Come Good Rain

Todd Pettigrew teaches English at McMaster University.

This one-man play recounts the story of the author’s capture by the
forces of the tyrannical Obote government in Uganda. Though some 30
different characters appear in the play, the focus is on Seremba
himself. Ironically, the deeply personal nature of the story may be its
greatest failing.

When Seremba takes on other voices, the results are powerful. The
strutting schoolmaster Mr. Pius Mulindwa is brilliantly evoked. Mulindwa
begins as a comic caricature of an autocrat and ends as a pathetic and
powerless victim of just such a ruler. When the playwright is speaking
in his own voice, however, the effects are stilted and often dull. A
typical example: “Although I did take to Kilingu like a fish to water,
I found myself homesick within no time.”

At times the fog of Seremba’s language clears and the remaining
style, spare and almost journalistic, is compelling. The play’s
climax, where George is shot repeatedly by Ugandan soldiers and left for
dead, is remarkable for its control and economy. The negative side of
the playwright’s gift for understatement is that every event in Come
Good Rain is related with the same degree of emphasis. As a result, the
play feels like an extended prologue, over before it has begun.