Sons and lovers – and haters

Daniel Nelson

As you leave the theatre you are handed a flyer in memory of David Kato, a gay activist who was murdered in Uganda after his picture was published in the Ugandan newspaper The Rolling Stone.

The Rolling Stone

Image by Orange Tree Theatre

It’s also a reminder that though the play you have just seen comes from the head of British actor-turned-writer Chris Urch, it was provoked by that notorious issue of The Rolling Stone, which screamed "100 Pictures of Uganda's Top Homos Leak”, listing the names, addresses, and photographs of 100 people alongside a yellow banner that read "Hang Them". 

Another element in Urch’s mind was parliamentary consideration for anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda imposing the death penalty and penalties for individuals, companies, and non-governmental organisations that aided or abetted same-sex sexual acts.

It was a time of prejudice, ignorance, hysteria, fear and violence – which are all conjured up by Urch’s intense play at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.

Eighteen-year-old Dembe and Sam, a half-Ugandan, half Northern Irish doctor, are lovers, which is risky enough in dangerous times. But the stakes are even higher in their case because Dembe’s brother is a newly-installed pastor eager to prove he is holier than thou at a time when railing against sodomites takes up a peculiarly large chunk of Church time. (Why Uganda was seized by a paroxysm of anti-gay excitement is not explored – there were gay bars in Kampala in the 1960s that attracted little attention and it was the arrival of US preachers that seemed to tip the balance – but this is a personal and family drama not a history lesson.)

With the blue touchpaper lit, the scene is set for an explosion. Urch adds other gunpowder trails, through the high-tension relationships between the ruthless mother, driven by her own secrets, a sister deprived of her own future because her brother takes priority, and a second sister traumatised into muteness.

If that sounds overblown, it isn’t, thanks to Urch’s writing ability, superb performances and deceptively simple directing. It’s fast-moving but not rushed, emotionally packed but not melodramatic, serious but witty. One of the founders of the real Rolling Stone, Giles Muhame, once reportedly said his newspaper’s name was adapted from the local word enkurungu and was “a metaphor for something that strikes with lightning speed, that can kill someone if it is thrown at them". That’s a good summary of what we see on stage, as a family struggles to deal with rapidly approaching disaster.

Superb.

* The Rolling Stone is at the Orange Tree Theatre, I Clarence Street, Richmond, Surrey TW9, until 20 February. Info: 8940 3633

+ When the personal becomes political in Uganda