Teen’s award-winning writing inspired by coronavirus battle
Mokeira Gekonge’s monologue “Mutiny” helped the Plymouth-Whitemarsh freshman feel hopeful after her grandparents became ill
Aug. 19 was World Photography Day, and, yes — as promos for the date reminded us — a picture is worth a thousand words. On the other hand, the right words can equal just about any photo.
Mokeira Gekonge is only 14. But the sentiment she conveys in her prize-winning monologue about COVID-19, “Mutiny,” evokes a chill comparable to the most sinister visual. The Lafayette Hill teen’s perceptive words earned her a top spot in Philadelphia Young Playwrights’ 2020 Mouthful Digital Monologue Festival.
The piece was inspired by her grandparents’ battle with the virus and is formatted as a firstperson declamation by the coronavirus. A professional actor delivered each winning monologue, and although she ends on a hopeful note, Gekonge’s words coupled with the in-your-face phrasing of Philadelphia thespian Jenna Kuerzi, make for an ominous cautionary tale against complacency.
“My grandparents had both suddenly fallen sick with coronavirus a few months ago, and it was really scary for me,” said Gekonge, a rising Plymouth Whitemarsh High School freshman. “They were sicker than they’d let on, so I’d never know how they were really doing when I talked to them on the phone. They both have underlying health issues, so it was really just a terrible situation.
“My grandparents mean the whole world to me, so I was really hurt, and the hardest part was the fact that they were being weakened from the inside, so there was nothing I could do to help them.”
“The idea of being able to turn COVID into a nasty villain that gets defeated helped me feel more hopeful and lighthearted about my grandparents’ situation.”
— Mokeira Gekonge
Happily, Gekonge’s grandparents recovered “and haven’t experienced any issues since,” but when her eighth grade English teacher at Colonial Middle School, Joshua Rothstein, suggested she enter the Philadelphia Young Playwrights’ contest, she knew she wanted to build her monologue around the coronavirus.
“The idea of being able to turn COVID into a nasty villain that gets defeated helped me feel more hopeful and lighthearted about my grandparents’ situation,” Gekonge explained.
That said, there was nothing “lighthearted” about the malevolent defiance of COVID-19 as personified in her monologue.
“You spit and call me names, but you’re forgetting that I have taken countless hosts. That I cloned myself until I couldn’t anymore. I’m the biggest army you have seen in years.”
— Mutiny
In part:
“You spit and call me names, but you’re forgetting that I have taken countless hosts. That I cloned myself until I couldn’t anymore. I’m the biggest army you have seen in years.
“What’s that? I’m a filthy virus? Well, let’s see who’s talking after I blow your proteins to bits! (low growl)
“Even if I fall to your hands in this host, you will never defeat me.
“If you want to ‘kill’ me, go for it. I live in millions of other hosts. The hosts do my work for me. Sharing from person to person, until nobody’s safe anymore! So, try as you might, you won’t succeed. I’m far ahead of you.” (loud evil cackle)
“Mutiny means rebellion, and in my story, coronavirus is a feared army that comes and destroys the immune system,” Gekonge continued. “But the antibodies come to fight down the insurgence of the virus.”
Her monologue’s ending — the virus’s brazen, then quickly diffident summation — bodes well for success by those antibodies:
“I am novel coronavirus. I won’t be defeated. (sudden nervous look)… Right?”
Gekonge’s powerful personification of the virus and the fearsome havoc it’s wreaked are even more impressive given her compressed deadline.
“It was my first time writing (a monologue), and I just had to try my best and throw it together within four days — all the days I had,” she says. “I just wanted to try my best, and I definitely didn’t expect the results that came out of it.”
Philadelphia Young Playwrights has been collaborating with area educators “to bring the transformative power of playwriting into classrooms and community settings” since 1987. The organization’s yearly Mouthful Digital Monologue Festival partners its winners with pros like Kuerzi, dramaturg Byshera Williams and director MR Stine to help shape their work.
Watching and listening as Kuerzi delivered “Mutiny” for the first time?
A definite thrill for its young author.
“It was so cool to hear it read by a professional actor,” she said. “I got to see my own writing come to life, and it made me really happy. Jenna Kuerzi, Byshera Williams and MR Stine all did a great job, and it came out just how I’d imagined it to.”
Not surprisingly, Gekonge’s grandparents are among her biggest fans.
“They were so happy,” she said. “Both of them loved the monologue, and they were so proud.”
That said, Gekonge isn’t resting on her laurels.
“I’ve been working on a few short stories and trying to write a book like I’ve always wanted to ... I love writing, because it helps me express my ideas and creativity. It’s really fun to me.”