internationale
755 Washington Avenue, PMB 409
Brooklyn, NY 11238
www.communitytheatreintl.org
718-707-1109

Dear Friends,

Below is the text of The New York Times article on BrooKenya!, in case you
haven't already seen it.  It's another plank in the stage we are setting to
expand this project to new countries and new audiences.

Best,

Kate 



THE NEW YORK TIMES      Sunday, January 16, 2005
 
LOVE TRIANGLES, EVIL TWINS: THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

By Andrew Rice 
 
Drama is built on character, but a soap opera is rooted in place. A
character on "Days of Our Lives" or "General Hospital" may marry, divorce,
be buried alive or lost at sea, but Salem and Port Charles, their famous
locales, remain unchanging and eternal.
 
And so not surprisingly, the real stars of "BrooKenya!," a soap opera for
which production is wrapping up on two continents, are the borough of
Brooklyn, and Kisumu, a sleepy town on the shore of Lake Victoria. Shot on
digital camera, with mostly amateur actors, the show demonstrates how two
peoples, separated by divergent cultures and roughly 7,000 miles, are united
by their proclivity for scheming, their propensity for tantrums and their
desire for sex.
 
The creators of "BrooKenya!" are Kitche Magak, a Kenyan teacher, and Kate
Gardner, artistic director of the Community Theater Internationale, a Dumbo
group. The two met three years ago at a performing arts conference, and were
intrigued by the phenomenal popularity of soap operas in Kenya.
 
So Ms. Gardner and Mr. Magak soon began collaborating on a soap of their
own, trading footage over the Internet. Soon, Ms. Gardner said, what began
as a "grassroots international relations project" evolved into an epic, with
proliferating subplots and a cast of 37. She is now editing footage into the
first of 13 episodes, to be shown this year on Brooklyn Community Access
Television and Kenyan national television.
 
Vastly simplified, the plot of "BrooKenya!" centers on two female
characters: Miderma Lela, the beefy wife of a wealthy Kenyan businessman,
and Jacqueline (Jaxx) Aaron, a lesbian Brooklyn restaurateur. Years earlier,
Jaxx had had an affair with Miderma's husband, who was studying in America.
They conceived a son, who was put up for adoption. Early in "BrooKenya!,"
Miderma learns of the relationship. She confronts her husband, bellowing,
"You left me here as your fiancée to go to New York and breed like a rat!"
 
Miderma decides to turn the crisis to her advantage. During her marriage she
has had three daughters, but not a son, a situation that has her husband
contemplating a second, polygamous marriage. To provide an heir, Miderma
flies to New York.
 
All this unfolded onscreen one recent Saturday, when Ms. Gardner and Mr.
Magak staged simultaneous premieres of a rough cut of "BrooKenya!" In
Kisumu, where it was raining, the crowd overflowed from beneath a tent.
Meanwhile, in a converted warehouse beneath the Manhattan Bridge, a test
audience of 100 New Yorkers drank Tusker beer and mingled with members of
the cast, a group that included Marlon Hunter, a young actor whose credits
include parts on "All My Children" and "Sex and the City."
 
"BrooKenya!" ends with a pair of cliffhangers. In Brooklyn, Miderma
confronts Jaxx at her restaurant, where it is revealed that the heir to the
Lela fortune is -surprise!- Pete, the handsome busboy, played by Mr. Hunter.
In Kenya, a young woman catches her boyfriend cheating. "You'll pay for
this, you fool!" she shouts. Then she dissolves into tears, as a Celine Dion
ballad swells.
 
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company





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