The matatu culture has invaded theatre, again.

If a hall is full, you squeeze in a few extra seats and still have standing space. It should not matter that the extra seats are sealing all the fire exits or that the standing spaces are actually aisles between chairs packed with 400 students.

That was the scenario at the Kenya National Theatre last weekend where Mbalamwezi Players Society were staging John Ruganda's The Burdens Either the show was heavily over-booked or the management decided to keep admitting students when they knew they had a full house. The 400-seater auditorium was bursting with over 500 youths eager to watch the play.

It is the kind of setting that produces a tragedy - offstage.

It may be argued that some of the school children had travelled more than 60 kilometres to watch this show and turning them away may have seemed a cruel thing. It cannot also be denied, however, that in case of mass panic, let alone a fire, every extra person in the theatre represented a diminished opportunity for escape.

What is terrifying is that this may not be the last time it the rules will be bent. Will not Planet Theatre be staging their adaptation of Margaret Ogola's The River and the Source at the same venue starting next week?

But such is the nature of art in general and drama in particular that the audience soon forgot their discomfort and were absorbed in the make-believe world created by Ruganda. And what a world!

One of the most amazing qualities of The Burdens is its ability to remain relevant through long time, written as it was in the early 70s when communism was fashionable in intellectual circles. Mbalamwezi's production widened the thematic interpretation of the play beyond the issue of family strife. Watching the production - as I did - in these enlightened times, it was not lost on me that considerable light is shed on the nature and causes of familial and social conflict, which often flower into domestic and social violence.

Mbalamwezi assembled a powerful cast, led by the experienced Kennedy Musumba who played Wamala for the second year running. Catherine Damaris as Tinka gave a sincere and studied performance, and together with Kiragu Mugo as the winningly boyish and yet mature-minded Kaija, held the audience's attention in the absence of Wamala, the star of the show. On Sunday, however, the real star of the show was Stephanie Benta Ochieng' - playing the sickly Nyakake - who gave a rousing and captivating performance, and this despite having lost her grandmother that day.

The actors enhanced the students' understanding of the characters. Crystal clear were the portrayals of Wamala as being evasive when cornered about his infidelity, Nyakake as the reclusive girl who loves her father deeply, Kaija as the protective son and Tinka as the artist. The praise over and done with, there are certain things Mbalamwezi will need to hone further.

Almost all the actors have work to do. Damaris needs to develop the acerbic tongue and sarcastic tone Tinka uses to shrivel Wamala. Indeed, a portrayal of Tinka without this trait would not be complete. Like is in the case in the real world, sarcasm and irony are literary devices Tinka uses to enable her cope with people she considers less clever than herself but with whom circumstances force her to live with. Damaris' performance could also benefit with a little more thoughtful delivery of key lines that hint at the tragic ending of the play where she stabs her husband to death.

Both Damaris and Musumba need to return the magic to the play-within-a-play that fires Wamala's hallucination and fuels the conflict between him and Tinka. Kaija needs to only worry about his footwork, and Kake to keep reminding us of her cough.

The run at KNT ends next week, and in following Ruganda's advice that "People don't live in the same place all time", the cast hits the road for a month in a nationwide tour covering Central, Rift Valley, Western Nyanza and Coast provinces. Students should benefit immensely from this tour as the cast will travel with Amezidi whose successful run closed at the theatre in May.

Last Saturday, the French-Malagasy troupes' collaboration produced a riveting show of structured dance routines. Break dance and hip hop performed to those stirring and melancholy rhythms and tunes from the Indian Ocean isle must have made those of us who attended feel that it was a far better bargain that watching the event at the Carnivore ... Students of dance and local performers came away filled from the well of experience and creativity.

Today, Nairobi's Braeburn School opens The Mikado at its auditorium to benefit the Heart-to-Heart Foundation. At the Phoenix Theatre, Robert Bolt's classical drama, A man for All Seasons opens for public viewing tomorrow. And then, next Thursday, Starehe Boys' Centre makes a comeback to their musical tradition after a two-year break with One Light, to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

It promises to be great week.

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