Gender, Theatre and Education: Reflections on Florence Okware’s The Ticking Clock in The Kenyan Schools and Colleges Drama and Film Festival

Abstract

Using a feminist lens this paper examines the text and context of ‘The Ticking Clock’, a play by Florence Okware, with a view to understand the articulation of gender in the Kenya National Drama and Film Festival (KNDFF). It unravels the articulation of gender equity in the text as a window into understanding drama festival theatre scripts and screenplays by women writers. In an exegesis of the history of the writers, the paper posits varied contexts as presented in ‘The Ticking Clock’ and what implication they hold for the larger picture of gender (in)equality in the Kenyan society. In its analysis, it reveals that Okware confesses that her writing was never from the gender perspective but a close reading of ‘The Ticking Clock’ demarcates her concern for the position of women in a patriarchal society.In its conclusion, confronting and evaluating, patriarchy becomes a core concern in the drama festival play that provides direction towards the reality of a relatively gender equal society and that the drama festival hence is an invaluable platform for the youth to interrogate critical gender issues with its various manifestations in exploitation, discrimination, and social prejudice in Kenya.