Canadian Journal of Irish StudiesCanadian Association of Irish Studies

Canadian, Irish and Ugandan Theatre Links: An Interview with George SerembaAuthor(s): Jason King and George SerembaSource: The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, Irish-Canadian Connections / Lesliens irlando-canadiens (Spring, 2005), pp. 117-121Published by: Canadian Journal of Irish StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25515567 .

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Jason KING

Canadian, Irish and Ugandan

Theatre Links

An interview with George Seremba

Born in Kampala, Uganda, George Seremba is an award winning actor and playwright. After completing his degree in English Literature, George was then forced to flee Uganda

following a botched execution attempt at the hands of the

Milton Obote's Military Intelligence. He went on to spend a

total of three of his nine years in exile in neighbouring

Kenya, moving to Canada in 1984 where he began to write

and act on a professional basis. George has written several

plays including Come Good Rain (1993), which won a Dora

award in Toronto. His extensive film, television and theatre

career in Canada has seen him perform in shows such as My

Children My Africa, The Boodknot and Sivgve Bansi is Dead, all

by Athol Fugard, and Our Country's Good by Timberlake

Wertenbaker. Throughout his career, George has toured

extensively and his work in Ireland has seen him appear in

several plays, including Asylum! Asylum! (1996) by Donal

O'Kelly, and his own production of Come Good Rain.

Currentiy living in Dublin, George is a student of The

Samuel Beckett Centre in Trinity College, where he is working on his PhD about the Ugandan playwright Robert Serumaga. In 2005, he was nominated for an HSB-Irish Times Theatre

Award for best male performer as Sam in Calypso's

Production of Athol Fugard's Master Harold and the Boys. For

more information, see http://www.calypso.ie/

productions.asp?harold-george.

JK: You recorded your life story in your play Come Good

Rain ? maybe the place to

begin is to talk about the

background behind the play itself.

GS: Well, the play itself is a very autobiographical play. It is

about growing up and coming of age in Uganda. And, it is the Uganda also of Milton Obote and Idi Ainin, who were

two dictators in succession almost. Before Idi Amin came

to power Milton Obote was the ruler of Uganda, and, much

later, in terms of Ugandan history, Obote would make a

second appearance on the national stage, which is the main

event that is reflected in the play. So the play, in a sense, is a

journey through that history - a history of turmoil - but it

is also about a young person who grows up seeing all that

inhumanity, and, when he comes of age, he decides to do

whatever he modestly can to avert a new era of dictatorship

that is clearly being ushered in by the return to Obote. Maybe it would help if I put some actual dates on this. The play itself and its pivotal moment revolves around this one

day, in fact, one

evening: December 10th, 1980. Uganda had gone

through eight years of Idi Arnin, who was deposed in 1979.

After he was finaUy overthrown, there was a brief period of

peace - it was as if the nation had resurrected. Pretty

soon

after that, one started to see the clouds gather that would

lead ominously to the return of Obote.

So there I was as a student myself, and seeing aU this

happen. It was clear to me that we were going

to get back to

the dictatorship that we had Uved under, that had become

the rhythm of our Uves. And so it became important to

speak out, and it became important to

raUy people within

the campus, as at that time I was a university student. There

were massive demonstrations held in Kampala. We started

to link hands not only with the prominent poUticians who

were opposed

to these changes, but also to others who had

actuaUy fled from Uganda once again. And in the process I

became identified and synonymous with the voices of

opposition on the campus. Obote's supporters would stage

manage the rigged election - because there was a lot of

gerrymandering and rigging and so on that happened. And so while the world thought that finaUy Ugandans had gone to the poUs, I knew, and quite a number of people did know, that he who would win the election would be the one who

not so much triumphed at the baUot box but had control of the barrel of the gun. I myself had been on the run for a

while, from around March of 1980, but I did manage to

finish my exams living more or less underground, and

eventuaUy I fled from Uganda into neighbouring Kenya. In

Kenya, I linked hands with a few prominent exiles, in

particular Robert Serumaga.

When I returned to Uganda in December 1980, on the eve of the election on December 10,1 was at the campus of

Makerere University, and I could see that it was a very

polarized campus. The men who picked me up that night, that evening, from the university campus, were, it turned

out, members of what was known as the G Branch, which

was miUtary intelUgence. They summarily tortured me and

interrogated me, and then took me for more interrogation

and more torture at the office of the chief of staff of the

army, who was Obote's right hand man. It was there that

the die was cast, as one would say, because we got into his

office at half past nine that evening, and by eleven o'clock I had been sentenced and I was in the forest on the outskirts

of the city: where the shooting, what turned out to be a

botched execution, happened. I beUeve it was meant as a

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lesson to those who harboured similar ideas of the kind of

the Uganda they would be operating in. So, in the end, I

think that in the play, to me, there is obviously the historical

background which I have been dwelling on, but it is also

very much a story of a celebration of that abiUty to triumph

against aU those odds. There is an element of poetic justice in it. It is definitely a celebration of the spirit of humanity, and how sometimes those who are

prepared to lose their

Ufe actuaUy cling to it.

JK: One of the things that strikes me in reading the play, about you reUving that experience in such detail, is how

difficult that must be for a refugee who is not a talented

playwright, or who does not have the same abiUties with

language or artistic gifts, but is nevertheless forced to go

through the same process to a certain extent. You have to

reUve your experience in a beUevable way, or in a way that

wiU convince other people that this actuaUy happened to

you. Have you thought about that?

GS: I have in a way. In those circumstances, it is almost like

being re-victimized, when you have to teU it aU over and

over again. I mean, I am

intimately famiUar with that myself,

obviously, because I was a refugee in Kenya. I did not

become anything else until much later, in Canada, when quite a number of us were let in from Uganda to

actuaUy start aU

over. Canada offered us a home, and it offered us a kind of

humanity, a dimension that was

missing for refugees with

just numbers, and files, and fingerprints, photographs, and

so on, those wretched UN travel documents. It is difficult. I mean it is interesting that we are

talking about that in Ireland

at a time when quite a few people have been deported and so on. You sometimes wonder, you know, whether some of

those people on the planes that take people back to Nigeria, or wherever, you sort of say to yourself, what if?, my God,

what if one of those people went through exactiy what I

did, or something similar to it, and perhaps they were not

endowed with the abiUty to say what happened, or to be

beUeved even? - it would probably kiU me. Obviously, we are not talking fiction here, whether it is Ireland or Great

Britain. Sometimes people have been taken back to their

countries - South America or Africa - and sometimes they

have actuaUy been killed. It speaks a lot to the kind of

responsibiUty that one has if you are lucky enough to have

the gift of storytelling, particularly through drama, because

I don't think that there is a medium more powerful than it

in the sense that it is collective and immediate and

spontaneous. If art can change anything, that is the closest

we can get.

JK: Could we talk a Uttle bit about your experiences of Uving in Canada, and then of moving from Canada to Ireland?

GS: In 1984 I moved to Canada, and I Uved in Winnipeg. I worked for a while at the Prairie Theatre, though not as an

actor. Some people at the time at the Manitoba Theatre

Centre, they put me in touch with Maurice Podbrey, who

was then at Centaur in Montreal, and I was given

a chance

to play WiUy in Master Harold and the Boys. Then I got to do

Master Harold again, again playing the part of Willy, and I

did this in London, Ontario. And that is the time I left

Winnipeg and moved to Toronto; and from 1986 Toronto was my home. I still regard it very much as my home anyway, even now. This is the longest that I have stayed out of

Canada, out of Toronto, because I have started this course

in 2001, the M.Phil, course in Irish theatre and film at the

Beckett Centre at Trinity College Dublin. But I had been

here in Ireland before, with Come Good Rain in 1994 very

briefly at the Galway Arts Festival; and then in 1996 I did a

national tour of Come Good Rain which started in Belfast and then came here to Dublin, and was

produced by the

Project Arts Centre. It was after that I came back here once

again to do a play by a friend of mine, by Donal O'Kelly, called Asylum! Asylum! [1997]. But through all those times I

was actually thinking back to my days at Makerere University, because one of the things that we put a considerable amount

of time in was actually Irish theatre: people such as Lady

Gregory, and Yeats, and Synge, and O'Casey, and Beckett,

depending on how Irish one thinks he is. I saw then in Ireland a chance to go back to them. But also something that I am

not even doing now, which is to look comparatively at Irish and African theatre, or even literature in general.

JK: We are talking about Irish and Ugandan theatre parallels, but, of course, there is a

triangular relationship here if you

factor in the Canadian theatrical experiences that you have

had as well. That must make for some very complicated

comparisons, if you want to develop them.

GS: In some ways I guess it does. I have read somewhere -

maybe in part because of the long Canadian winters - that

Canadians essentially love good stories. I think in some ways

they are also good story tellers: if you think of people like

George F. Walker, or Judith Thompson, Robert Lepage himself and so on. It in an

interesting one for Canada,

because on that level, of storytelling, the triangle unites the

three different contexts.

In my view, in general, I think that so much of Irish theatre only

now is becoming

a more collaborative venture.

I think that some of the interesting things with Ireland is

that there is no more of the tyranny of the word, of the

author. The directors are becoming a lot more centre stage.

I think that they have put more of an emphasis on physicality than in the past, as

opposed to using theatre simply

as a

medium for listening to beautiful poetry. That is obviously part of it, and I don't want

anybody to think even for a

second that I would not value the beauty of the word, but

other kinds of theatricality that perhaps weren't explored before are now happening, especially through the adaptation of classics by companies like Druid. For example, in

Calypso's production of Master Harold and the Boys - and I

am well placed to say this, because I have been in different

productions of it myself over the years - I can see where

the negotiations with the playwright has become more

interesting, where the director has become more daring, and

where things have become more physicalized and so on.

Now, in Canada, you are talking about a very different

context, because I think that a lot of this type of theatre

had arrived in Canada before, in much the same way that 118 KING Canadian, Irish and Ugandan Theatre Links

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Ireland was blessed long before many other places in the

world with Nobel Prize winning writers and playwrights in

particular.

When you go back to Uganda, again, there are very

interesting links. Robert Serumaga, for instance, who I am

writing about, studied here at Trinity CoUege. He would have

been influenced by people such as Synge, and Yeats, and

Beckett, probably more than anybody else. So I guess it is

the thing that links us aU together: that there is a theatre

tribe or nation that obviously goes across all of those

frontiers and across the ocean. It is an interesting subject

to

explore -

the links historicaUy.

I mean you are talking about postcolonial societies. In

some ways, one would talk about postcolonial Uganda as

being synonymous with dictatorship, a kind of dictatorship which sometimes made certain people long for the colonial

era. That is how desperate things became. In Canada, on

the other hand, you are talking about multiculturaUsm or

interculturaUsm, which is something new to Ireland. I don't

think that Ireland has gotten to that phase yet. HopefuUy, with a Uttle bit of luck, it wiU.

And so the things that bind those places together to

make the triangle that you talked about: I could say, for

instance, that it doesn't take long to realize that with Ireland

and Africa, or Uganda, for that matter, that this whole

storytelUng element is important. The oral tradition is

important. The mythology is important. And it is pretty much used in the same way, as the same granary from which aU of

these writers seem to draw inspiration. The fact that these

plays are written in

EngUsh rather than vernacular languages is another thing. Just looking

at that alone would lead, I

think, to very interesting discussions. But over and above

that too, is the question of why the theatre, why Irish society is so bound up in terms of a relationship with ritual. I guess

what is necessary is a very interdisciplinary approach for

scholars, myself included, to explore these possible links.

I also think that apart from the scholarship, in a creative

sense, there is a lot going on. I am lucky to have been here

for the years that I have, and even if I go back to Canada,

which seems to be very likely, and which I am actuaUy looking forward to, I think that Ireland has been so much a part of

my Ufe creatively that there must be a way again for the

three - Ireland, Africa, and Canada - to meet. I think that

there would probably be a play

or maybe two in there. I am

looking forward to a time when one can be able to do

coUaborative ventures, or even work with actors from both

sides of the Atiantic, and even bring African companies

and African actors here, in workshop situations, to see what

can be created.

As an individual, I myself now have no problem with

being loyal to more than one place, and I think that Canada

is sort a post-modern, almost a

post-national state in that

way, or as close as you can get, which has become part of its

value system. But in Ireland, you are talking about a different

state of mind, where, hopefuUy, it won't take much longer, if the Irish actuaUy care and have good leadership, for them to be able to see that precedents have been set in other

places, and perhaps learn from that, to look at cultural

differences and be able to celebrate them. But at the same

time, they hopefuUy wiU also be able to see those other things

that may have bound us together a lot more than people think.

JK: Could you develop that a little bit? How is Canada

different from Ireland?

GS: I think it largely has to do with multiculturalism, to see

how Canada has changed for the better. That would be one

contrast with Ireland. I have been able to observe Ireland

since 1994. In a sense, it was when the Celtic Tiger was

coming in but it hadn't taken root. It hadn't really stalked the land in the way that it does now. So whereas we celebrate

multiculturalism and interculturalism and so on in Canada,

here there is still an awful lot to work through. It doesn't mean that Canada did not go through the throes of that

either, or that we should not be eternally vigilant. But I think that for the most part, we are

dealing with other questions

post- that in Canada, whereas it is pre- that in Ireland.

JK: Many critics in Canada would be critical of

multiculturalism for trivializing differences or making them

appear superficial. But that kind of critique in Ireland would seem premature perhaps?

GS: I think that here it is a question of how do you get to

that other level, because those who are critical of

multiculturalism would be concerned about ghetto-ization, and something

a lot more serious than reducing cultural

difference to exotic culinary options. So I see that, and I

agree with them to an extent, but I think if one sees it as a

phase, and if one learns from it, the do's and don't do's,

then it means that the future becomes better. Because here

the whole well was poisoned in a sense by the Celtic Tiger.

JK: You said in a previous interview that there is something to be said for a country that cauterizes its mind as soon as

the Celtic Tiger comes.

GS: That was what I was going to get to, actually. The awful

thing that happened when people forced themselves to

forget the history of all the Irish people who ended up on

the Canadian shores, or in the United States, or in Australia, for that matter.

They had forgotten about all those links;

they seem to have been erased, perhaps deliberately. It is a

very frightening time, I think, here. I feel perhaps a little bit

wary of the cauterization of memory and the whole

selectivity in the process of that. The Irish have chosen to

remember only what they want to remember, and so it is a

lot easier to label someone, to peddle stereotypes about

people.

JK: Do you think it is because Ireland is relatively affluent now that it is deliberately forgetting its past?

GS: I think that unfortunately that is definitely a part of it. I am scared of generalizing, but that is part of it. And then it is

obviously part of it that there is a government that

stokes those fires, in however disguised a manner. You know,

they had a referendum to give Irish people the opportunity

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to say no to kids born here of different people, different

nationalities, to strip them of the citizenship which the

constitution had previously entided them to, to slam the

doors, which is what it is - as if it was a question of

respecting law and order. Psychologically, it was kind of

underhanded. When that referendum was held about

citizenship, and I think that eighty percent of Irish people voted to rescind citizenship rights for non-nationals born

in Ireland, that is what really frightened me. Because after

that, you have to say, who am I talking to? Wlio am I shaking

hands with? Who am I having a pint with? Surely, it can't be

that I am confined only to the circle of the twenty percent? It really made me think. Now, considering everything that I

have gone through, is it a good choice to leave and go back

to Canada at a time when more voices are needed, mine

included? No, it is not. But I think that I can still contribute, even if I'm not necessarily based here.

JK: The referendum result was obviously a kind of general reaction against immigrants coming

to live in Ireland. Have

you had personal experiences that would make you want to

go back to Canada?

GS: Definitely. Definitely. There are things that I have

endured here that I wont even get into too much detail about.

But I can tell you that I have enough evidence of very overt

and also covert racism. I can smell it. I can smell it a mile

away. I have had to endure it; I have had to let it be served to

me. And when that happens, I have tried to summon all

sorts of memories in terms for my spirit to endure, and

perhaps still keep a little bit of hope. I have seen this

sometimes in the most unlikely places. And yet, there is still,

in spite of everything that I have said to you, there is still a

certain degree of goodness in this country. I can testify to

that. But I have also heard things said, language used, that

even in the southern United States is only whispered. And

by this I am talking about racial allusions and so on, which

one doesn't even have to give examples of, because I think

it is pretty clear. And when you see that, what do you do but

long for Canada?

JK: Would you say that qualitatively the level of racism here

is higher than in Canada?

GS: Yes. But again, I also said that Canada is not ideal and

never will be. But at least one's chances of encountering

those things get dramatically reduced. WHien there are things

like "fucking black dickhead" that are said by people in

Ireland, by young people too for that matter, and they actually think that about you, and you know that you did nothing to

deserve that kind of label, then obviously you stop and think.

JK: You have a unique comparative perspective

on Ireland

and Canada, as someone who has lived in both countries

but comes from somewhere else again. What could Ireland

learn from Canada in practical terms ? and vice versa?

GS: Oh, I think quite a bit. I have not signed off on Ireland,

but I think that it is just a question of constandy chumming

things home, of reminding people of their own history. Because the deUberate occlusion of that leads to a kind of

situation such as what is happening: where it is a "them and

us" type of situation. There has been a lot of goodness in

this country before, and I think that it can be tapped into. It

is just a question of commitment, and I think that Canada

is actuaUy testimony of that. Canada stiU has its own batdes:

in Quebec, for instance, or even in Alberta. But constandy

there is a need to remind ourselves as Canadians of certain

ideals, and of certain rights, and obUgations. Those things I

think are valuable. And there are things

too that Canada can

learn from Ireland. Look at proportional representation, for

instance. The whole idea of "first past the post" is not only

outdated; it is almost undemocratic. And yet it is reigning supreme in Canada. Those are some of the things that come

to my mind.

JK: You say that if people remembered their past, they would

be more sympathetic

to immigrants coming into Ireland now.

Is it the role of the theatre to do that, to reawaken Irish

people's memories, and, if so, is it doing a good job?

GS: I think that it hasn't done a good job yet. It has tried, but you are

talking about just a few individuals. I can say

that an artist like Donal O'KeUy has done that, but Donal is

not an institution. I do have genuine concerns about that.

We are getting into issues of representation and commitment

on the part of the artist. I think that Donal is an exemplary

individual in terms of his concerns expressed in plays Uke

George Seremba in Master Harold and the Boys. Courtesy of Calypso Productions

120 KING Canadian, Irish and Ugandan Theatre Links

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Asylum! Asylum!, for instance, or his latest, The Cambria. He

makes a point about the cauterized memory that we have

been talking about. But generally, I don't think that the theatre

has gone far enough in this country. I think that it is still

predominandy lily white. I think that it is still insular, still

almost provincial in that way. And I think that is sad. We

can be polite about this and all, but certainly, there is

something seriously wrong. I have been here almost four

years, and I can tell you that no one has ever approached

me to talk about writing a play. One artist of colour has

talked to me, to collaborate on something,

to tell this story

as it unfolds. Otherwise, the theatre will be much poorer if

it doesn't take advantage of some of our voices. There are a

few signs of hope obviously out there. But I don't want to

make it look or sound less bleak, because at the moment it

is bleak.

Intercultural theatrical ideas have yet to catch on in

Ireland: from people like Peter Brook, when he did 1m

Costume, I mean, let us not forget that it is based on a play

called The Coat, which is obviously South American. I think, of Irish individuals I know ?

actually, it baffles me, that this

is not part of their thought processes yet. In some ways it

mirrors where the society is at. Even some of the most

sensitive individuals - because let's not forget that they

are

the barometers of the society in which we live - if that does

not register on their scale, then obviously that is sad. It is

something that they think about, but when it comes to their

practice, maybe they are not there yet.

If there is a question that is so urgent as

immigration

in this country, you would think that Irish theatre would

' - iter ^^^^H^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I^^^^I^^h

George Seremba. Photo by M.H. George.

adjust to reflect that in some way. And yet, we have a situation

where even the theatre looks as if it is just paying Up service to it, as

opposed to

taking the leap and letting these new

immigrants teU their own stories on the Irish stage. I think

that the Irish theatre industry should take advantage of that;

it should take advantage of people like myself being here.

Directors should be reading to see if there are people who

have written novels or short stories - and there are. They

should be looking at the feasibiUty of translating that into

the theatre. Have they? To my knowledge, no. So they have

been themselves as slow as the society in general, when they

should be the first ones to make positive social changes

happen. And then there are those issues of voice

appropriation that wiU come later. Perhaps that is why they should let people like myself be the first to teU those kinds

of stories.

JK: I myself have been surprised as weU at the lack of stories

about the new Ireland emerging from the artistic community,

with some exceptions, Uke the ones you note.

GeneraUy,

these massive social changes have not been very prominendy

reflected, I think, in any artistic or Uterary art form in Ireland.

GS: Yes. And the theatre is supposed to be a

place that we

use words like "vision" to describe. The state of it at the

moment I think is pretty sad. They have not met that need.

They can not blame it on the audiences, because they have

not done it yet. If they did, they would see. The audiences

would vote either way; and I think that they would support this kind of venture. I mean, the few times that Calypso has

done this sort of show, they have done weU. It puUed in the

crowds.

JK: This is my last question. You have said a Uttle bit about

the play that you wiU be writing about Uving in Ireland as an

immigrant...

GS: Yes. I don't want to say that much about it now, because

I don't want to jinx myself. I am stiU far now from getting to

the end of it.

JK: But there is a work in progress?

GS: Definitely. Definitely. I think that there is more than

one, actuaUy. I am not yet ready to speak about it. I know

that I wiU be talking soon to Fiach Mac Conghail at the

Abbey, at the National Theatre, about the possibiUty of

mounting a future production of it. I wiU be telling him,

among other things, that as one of the characters says in

Juno and the Paycock: "no man wiU ever do enough for Ireland".

WeU, no man wiU ever do enough for the Abbey! It is sort

of healthy, I guess, but it depends on which side you are

when the shots are being fired. Obviously, I wish Fiach weU, and I hope that we wiU be able, through him, to perhaps start a situation where commissions wiU happen. Perhaps

we can get a few more Canadian artists over here, and a few

more Irish artists over there too, in terms of co-productions

and joint ventures.

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