Theatre exists because of awe-inspiring acting, the astonishing kind that Millicent Ogutu portrayed at the Phoenix Players.

She played a touching nutcase in Tom Topor's courtroom comedy Nuts which will go down as the finest theatrical production this year. The play was staged last weekend.

But have you wondered what goes on in backstage, before, and during the staging of a show, and not necessarily at the Phoenix?

Well, I went behind the curtains with the cast of John Mortimer and Brian Cooke's comedy When the Cat's Away, the farce about two philandering husbands staged by Festival of Creative Arts in March this year.

The cast included Angel Waruinge, Mbeki Mwalimu, Joan Samiah and Crystal Mbuga, who have their names clearly felt penned in green on their make-up areas.

Waruinge is playing Mildred, the long-suffering and frustrated wife of George (Derrick Amunga).

Make-up kit

She must have her eye drops and make-up kit around her table. She will shower and apply new make-up during each of the show's 10 runs.

"My role has an emotional scene where I cry real tears," says Angel, "and hence the eye drops."

Acting is not about being emotional, but rather the capacity to express emotion. And she delivers, tears I mean, in that scene where she confronts George:

"Seventeen years! Why have you done this to me after 17 years," she asks, visibly pained, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Backstage, she peers into the packed auditorium and spots her boyfriend.

"Look at David, mannerlessly seated at the front seat. Mbeki do you share earrings?" I have misplaced mine. My boyfriend shouldn't watch me without my earrings."

Mbeki was playing Ethel. She seems to prefer the solitude of a separate changing room, where she spends considerable time admiring, and preening her cute self. Mbeki requires copious cups of coffee "for calming my nerves and staying alert," she explains, readjusting her wig, and necklaces.

Ethel, the character she's playing, is a frosty, rich woman who has just left Humphrey (Melvin Alusa), her philandering hubby who is having an affair with his secretary, the bubbly Jennifer, (Crystal Mbuga).

Alusa, more used to the silver screen than stage, was in his first major theatre role, and just sat alone, backstage.

"It helps me to internalise my character," Alusa offered of his 20 minutes of self-imposed solitude.

Not so for Derrick Amunga. He was all over the place, doing press-ups, stretching and jumping around.

"My role requires a lot of energy and I have to keep my spirits high," he says licking at some glucose placed at each of the cast's prop table.

It is for preventing their energy from flagging.

Amunga, one of theatre-goers' favourite actors, was acting the clumsy George who is blackmailed by Humphrey into double dating Jennifer who drags along Shirley (Joan Samiah), her dowdy room mate - before their wives burst them.

Five minutes before the curtains went, director Sam Otieno joined the whole cast in a "psyche dance".

The strains of the national anthem peeled round the auditorium.

"I want to pee," says Waruinge, rushing to the small room.

Actors acquire eccentric rituals to pull off their characters.

Francis Amos, another stage delight, naps in the auditorium for two hours before a show.

Others walk half-naked, bang their heads on the wall, get a little tipsy, puff cigarettes, or "holy weed", the kind that's neither holy nor a weed.

Others don't require extremities to be somebody else.

For Andrew Muthure, the audience rising for the anthem induces enough tension that keeps him on the edge to project his character.

"Without a rising tension from the pit of my stomach, I know something is wrong," he says.

Muthure was playing Dennis in Peter Whalley's murder thriller Dead of Night staged at the Phoenix in March.

And there is more murder at the Phoenix beginning today with Brian Clemens and Dennis Spooner's A Sting in the Tale, a satirical murder mystery about two playwrights - Eddie Mbugua and Joshua Mwai - who co-write a play to restore their thinning finances.

Their plot terribly goes wrong when they pick Ann, (Hawa Essuman), Mbugua's pesky wife as the play's real victim.

But Mwai kills Kaz (Karen Lucas), their secretary, instead of Ann.

Directs show

Eddie Mbugua directs this show that runs until May 17.

Nuts ended last week to a deserving critical acclamation. And Eddie will be under pressure to set or retain the brilliant bar raised by the exemplary cast of Nuts.

Pressure too will be on Carole Odongo who returns to the director's seat with Derek Benfield's comedy Don't Lose the Place by The Festival of Creative Arts.

The farce opened on Wednesday and ends tomorrow at the Alliance Francaise auditorium.

Odongo last directed Robbin Hawdon's farce Perfect Wedding in January, to an overwhelming positive reception.

And discerning theatre-goers will expect the same lofty standards in this farce about Sylvia (Faith Nyaga), who invites three men - Derrick Amunga, Francis Amos and Godfrey Odhiambo - on three different evenings to evaluate their spousal eligibility. But they all turn up on the same night!