Taking poetry from a page to the stage

A Licence To Phil is a poetry collection written by poet and writer, Philip Matogo. It employs, by turns, narrative and confessional verse to express a life previously lived on a razor’s edge. 

Beyond being loosely biographical, it projects several alter egos of the author in a manner that betrays a multifaceted personality. 

In this sense, the author is like The Minotaur in Walt Whitman’s seminal 1855 poem Song of Myself, from his collection Leaves of Grass. In it, he famously writes: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.”

This diversity of form allows the author not only to explore the nuances and layers of his own being, but also create characters that embody that diversity. 

James Bond
One of these characters is a James Bond-esque person, who inspires the book’s title: A Licence To Phil. This title is a play on the fifth and final Bond film directed by John Glen, starring Timothy Dalton as James Bond (codename O07).  

However, Matogo’s dramatis personae (poetic characters) do not go rogue to infiltrate and take down the organisation of a murderous drug lord. Instead, they have a poetic licence to be Phil (which rhymes with kill).

This means anything from deploying light to heavy verse as well as the liberty to break literary rules in pursuit of a narrative fashioned upon the anvil of the poet’s experiences. Some poems are funny, some are lewd, some are angry and some are sad. Most of them, though, are evocative with the expert use of figurative language to colour Matogo’s otherwise fictional world. 

Verse drama  
A Licence To Phil is being brought from the page to the stage in the shape of verse drama today (January 27) at the National Theatre from 7pm to 10pm. The fee at the gate is Shs50,000 per head. 

This sort of drama, notes Ngobi Kagayi, a prominent and highly accomplished Ugandan poet, “is any drama written significantly in verse (that is: with line endings) to be performed by an actor before an audience. Although verse drama does not need to be primarily in verse to be considered verse drama, significant portions of the play should be in verse to qualify.”

Kagayi adds that this kind of drama is the modus operandi in Ugandan poetry circles. 

“I think it is not in contention that the norm of ‘launching a poetry book with a threatricalised version’ of the poetry was not began by the Lantern Meet of Poets. However what is indisputable is that in the Lantern Meet, that particular urban culture found its ground and tipping point,” Kagayi says as he charts the history of verse drama in Uganda. 

“Of course many others had done it earlier […] but none ever achieved the impact, influence and omnipresence that the Lantern Meet did over this particular aspect of Uganda’s urban poetry culture today. The former National Theatre Director Joseph Walugembe (RIP) always said it. The scholar and critic Jacob Katumusiime has reiterated it in a research paper,” he adds. 

Who did it best?
Kagayi is certainly one of the originators of verse drama in Ugandan poetry, although he contends this is not that crucial. 

“I think these things of ‘looking back where we started’ are not only about who did it first (though that’s important to take note of); but rather who did it first ‘for that particular culture to gain momentum’. On my reckon (sic), the gold medal goes to the Lantern Meet of Poets,” he trumpets. 

A Licence To Phil is thus not a novel approach to poetry in theatre. Yet, all said, it might gain a podium finish in the sweepstakes of who takes home the gold in executing this form of drama. Not least because the book’s content is solid, but also because of the depth of the forthcoming play’s cast. 

Cast unveiled
The cast of the adaptation contains multitudes, blending experienced actors with accomplished as well as up and coming poets. One of those up and comers is Eva Rukikaire Mwine. She is an excellent wordsmith blessed with the honeyed voice pitched to create a beeline to wherever she performs. 

Her poetry is a gut-level mix of passion and purpose leavened by a social consciousness and a delivery that amplifies her message and stage presence. No matter the mood or manner of her audience, she manages to weave a rich tapestry of strident verse laced with a rage against the dying of a light. 

Emmagination, who will perform the opening act, is the youngest cast member. Although just going into university, he has already featured in the poetry anthology titled Winds. It is a product of Makerere College School. Little wonder, he has been nicknamed “The One” in younger poetry circles. 

Alex Kitaka (The Answer) is a poet who has been there, done that. Also an accomplished actor, he is popularly known by his artistic name Kitaka Wa’ kavulu. He is a theatre director, who is currently a writer at Fun Factory Uganda for Popi project, A Dramedy Series on DStv and also an actor with Tingly Toes Agency, a production House that uses school theatre as a means of delivering learning through Literature set books. Like US rapper Eminem, on the surface he is calm and ready. 

Lindsey Kukunda (The Original-original Foxy Brown) is also calm but below a placed exterior lies a coiled spring of energy which sallies forth with some of the most inventive and clear-headed punch lines in the game. 

Charles Mwangala (The Chuckling Chuckler) is a Morning Show radio host with Radiocity and he is arguably the funniest person in the cast. The ladies love his flow while the guys hide their ladies lest they are swept away by his eloquence at full flood. 

Then there’s Charlotte Bossa (The Queen Bee), she is wilful and charismatic in equal measure. Her candour is just what the doctor ordered with its playful verse pulsating to a singular sense of fun. When Charlotte is on her game, there’s nobody who can match her pound-for-pound right to be deemed poetic theatre’s emerging greatest of all time (GOAT).

Well, nobody but Mariam “Taz” Mulumba (The Ingénue). She is blessed with a sweetly sensual voice that has a princess of soul ring to it. This diva-cum-poet is fully alive to the nuances which shade verse in secondary colours. Indeed, she teases out these colours with a buoyant sense of self. heightened by a soupçon of impudence. 

Then there’s Laureen-Daphne Abwooli-Kahunde Nkunja (The Chanteuse). Her epic name is matched only by her vocal range. An instinctive performer, she could be one of the few poets who would be at home performing on the streets of New York as well as the shanties of Kampala. 

“The Archduchess” Sarah Nankunda is a spoken word artist who gives her craft everything she’s got and then some. Her love for poetry is unswerving and unsurpassed. However, this is only half her appeal. The rest comes from a daring heart pumping out words that bleed passion in ways that endear her to any and every person in the audience. 

Directed by Chris Marvin “Heartender” Kihumuro, the play will also feature musical performances from Edward Kayondo and Ella.