Sweetness in an Age Caught between Anti-Stoic Regret and Sisyphurian Cynicism

This paper makes a comparative study of the dialogue found in John Sibi-Okumu’s Role Play with that in Francis Imbuga’s Betrayal in the City. It stems from the claim that both plays situate characters in spaces, through their dialogue, where escape becomes vital. Essentially, the paper focuses on characters either in regret, as Mzee in Role Play, or seeped in an urgency of correcting mistakes made within the political arena, as is the case in conversations between Mosese and Jere in Betrayal in the City. Mzee thinks himself a failure, an individual who has stood by as political decision after another have led to the mess he now finds his countrymen in. On the other hand, Mosese and Jere are in a dialogue that at first seems to suggest a Sisyphurian kind of cynicism, but which morphs into a kind of exhortation for action against oppressing circumstances. The question then is whether a director’s possible interpretation can capture the depth of Mzee’s agony while delivering an aesthetic presentation or whether as in the case of Imbuga’s Mosese and Jere, the mood swings from cynicism to agitation can muzzle the dulce, or sweetness, of the presentation.