Death in the theatre
May 13, 2005
DEATH is what keeps getting closer to us as we live. Its an unbearable certainty that has to live its course. But on the stage, it is a different kind of death.
By Emmanuel Ssejjengo
DEATH is what keeps getting closer to us as we live. Its an unbearable certainty that has to live its course. But on the stage, it is a different kind of death.
Unlike real life, the death in theatre is more appropriate when the character is at his/her climax, as if to spook at their efforts.
No wonder you will be hardpressed to find a Ugandan contemporary play, where a character does not die.
Though Abbey Mukiibi looks dead, when he has to be dead in Ensitaano, there is a lot of breath in Ruth Kalibbala when she should be dead in Nabbambula, the vindictive feeling. But how the characters die matters less. It is why they die that punches up the storyline.
“Death marks the climax,†Charles James “Siasa†Ssenkubuge, explains. “It is the turning point of events in the drama,†he adds. Siasa is a playwright, director and actor with Bakayimbira Dramactors, one of the oldest professional drama groups in the country.
Most Ugandan playwrights do not take to the Shakespearean representation of death.
For Shakespeare, death is too gruesome to be played out on the stage. It can only be reported.
Does it mean that our playwrights and us indeed, revel in death? Are they not afraid of it? Is death really a transition? Life after death? But to some, theatre-goers, death is not merely a turning point.
Ronnie Kijjambu, a regular theatre-goer, has often been “let down†by his star actor, Abbey Mukiibi of Afri talent. “Why does he always play the dead man?†he asked furiously after watching Ensitaano.
In theatre, it is like falling in love with a particular actor and then death takes him away. For Siasa, “it removes the tension of pain in African societyâ€.
The Ugandan stage has seen several kinds of death. But the more gruesome form, where someone has to be put in a coffin, has been defied by audiences.
Siasa reminisces a time he was directing a play and he was faced with venomous opposition. “The character who was supposed to act dead refused the role. She would not get into a coffin,†he says.
The first time the AIDS scourge hit big with the stage was in Ndiwulira by Bakayimbira Dramactors. The turning point in the play showed Siasa dead in a coffin.
His fans attacked him severely, pleading that he stops “dying and being buried in the coffin. That was the intention,†he beams at the success. The play shocked people into responsible behaviour, a big leap in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
For our playwrights, is death to be or not to be? That remains the question. But in the meantime, so be it.
DEATH is what keeps getting closer to us as we live. Its an unbearable certainty that has to live its course. But on the stage, it is a different kind of death.
Unlike real life, the death in theatre is more appropriate when the character is at his/her climax, as if to spook at their efforts.
No wonder you will be hardpressed to find a Ugandan contemporary play, where a character does not die.
Though Abbey Mukiibi looks dead, when he has to be dead in Ensitaano, there is a lot of breath in Ruth Kalibbala when she should be dead in Nabbambula, the vindictive feeling. But how the characters die matters less. It is why they die that punches up the storyline.
“Death marks the climax,†Charles James “Siasa†Ssenkubuge, explains. “It is the turning point of events in the drama,†he adds. Siasa is a playwright, director and actor with Bakayimbira Dramactors, one of the oldest professional drama groups in the country.
Most Ugandan playwrights do not take to the Shakespearean representation of death.
For Shakespeare, death is too gruesome to be played out on the stage. It can only be reported.
Does it mean that our playwrights and us indeed, revel in death? Are they not afraid of it? Is death really a transition? Life after death? But to some, theatre-goers, death is not merely a turning point.
Ronnie Kijjambu, a regular theatre-goer, has often been “let down†by his star actor, Abbey Mukiibi of Afri talent. “Why does he always play the dead man?†he asked furiously after watching Ensitaano.
In theatre, it is like falling in love with a particular actor and then death takes him away. For Siasa, “it removes the tension of pain in African societyâ€.
The Ugandan stage has seen several kinds of death. But the more gruesome form, where someone has to be put in a coffin, has been defied by audiences.
Siasa reminisces a time he was directing a play and he was faced with venomous opposition. “The character who was supposed to act dead refused the role. She would not get into a coffin,†he says.
The first time the AIDS scourge hit big with the stage was in Ndiwulira by Bakayimbira Dramactors. The turning point in the play showed Siasa dead in a coffin.
His fans attacked him severely, pleading that he stops “dying and being buried in the coffin. That was the intention,†he beams at the success. The play shocked people into responsible behaviour, a big leap in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
For our playwrights, is death to be or not to be? That remains the question. But in the meantime, so be it.