Society ills dramatised

Society has its ills and rarely do we get individuals standing up to the perpetrators of these evils without necessarily being political. Veteran playwright and actress Mariam Ndagire takes no hostages.
In her new play titled Anamwenganga, which stars actors and actresses from Afri-Talent, Bakayimbira Dramactors alongside music stars of Golden Band, Ndagire exposes society’s deep-trenched ills.
And she is not only telling off politicians, her message is directed to those in public service, government officials and all the way down to the corporate managers and those in the blue collar jobs. Her call is directed to society in general, particularly those who misuse their authority or positions to satisfy their selfish gains. Or those who put their egos before society.
Anamwenganga is a Luganda word for “who will stand up to him or her and tell them off”.
Contextually, the play’s main protagonist is a hospital director, who happens to be a learned fellow with academic accomplishment to the level of a professor. However, he is heading the hospital down to the trenches. He orchestrates corruption and he is actually corrupt himself. Through him, we can relate with the common stories we have heard of health practitioners stealing medicine from health facilities and selling it in their private facilities.
Professor will not rebuke those caught stealing. Instead, he connives with them to find better means of stealing the medicine now that the hospital has employed a new no-nonsense security guard that is keen on checking everyone on their way in and out of the hospital.

Rotten society
The hospital is a facility by name but nothing more of what should transpire there. The moral decadence goes unchecked as doctors, nurses, security guards, mortuary attendants elope with one another like it is in their job description. This breeds fights and counter-fights as women and men search for possible soulmates. Ndagire uses this to bring out the carelessness with which professionals handle their jobs. She also highlights the commercialisation that has eaten deep in society, using a humble couple that is told by nurses that their child had died yet they had switched the child at birth and sold him to a wealthier couple, who could not conceive by natural means.
“Very many professionals put aside ethics to satisfy their own egos and stomachs and it is not only doctors or the medical practitioners but every other profession. There are some good people but many bad ones who are selfish and self-centred,” Ndagire explains.
Ndagire also explorers the justice sector and the stakeholders therein, like lawyers who are not up to honourably doing their jobs simply because they have not been paid the amount of money they think they are worth for a job. So, justice turns out to be expensive in the eyes of the lay man.
The playwright uses the artistes on stage to fuse music as a building block to bring out her subjects of betrayal, remorse and character development. This works well because the audience can identify with the songs from these music stars, thereby giving theatre practitioners food for thought on the idea of merging drama with music as a possible way to bring back the numbers to theatre, which is currently suffering from small audiences.

Fusing music and drama
Ndagire agrees, “Our crowd today has a lot of entertainment pulling them away so if you come with music, you are assured of attracting them because they love Ugandan music a lot and seeing their local celebrities singing their number one hits and acting with their drama actors, is a plus. It is their money’s worth.”
There is a plus for appropriate costumes. The actors taking on roles of doctors and nurses are appropriately dressed with the said gadgets and similarly for the security guards, mortuary attendants and artistes who perform to a live band.

About the play

Title: Anamwengaga
Genre: Culture, music, dance and drama
Playwright: Mariam Ndagire (pictured)
Showing at: Bat Valley Theatre, off Bombo road
Time: 3pm and 7pm on Saturdays and Sundays
Tickets: Shs20,000
Director: Charles James Ssenkubuge
Running time: 4 hours
Cast: Afri-talent, Bakayimbira Dramactors and Golden Band

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