Conspiracy at its best

The Afri-Talents have pulled off a number of real life stories and this is one of them where they manage to portray conspiracy within the community.

Proverbs have been coined about conspiracy from time immemorial, no wonder drama group, Afri Talent made this a basis for the plot of their play Naggomola “The Stub”, synchronising it with much of Mesach Ssemakula’s music. The play explores real life situations of how people tend to scramble for the property of the dead.

After the death of Matte- a wealthy man in the city, his business partner-Kimbowa who he brought into his company to improve sales; quickly rushes to read out a purported will that places all property in his custody.

In a meeting after Matte’s burial, Kimbowa falls out with the late’s elder son- Bosco (Alfred Nuwagaba) who ends up in Police custody for contesting the will.

In a twist of events, Kimbowa expells several workers from the factory as he continues to tighten the grip on all assets left by Matte excluding the deceased’s children.

Afri-Talent is a group that comprises several drama actors who are expected to show maturity in the play.

They did not disappoint the audience as they showed this from the beginning to the end by keeping people in suspense as they portrayed the theme.

The climax of the play is when Kimbowa discovers that one of the people with the rightful will is actually working in the shoe factory. Abbey Mukiibi plays this character, Ssemwezi.
In a tireless quest to get the real will, Kimbowa is driven to put a bounty of Shs3m on Ssemwezi’s head.

The plot develops with other characters from relatives to the deceased, nosy office tea girl and security guard getting involved in different liaisons to protect Ssemwezi.

In what seems to be ill preparedness, many actors spend a lot of time on one subject which tires the audience.
Other characters tend to go off the rail and introduce their own lines in the play.

The lighting, sound effects to depict the situation are all good but they do not differentiate which time of the day in the play it is. The audience will still wonder if night fell in the over three hours play.

In summary
Title: Naggomola “The Stub”
Group: Afri Talent
Director: Abbey Mukiiibi
Main cast: Alfred Nuwagaba, Ruth Kalibbala, Abbey Mukiibi, Kizito Kayira, Jackie Nabwese, Annete Namakula, Florence Iga.

akiyaga@ug.nationmedia.com