Historical context
In 1953/54 sections of the indigenous people in the African state of Kenya rose up against the dominant Europeans. A British Army Captain Kitson, then aged 26, invented special techniques including "counter gangs" to combat active resistance to settler rule. Small gangs of loyal (to the Crown) Kikuyu, turned rebels and exceptionally adept Brits were dressed in rebel wear and then let loose to masquerade, infiltrate, and kill.
Back story:
Kitson a thoughtful young officer is sent out to a wild land where fear has broken out. Eric comes from the settler community to his side. Eric is a natural killer with a passion for broken cars and disguise. From the local security service comes Falkirk a demoted policeman with a religious bent.
Eric has a childhood friend, Kioni - a woman of the city. Kioni is given a man's jacket by Marion her sometime employer. The jacket had belonged to her husband, very recently killed by rebels.
Kioni passes this jacket on to her lodger Matenjagua and Eric, noting this, is thus able to persuade Matenjagua to work for the security service. At the same time the jacket serves to identify Matenjagua and allows him to be filtered discreetly in a police sweep.
His allegiance however proves inconstant...
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Captain Kitson a British army officer in his early twenties
Eric a white born in the country a little younger than Kitson
Kioni a Kikuyu business woman in her mid to late twenties
Marion a white immigrant between thirty and forty
Matenjagua a Kikuyu city dweller in his early twenties
Falkirk a plain clothes man in his forties
General Waruingi a forest leader in his early thirties
Chorus there are two chorus "voices" the squaddie voice and the forest gang voice. Squaddie is a semi pejorative term for the lower rank forces of the Crown suggestive as it is of a certain bluntness and ugliness - the forest voice will be similar in its brutality but is less scatological and more passion led.
Synopsis
Act 1 - dawn to dusk - the city and the city edge.
Kitson narrates the witch doctors tale (mimed action). - Eric sees Kioni in town and introduces himself to Matenjagua who is persuaded to his side - Marion mourns her husband and passes clothes to Kioni for Matenjagua - Matenjagua is taken aside during a police sweep.
setting one, the city - in which the security forces gain an informer
setting two, the training camp - in which the making of the pseudo gang takes place
ACT 2 night comes through dawn into day - the forest
Kitson Eric Matenjagua lean in towards each others identity during their first night in the forest - there is enchantment then awareness that they are near Waruingis camp.
Kitson sends Matenjagua forward to spy; he is assailed by doubts. At this moment appears Kioni carrying meat for the forest gang. She escorts him to Waruingi’s camp.
setting one - forest - in which the whites of the pseudo gang are infected by the spirit of the forest
setting two - hide out - in which the forest fighters debate the method of struggle
Act 3 daylight with blackouts where necessary - the forest and city edge
resumé?
setting one, the hide out - debate interrupted by bombing
setting two, the township suburb - in which General Waruingi is caught and killed.
Cast notes
Kitson makes a journey into another skin. Comes of a navy family - forbade that service by asthma - before Africa he was on the Rhine - when others go drinking he runs on the beach - has a rare ability to think abstractly - high minded without being priggish - he enjoys a tidy mind but has not a dry heart - in Kenya he soon recruits:-
Eric, who makes a journey into bestiality and despair. Not academic he has a passion for fixing bangers (old cars) - his father was a prisoner of war and he became used in his teenage years to running the family livestock holding - he is that rare thing: a natural killer. Putting on of uniform for the emergency allows him to assume corporate straightness but within the knots tighten. His cold bravura attracts the military eye and he does not escape the flattering regard of Kitson.. - Having grown up with the Kikuyu can speak with them naturally as he does to:-
Kioni, who makes a journey into political idealism and practice. Making her way in city life best way she can and runs the property in which live the likilimba (commune pooling wages). She has a lodger, her cousin:-
Matunjagua, who makes a journey into a narrower but surer self. Mission literacy then caught up in mass expulsion back to ancestral lands - drifts into city life and adapts to modernity, learns to play trumpet and listens to jazz. Attractive to both men and women he can do small time conjuring tricks and has worked briefly in the radio repair shop part owned by:-
Marion, who makes a journey from useful idiot to lost soul - she escaped her large struggling family in South London during the war into the WRAF where she met her flyer husband who retired into a subsettler life until his death in the emergency. She is unhinged by her husbands assassination. She lurches beyond her norms and does good works but is contaminated by unhappiness and drink. She believes in her will but is bewildered as to purpose. She has a ghastly bravery, what used to be called guts.
General Waruingi makes a journey from emulation to origination educated to clerk level then promoted to corporal in Burma WW2 he goes into forest as the least worse choice and by the time of the opera is respected leader of a forest gang.
Falkirk age thirty to fifty makes a journey from haunted to hunted
and???