Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer's Awakening

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  I realized she probably didn’t attend the Student Guild assemblies, where the slogan was used freely. Especially when a speaker makes a good point and the audience wants it repeated, they shout, “Uncle! Uncle!” I explained.

  Kathy burst out laughing—a belly laugh. She wiped off tears, I wondering what was so funny about a common slogan. She calmed down enough to say, “Encore! Encore! It’s French for ‘again.’”

  Well, it was my turn to laugh. I had always assumed the students were calling out “Uncle!” though I could never figure out why, but I had rationalized it by thinking of the children’s game in which the victor forces the fallen to cry uncle. I assumed that the audience had felt overpowered by the speaker!

  I crossed out each “Uncle!”

  For rehearsals, I drew from my experiences with my two one-act dramas, The Rebels in 1961 and The Wound in the Heart, in 1962. Mainly, though, I relied on my work as assistant director of Macbeth in African robes.

  V

  I had never gone through a whole production, even for my one-act dramas, without running into a crisis. It’s probably in the nature of theater, where so many individuals and egos are working together, learning that theater is the original all-for-one and one-for-all. But in The Black Hermit production, I was most surprised by the quarter from which the crisis came, the timing, making it more intensely felt.

  Pat Creole-Rees was in charge of costumes and scenery. She had auditioned for the role of Jane, Remi’s girlfriend in the city. But in real life she was also dating Agard, who played Remi. Because they were close in real life, I assumed that they would find more easily the extra time for rehearsals on their own. The passion of private life would somehow rub off on the public show. It just didn’t work on the stage. She was such a wooden actor that, deep into the rehearsals, it became clear she would never be able to carry it off. And yet passion between them was necessary to explain why Remi is so emotionally wedded to the city as to forget his ties to the village. There may have been a lot of chemistry between them in real life, but there was not the slightest chemistry between them as actors.

  Actors in The Black Hermit (Pat Creole-Rees in the top left corner)

  I brought in Cecelia Powell, an English student, a would-be teacher who was in Makerere for an orientation program in the Education Department. Taking the role away from Pat brought the production to a standstill. She cried and threatened to withdraw from the production team altogether. John was in a dilemma: he couldn’t show too much enthusiasm for Cecelia, and at one time, he threatened to withdraw, which would have killed the production. I put my foot down. It was terrible, but this was a case where for-all had to take precedence over for-one. I suspected that even John could see that Pat couldn’t do it; he was halfhearted in his threats to withdraw.

  To her credit, once Pat accepted the inevitable, she never let the incident interfere with her work on costumes and scenery. She devoted all her energies to ensuring that all the other parts of the project held together. She was a team player through and through.

  Actors in The Black Hermit (Cecelia Powell, John Agard, and Bethuel Kurutu, in black, are in the middle)

  One day I went to the city with her to help her identify material she needed to buy for the play. She went into a store to check on something, and I waited for her outside. One of the kabaka’s policemen stopped me and demanded that I show evidence of having paid local government poll taxes. He clearly mistook me for a Muganda, and my attempt to explain myself made matters worse. I remembered a similar incident in Kenya after Alliance High School, which had landed me in remand prison and then in court. But then Pat came out of the shop. The policeman saluted and asked her, “Madam, is this your servant?” She said yes, and he let me go.

  Uganda Argus, November 14, 1962

  VI

  Stories about the production started appearing in the main newspaper, the Uganda Argus, courtesy of the publicity efforts of Ronnie Reddick, one of the new batches of Teachers for East Africa. The story in the November 14, 1962, issue said the Makerere Students’ Dramatic Society was putting into action “plans to make Africans in Kampala feel that the National Theater is theirs.”

  Uganda Argus, November 17, 1962

  We were not the first to make that attempt. Wycliffe Kiyingi-Kagwe had had successful runs at the theater with his Luganda play, Gwosussa Emwanyi (The One You Despise), but these were matinees only, on weekdays, when the theater was not in use for European or English-language drama. Ours was the first to claim a space in prime time at the theater.

  The next story upped the drama, for me at least. Since submitting the manuscript of “The Black Messiah” for the novel competition in December 1961, I had not heard a word from the East African Literature Bureau. Then a story in the Uganda Argus of November 17, under the headline PRIZE FOR “HERMIT” AUTHOR, broke the news of my novel having won the Novel Writing Competition. It quoted a spokesman of the East African Creative Writing Competition Committee announcing that Mr. Kalule-Settala, minister of community development, would present me with the prize on the night of the play’s performance.

  It was as if the various literary threads in my life had chosen this moment to come together. The Uganda Argus of November 19 ended another story on the forthcoming production of The Black Hermit with the breaking news that my second novel, Weep Not, Child, had been accepted for publication in the Heinemann African Writers series.

  I had already gotten a letter to that effect: William Heinemann would bring out the hardcover and Heinemann Educational, the softcover. I didn’t understand the difference between William and Educational or between hard and soft covers: a book was a book, and the imprint thrilled me. Heinemann had published some of the canonical authors I was reading in my honors class: Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, D.H. Lawrence. Was I going to join the club? Could this be happening to me?

  A contract confirmed the fact. It was my first book contract ever, and I readily signed it without fully grasping the implications of any of the clauses. I signed away all rights, which meant the publisher held world rights. The offer alone, cemented by the contract, was a first for a Makerere student.

  Uganda Argus, November 19, 1962

  Breaking amid the hurly-burly of rehearsals, the news from London was a shower of blessings and certainly helped publicity. We bought space in the Uganda Argus, touting the show as dramatic, tragic, romantic, and adventurous, anything that might stick, and then the formal announcement: The Makerere Students Dramatic Society presents a play about problems of independence. It’s a must for the citizens of a new Uganda. VIPs would be there for the world premiere on the night of Friday November 17, 1962.

  Uganda Argus, November 15, 1962

  The phrase “world premiere” was Reddick’s invention, and it sounded good.

  10

  Pages, Stages, Spaces

  I

  My tummy was tight the whole day: so many emotions conflicted in me. The stage once denied to a one-act drama, The Wound in the Heart, would now open to a three-act drama, The Black Hermit. Will it be triumph or disaster? Two lines from the Kipling poem we used to recite at Alliance buzzed in my head: If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same . . .1

  The problem was in the uncertainty. I didn’t know if I could ever look upon disaster as an imposter or even how to go about treating it as such.

  A lot rode on the premiere. Earlier, on June 16, 1962, as part of the Makerere Conference of African Writers, a Kampala-based amateur group, the African Dramatic Society, with Erisa Kironde as the director, had put on J.P. Clark’s play Song of a Goat. Along with Wole Soyinka, Clark was one of the early torchbearers of African theater in English. The writer himself was going to be present, along with other people of the pen gathered at the conference. The reputation of the director, a local star, and the playwright, a West African star, ensured great expectations for the East African premiere of the play.

  J.P.’s play, built around themes of fer
tility, infertility, and ritual sacrifice, is a tragedy along the lines of classical Greek drama, the title itself drawing attention to the conversation between traditional Africa and classical Greece. The Greek word tragōidia (tragedy) is a combination of tragos (he-goat) and aeidein (to sing), and in many African communities as in many ancient societies, the goat was a ceremonial animal, ritually killed to appease ill-tempered gods. The sacrifice of such a scapegoat for Zifa’s infertility is one of the most compelling images in the play. Whatever interpretation a director may give to the play, the mood is supposed to be somber, reflective.

  The director had a live goat dragged onto the stage on the way to sacrifice. The goat screamed, urinated, pooped beads of shit that rolled downstage, all the time jumping about, trying to get away. Goats have never been the most cooperative of animals. The audience laughed outright. The goat and its rebellious antics stole the show. The disaster left an air of distrust of African English-language theater.

  There was also the weight of knowing that we had defied the invisible lines that demarcated what was expected of students as opposed to the rest of society. Consciously and deliberately, we had chosen the big stage in the city instead of confining ourselves to the facilities available on the Hill. By billing it as a celebration of Uganda’s independence, we had nationalized the expectations but also fears of a letdown. The fear could be seen in Peter Carpenter, the director of the National Theatre. He was expected to aid the development of Ugandan theater, but he kept us at arm’s length. I may have met him once, when he introduced us to the resident stage and technical manager, an Indian; otherwise he never came to see even the dress, technical, or any other rehearsal nor gave us any help. From the stage manager, I understood that memories of the disaster of the Song of a Goat premiere may have made him reticent. As if making up for his boss’s aloofness, the stage manager put his mind and soul into it. He became an ally, one of us.

  Scene from The Black Hermit with John and Susie

  Among the faculty, the most active support came from David Cook. He read the script and made suggestions. He was also involved in every stage of the process, never once doubting the students’ ability to see it through. When it came to set design, he got us much-needed help from the more experienced John Butler, working with the formidable artistic team of Eli Kyeyune. Dinwiddy was his usual boisterous self, interested, curious, and encouraging without adding to the burden of expectations. I knew I had his support, come disaster or triumph. Otherwise, most of the faculty adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

  The turnout for the opening night increased rather than lowered my inner tremors. I had never seen so many tuxedos and bow ties in one place before, not even at the socials and formal dances at the Main Hall. Long before the curtain rose, black, Asian, and white Kampala flocked to the reception area, crowding around the bar and milling outside. These social heavyweights were here to see the play? The sight of fellow students was comforting: I was sure of allies in the audience.

  But when the lights in the packed auditorium dimmed and those on the stage came on to reveal an African mother in the compound, working outside her hut, my fears disappeared. My tummy relaxed and then tightened again, but this time in excitement. Even I, who had seen Susie rehearsing many times over, was carried away by her total command of the stage. Gulzar Nensi remembers “Susie’s superb acting prowess, the chorus, and the mounting tension in the atmosphere.” This set the tone for those who followed and for the entire performance.

  At the first intermission, David Cook, Miles Lee, and Peter Carpenter came backstage, almost tripping over one another. Even before they said so, I knew by the thunderous applause that things were going well. The excitement written all over the faces of the trio more than confirmed it. They had come to let me know about the media: Uganda radio, the BBC, and the Uganda Argus. The BBC wanted a word with me after the show.

  The success of the first act energized the cast for the rest, and when the curtain was finally drawn, I felt that the deafening applause would split the theater asunder. The cast bowed to a standing ovation, left, then came back and bowed to even louder applause. The curtain calls went on for some time, almost like an extra performance.

  Hidden from view, I enjoyed the applause while adding mine. Then suddenly I heard calls for me to appear on the stage. I hesitated.

  Tejani later recalled my vain attempt to cling to my previous anonymity. “Ngugi was most reluctant to appear on the stage,” he wrote about the opening night, “and was forced to come out by popular audience demand because they wanted to see their writer. We gave him a standing ovation.” My reluctance was not out of false modesty. I truly felt that the evening belonged to the cast. It was a triumph of talents and commitments from men and women of different races, communities, regions, and religions. It was a collective effort by actors, stage and prop managers, financial supporters, and costume makers. Without all these different parts working together, there would have been no theater. It’s collective art; that is its beauty, and I said so. If credit were to go one person, it was Peter Kĩnyanjui, the president of the Makerere Students Drama Society, because he had dreamed up the idea.

  The success of the first night set the tone for the rest, ensuring packed houses for all four performances.

  The only departure from the routine was Saturday night. It would be a brief ceremony, Peter Carpenter told the audience, after the standing ovation for me abated. He introduced a representative from the East African Literature Bureau, who introduced the minister from the independent government of Uganda. Mr. L. Kalule-Settala presented me with an envelope, an award for “The Black Messiah,” my novel in manuscript.

  II

  The night was filled with ironies: I was still a colonial subject, writing and producing a show about the problems of independence. I had received an award from the hands of a citizen, an African citizen.

  But the moment I returned to my room in Northcote, still in a daze, the novelist in me kicked in. I was curious about the award. The results had been so long in coming that I had given up any hope of hearing from the bureau. I thought reading and judging the manuscripts would be a matter of weeks, not months. Sometimes, in my impatience, I had thought the manuscript was lost. But following the completion and acceptance for publication of my second manuscript, Weep Not, Child, the intensity of my interest in the fate of “The Black Messiah” had abated considerably.

  I opened the envelope. The novel had indeed been the best of those submitted, but the judges, didn’t think it good enough for the first prize of a thousand shillings.2 I was a little disappointed. It was not just the check for five hundred shillings, six dollars at today’s rate. I would have understood if they had said that none of the submissions, including mine, had met the literary requirement, but for them to say it was the best, announce the fact to the press, and then deny the winning entry the prize they had advertised in their initial call for submissions—that felt like robbery. But I was consoled by the fact that they had passed it on to a publisher for possible publication.

  I didn’t let the disappointment over the novel dim the glow of my theatrical debut on the Kampala stage. Nor did I let it diminish what the play had accomplished: a blow to the conception that the East African theater in English couldn’t stand on its own on a national stage or that the different races, communities, and regions couldn’t come together for a common purpose.

  Looking back, the night was a double triumph for me: a playwright born and a novelist-to-be born. The wound in my heart as a playwright had been healed. Little did I know that more wounds awaited me, that theater would later earn me one year at a maximum-security prison and thereafter many years of exile. The journey to the persecution began in Kampala and Makerere, all in the year 1963.

  III

  In a brief review, “Theatre in East and West Africa,” covering the period since 1960, which appeared in Drama (Spring 1963) and was later reproduced in the Makerere Journal, Peter Carpenter highlighted The Black Hermit as the
first full-length play known to have been written by an East African.

  In another review of the production, headlined on page 1 of the Makererean of November 22, 1962, Professor Trevor Whittock of the English Department lauded the play as speaking to a continent and the production as the best thing the Makerere Dramatic Society had yet done: “Today Africa is in turmoil. Uhuru lops and reshapes the old ways, and the pains of growth are hard. Sects, tribes, policies clamor to be heard, jostle in rivalry fearful that the new birth will cast them out. Things fall apart, and the center has not yet been found.”

  Otherwise the reception of the play reflected emerging fissures in the critical tradition at Makerere.

  Gerald Moore opened his review piece in the March 1963 issue of Transition with the question: “Should James Ngugi’s The Black Hermit have been given a full-scale production at the National Theater?” Then he savaged the play on account of its verse, concluding that none of the issues—claims of nation, ideology, religion, family, sexual love, the tribe, though immediate enough to the East African world—had been properly explored. The play should have been confined to the Hill, where students’ efforts belonged—strange for a man who’d had a hand in my invitation to the big conference of African writers held at Makerere. His conclusion about The Black Hermit was diametrically opposed to that of Trevor Whittock and Peter Nazareth.

  Nazareth’s response in the Transition of June 1963 pointed out that Moore’s question confirmed the relevance and rightfulness of the endeavor to make claims on the national space. Nazareth implicitly recognized the politics of the venue and of the content, which Moore had dismissed. Nazareth’s responses were the first salvo in the ideological struggle between the dominant formal tradition and the new desire to free literary texts from formal strangulation. Benefitting from their direct experience of colonialism, the emergent critics began to fight the dominant tendency that took Western norms as fixed standards against which to measure other aspirations. Like their creative counterparts, who realized that the story they had to tell couldn’t be told for them, emergent African critics realized that the ideas they had to express couldn’t be articulated for them even by the most sympathetic person who knew colonialism from the other side.