Muzzled on stage, Echoes of War finds new life online

While the play, Echoes of War, never lived to see the stage at the Melvin Jones School in Nakuru, its message has reverberated far beyond the 63rd National Drama and Film Festival, thanks to digital renditions that have surfaced online.

The play has sparked widespread public interest after an initial ban, a court reinstatement, and a subsequent boycott by Butere Girls High School students. Its themes—reportedly unsettling to some in government—have become the subject of national debate.

Unlike other entries at this year’s drama festival, Echoes of War was silenced when state officials intervened, alleging the festival had been hijacked by political interests. The play was ultimately shut down before its scheduled 8 am performance on Thursday last week. No audience was allowed.

But the curtain did not fall entirely.

A mix of digitally savvy Kenyans and freely available generative AI tools revived the play online, giving it a new lease of life and unexpected reach. From podcasts, to Spotify, to AI-generated videos, the messaging of Echoes of War continues. 

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X initially served as spaces for curious users to follow the unfolding drama, especially after the arrest of the playwright, former UDA Secretary-General Cleophas Malala, on Wednesday night.

Soon after, the deployment of more advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tools began circulating the 41-page viral script. Users transformed the script into formats that immersed the audience in the fictional story of the people of Royal Velvet Emirates, a kingdom in the Middle East recovering from a civil war.

PDFs and Spotify

Google’s NotebookLM, for instance, was used to create an audio podcast that broke down the play scene by scene, explained the significance of the characters, and explored symbolic locations.

The 15-minute episode features a dialogue between a male and female voice, realistic in tone but entirely AI-generated using data fed into a large language model (LLM).

Originally designed for taking notes, NotebookLM allows users to upload material in various accepted formats, analyse it and return results based on a prompt, a set of instructions.

A Portable Document Format (PDF) file of Echoes of War provided the input, the resulting audio was a tailored explainer, shared widely on Spotify.

Meanwhile, the creator of the podcast has since shared it on the global audio content sharing platform, Spotify, effectively taking the play from the stage to the world.

Play turned into AI Video

Another creator on X, known as Droid, used the AI video tool HeyGen to produce a split-screen video podcast.

The split-screen video depicted a show where two people are seen discussing the major themes of the play, such as conflicts between the Kenyan Gen Z and older generations, the impact of technology, alongside governance and social justice issues.

Ethical concerns

While such AI image-generation tools are increasingly part of youth-led digital activism in Kenya, they have also raised ethical concerns.

Award-winning filmmaker and producer Dr Zippy Okoth says that when used well, AI presents no threat and makes the creative process easy, but worries about the potential for copyright infringement.

“We have to understand issues of copyright when it comes to AI and thus know our space as creatives in the use and creation of AI-related tools and content,” she said.

Though still relatively new, AI image generators have surged in popularity among Kenyans who use them for entertainment and more recently, for activism.

Among the most used tools are ChatGPT’s DALL·E, the force behind the Ghibli-style imagery, along with Midjourney, Leonardo AI, and Recraft.

Many of these tools offer free basic features, but their more sophisticated capabilities often come with a price.

As some Kenyans push for Echoes of War to be staged in theaters nationwide, others prefer AI-generated versions—animated adaptations included.

Dr Okoth, however, believes that’s still a distant possibility. “Doing story-based animations using AI isn't easy. A lot of creative thought has to go into the plot. It's one thing to generate a photo…it's another thing to create a sequence of a story,” she says.

Veteran playwright and scholar Prof Kithaka wa Mberia, author of the popular set book, Kifo Kisimani, remains skeptical of AI tools. He prefers traditional creative processes from start to finish.

“There are some nuances that AI can’t capture well. Even the images on my book covers are hand-drawn. I still don’t use AI to generate anything,” he says.

Prof Mberia avers that he will stick to conventional methods for his upcoming book, Jeneza Kutoka Saurabia, arguing that authentic art is not confined by anything, including market dynamics, geography, and certainly not new technology.

 “Good content finds a way to stand out, regardless of trends,” says Prof Mberia.