The Angella Johnson Interview
I am told Alex Mukulu is Ugandas top playwright. He is also an accomplished actor, director, singer, songwriter, guitar player and an incredible pain-in-the-arse especially before hes had lunch.
We were supposed to meet in the lobby of the Equatoria Hotel in Kampala, but I was 10 minutes late, thanks to one of the citys common traffic jams. Hes asked for you three times now, says the receptionist as I entered the lobby. I think hes in a bad mood.
Forewarned is forearmed, so I make my way to the restaurant where she said Mukulu had gone to wait. I arrive to find him dithering over his lunch order. I cant make up my mind what to have, he is telling the waiter. I fancy something light like a salad … no wait! Maybe Ill have a hamburger … or just a sandwich.
I watch this vacillation with for several minutes before interrupting. Mukulu finally settles for a large plate of stewed goat and rice, which he polished off with relish after telling me he doesnt eat very much hence his lean and hungry look. Im almost happy to say he was to regret the feast later when hit by a bout of food poisoning.
For not only did he hint that I ate too much and was too fat, but he played out the prima donna role of reluctant star (refusing to answer questions, being cryptic and not want-ing his photograph taken) for much of our meeting. I was forced to point out that he was the most difficult person I had had the misfortune to interview.
Mukulu (54) says he has survived two of Ugandas most brutal dictators, Idi Amin and Milton Obote, by compromising his art. We could not address serious issues because we feared to die. Anything that was critical of the government could lead to your disappearance.
So he wrote about domestic issues like love, marriage, infidelity stupid plays, exclaims Mukulu. This an adjective he often uses. We were too scared to even use allegories. It was pure entertainment, he almost shouts in excitement. It was prostitution, but one had to earn a living.
But he recalls one night when Amin demanded a private performance of one of his plays that was bringing in crowds at the national theatre in Kampala. Out of the blue I got this call from the presidents office asking if I would put on a show at his summer residence.
To say Mukulu was concerned is putting it mildly. It had not been long since a fellow playwright had been arrested and found dead in his cell after falling foul of Amin and his cronies. Mukulu was lucky. Amin, or more to the point Mrs Amin (for the dictator did not turn up) loved the play, and it was eventually recorded for television.
Why did he stay in such an artistically stifling environment? I once tried to leave, but came back because I wanted to be part of the game. If I had run away I would not have been able to write the plays I have written even the stupid ones. As it was he spent only one month in Kenya during one of Obotes reigns and felt like I was selling out.
Twenty plays later, many performed in Europe and America, Mukulu is again writing critical productions. People claim hes a complicated man. Why should people expect you to be something easily understood? he queries. As if I was a cockroach and easy to dissect. You should not just be able to get into me and know who I am. We are not that simple.
It is his belief that to misunderstand something is as positive as to understand it. You should not go to see a play and understand it immediately. I want audiences to come out feeling confused and unconvinced. Theatre, he argues, is supposed to disturb laziness and resignation. But incomprehension is only one of the complaints critics make of Mukulu. His tickets, they say, are too expensive for ordinary people. He is unrepentant. I prefer one person paying well for a ticket than to have lots paying a little. My idea is to take one person to heaven.
He argues strongly that theatre should not be for the poor, but for people who can change things for the masses. I write for the rich and professional classes; to address issues that the rulers can put right. My theatre is not for everyone.
It is an incredible stand to take and I wonder if maybe I had misunderstood. But no. It is an elitist point of view, he continues, because the problem in Africa is not about the poor but poverty. Politicians are the thieves; they are the people who make the poor suffer and the ones I want to affect and provoke, resist and expose.
I ask how the ruling class respond to him. Pretentiously, he replies after some thought. They are friendly and these days I get invited to eat at their tables, but I dont court them; I dont want to convert them. I have a responsibility to put across my ideas to people. What I give you is necessary for you, just like you drink when youre thirsty.
He was beginning to lose me with this self- absorbed mumbo-jumbo. So imagine my surprise when he announced his desire to work in South Africa because I think you have a greater creative energy thanks to apartheid.
And, it seems, because he has a South African name. Did your parents come from there? History has it that people came from down there to here, he answers. I thought it was the other way around? Its round, he responds cryptically. Pretentious, I thought irritably.
South Africans have lived under greater oppression than we have and that has generated very challenging theatre, he says between mouthfuls of tough meat. But youve had so many wars and dictators, I counter quizzically.
Yes, but weve never had the racial element [tell that to those who suffered tribal oppression I thought]. Your conflict has been deeply developed while here ours has moved from one place to another. It never got the chance to concentrate; never developed a common energy.
I suppose a dictator to some is also a hero to others. I want to experience the attitude that breeds a more forceful resistance and vibrancy before it disappears. Maybe your story will help me, he laughs.
Despite his talk of the artistic freedom now prevailing in Uganda, it is difficult to get a straight answer from him about his view of the present government. They keep changing the position and costumes, but they are the same dictators. Ill merely say this is better. Theres bad, good, better and best. This is better, but our best is not necessarily at the top.
When he states that he is neither pro- nor anti-government, I raise an eyebrow. Pro- or anti- are opinions of people, but above right and wrong is the truth, he says. One might argue its in the eyes of the beholder. But theatre, art or whatever form it is, is aiming at perfection. We are crying for perfect love, governance, natural environment. Once you have the mission of perfection that gives you that transcendence over everything else. Thus the artist is above politics.
He says there are still negative things happening in Uganda, but at least people now have a choice. I concluded the Mukulu wanted to dazzle me with his erudition and his original thinking. Instead he left me baffled. It was not until later I realised Id been hoodwinked. If he is among Ugandas best artistic talent, then the years of oppression have left a visible void in the countrys cultural life.