How do you keep a Kensai alive?

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Kensai's in BG1 would need to rely on throwing axes for ranged weapons. Unfortunately, there's only one returning throwing axe, and you won't get that until nearly the end of the game.

And solo mages aren't glass cannons, at least not until they reach higher levels. Until then, they're just glass. Though with the Kensai levels they'd last a bit longer.

That's also how it works in BG. It's not like a Celestial Fury would have a chance to kill trolls outright if you happen to have Crom Faeyer in your off hand.

 

In BG1, to get to those higher levels, you'd want to make extensive use of sleep and color spray. Those spells are extremely powerful in the early stages. Use them on the hordes of gibberings that come at you, the wolves, the hobgoblins, the kobolds, and other low-level foes. IIRC even the ogre has a chance to be nailed by sleep, but his saves make it a 50/50 proposition. Blindness is better for the ogre by the FAI however. Hit him with that, then run to a new position, and have everyone start peppering him with ranged weapons (haven't tested this with Tutu, Trilogy or EE, only the original 5-CD game).
Of course, depending on when you do this, you might not have ranged weapons for everyone yet.

I digress.
A solo mage is still a glass cannon, but he's probably at his weakest around level 5-11. The foes are starting to get too powerful for sleep and color spray, but the mage doesn't have the really powerful spells that make him neigh untouchable yet. Granted, he gets stoneskin at level 9, but one casting only.

 

I was referring more to dualling in BG2, and consequently having a low level mage there. In BG1 there's indeed much more use for the low level mage spells. The wands of paralisation and monster summoning are supremely useful in BG1, but lose a lot of effectiveness in BG2.

I've found that until you get stronger summons, a solo mage is still mostly a one shot shotgun. Killing anything with direct damage spells until you get the higher level spells (ADHK, for instance) means that you pretty much have to rest after every other encounter. With summons that takes a bit longer at least. Especially the summon skeleton warriors spell helps here and I found that once you get that spell the difficulty gets much less for a solo mage (at lvl 15, I believe).

 

Without a level 7 mage: Keeping someone or something between the Kensai and the hostiles.

With a level 7 mage: Spirit Armor. (Not sure about other versions, but in Vanilla BG1 and BG2 it can be cast on others and has a 5 turn / 10 turn duration during which the subject is effectively wearing full plate. This also means a pure class Kensai can easily be viable; 10 minute buff runs should be acceptable for just about anyone.)