By: Desire Ashlee
In the heart of Uganda’s vibrant theatre scene, a powerful and haunting play titled “Death and the Maiden” recently graced the stage. Written by Ariel Dorfman, this intense drama delves into themes of justice, trauma, and the blurred lines between victim and perpetrator. Set against the backdrop of a post-dictatorship society, the play unfolds with gripping tension, leaving the audience spellbound.
Impulsive Paulina was perfectly staged by Namara Jolly in a red below the knee dress and black corset who subtly convinces her husband and constantly reminds him of his newly earned position. Paulina throughout the play also is a persistent whisperer of justice in Gerardo’s ears.
Gerardo’s authoritative and indecisive character is partly executed by two actors; Kyobe Jerome came first, displaying a dominant physique befitting for the character and later Busingye Emmanuel embodied Gerardo, to which the dialogue also came along fluently.
Timosewo Baguma as enigmatic and mysterious Dr. Miranda sent sensational vibrations through the audience. Not simply because of his daring personality that demanded Paulina rip her underpants off and right into his mouth to keep him quiet but also his hilariously drunk and undying loyalty to Schubert’s music was wonderfully performed.
A 10 minute power outage was cut short with the help of a reliable audience that lit the stage for the actors. Even so, this didn’t break the character of the actors Baguma(Dr. Miranda) and Busingye ( Gerardo) who held their poses and quickly resumed with dialogue amidst plotting a solution to Paulina’s request for a confession statement.
The story tells of Paulina, a survivor of torture and sexual abuse during the dictatorship, encounters Dr. Miranda, a man she believes was her tormentor. Paulina recognizes Dr. Miranda’s voice and the teeny weeny words that the doctor uses as the same doctor that played Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14, subtitled Death and the Maiden, during the act of rape, which gives the play its title. As the play unfolds, Paulina struggles with her desire for revenge and her need for closure. Gerardo, a human rights lawyer, finds himself caught between his wife’s quest for justice and his own political ambitions.
The play masterfully explores the lingering effects of trauma. Paulina’s haunted memories resurface as she confronts Dr. Miranda, forcing the audience to question the boundaries of forgiveness and retribution.
Schubert’s haunting quartet, “Death and the Maiden,” serves as a recurring motif. Dr. Miranda, once a violist, used to play this piece while committing atrocities. Now, it becomes a symbol of both pain and catharsis.
As Paulina grapples with her emotions, the play blurs the lines between victim and oppressor. Is Dr. Miranda truly guilty, or is Paulina’s perception clouded by trauma?
Director Timosewo Baguma skillfully navigates the play’s complexities. His smooth production balances tension with moments of raw vulnerability. The staging with the help of Nsimenta Precious, and Mboowa Gideon was minimalistic yet evocative, enhancing the emotional impact along with the costumes done by Madeby Zurah.
“Death and the Maiden” is more than a play; it’s a visceral experience that lingers long after the curtain falls. As Ugandan theatre continues to evolve, this production stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of storytelling.
Director’s Note: Death and the Maiden
I wanted to look at the question of how one could coexist in the same room, with someone who has caused them grievous, perhaps irreparable harm. Would they be able to resist taking revenge, if that revenge were made possible? How much power is in death? If your life was in the hands of someone you’d consider inferior,how far would you be going to save it?
The first time I read Ariel Dorfman’s play ‘Death and the Maiden’, I loved it, really instantly loved it. And I think for me, it was that transformation of sympathizing with characters, and judgment I would have put on the characters into a meditation on truth and , a superb character development. As an individual who doesn’t believe in karma, this play partly created the possible existence of a Karma, and the possible effect of trauma on a delicate person.
When I finally made up my mind about directing such a play, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to, I didn’t feel ready, only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to ask the audience the same questions that I myself asked myself the first time I read the play. Whose truth was the truth? and are words really sufficient to heal a physical pain?
In order to do this, I needed a team, people who I knew felt a similar way to the play. First person I got in touch with Nsimenta Precious, who was to be the Stage manager of the play who introduced Mboowa Gideon, who was to be her assistant Stage Manager. I reached out to Railroad Pictures Company, a film production company and I was amazed to have them as one of the producers of the show, this was to be their first involvement into theatre, and to start with me, was a honor.
Since this play heavily relied on dialogue, my production of Death and the Maiden focused on using a synthesis of confronting design and stylistic decisions to appeal to the audience’s perception of memory, trauma and the senses, inciting emotions intimate to the character’s portrayal of grief and anger. . Making the audience to focus on the confronting questions the play asks and immersing them into the themes, I incorporated that with Stanislavski s exploration of symbolism and the realism of emulating human behaviour, and connecting the audience to a deep understanding of the in-depth emotions conveyed. This heightened realism of Stanislavski helped even my actors create a realistic interpretation of the characters which created a connection to the audience and the characters. The use of realism created characters that were believable and convinced the audience for a moment that they are real, and that they have experienced what the play says they have experienced.
My vision for the production was to emerge the audience into a performance that engulfs their reality with that of the play’s, taking them hostage into the world of Death and the Maiden, but above all their reward was to make out the truth and what to believe in, for themselves .. My production of Death and the Maiden was at a point inspired from the original quartet by the same title by Schubert. After extensive research, I did realize that there existed the renaissance era art works of the motif of death and the maiden ; the popular motif that depicted itself through an image of a young woman seized by the personification of death in a manner of sinisterly warped exposure and eroticism the association between death and sex. The image originally acted as a reference for one of the posters of my production
Such other important elements that I employed in the production included Sound, lighting, makeup and costume designing.
The set design of the production, which consisted of the sitting room, dinning, kitchen and the terrace to the stage left. The organization of this stage and placing of every prop made sense to me and was to be precise and specific to where they were placed because to me, it was Paulina brain. The delicacy of the house was to mirror the delicacy of Paulina and her situation. The spacing of props was to show the distance between her thoughts, that kept on changing through the play. For example, he had wanted to rape the doctor, or maybe let him confess? Perhaps kill him? The house was Paulina’s head, and how everything existed there, the part of Roberto confessing was in the center of the stage because even for Paulina ,that confession was central and important.
Sound is an important element in theatre because it allows the audience to experience the play in a multi-layered sensory focus. From the sound of the sea that took the audience’s mind to a beach house, a loud thud heard in Roberto’s room shortly after Paulina entered it, all signified important moments in the play and aided the audience in intensify the meaning, emotion and key moments of our performance. The Quartet ‘Death and the maiden’ by Schubert is the only kind of music I used in the play since it signified the torture sessions, I often used it to constantly remind the audience of what Paulina went through.
The lighting in the performance was strategically used. There was more use of the dim blue lights to signify the night, which is the time of day that the play mostly took place. There was a transition in light during the confession of Roberto to signify a change of day, this lighting was like the wave of the ocean, fading in and out, getting darker, then lighter, then darker. From the first act, first scene, the lights kept getting dimmer preparing for the third scene in Act one where the Paulina character evolved and with everything she did in that scene, we added a red light to signify danger creating a dramatic shift of character that signified her hostility in the following scenes creating a contrast from the past scenes where she was fearful and a bit hysterical, she was now hostile, and determined to be in control!
Perhaps another lighting technique we used of fading light can be highlighted, it hinted at the question of what extent should we trust Roberto confession, and what extent we should trust Paulina’s memories, and during that confession scenes, the beam of light was only on the cassette recorder, the dark parts of the stage to communicate what Paulina always went through during the torture sessions, so the audience would feel that too. Whether it would be possible and credible to not see a thing and see if they could remember the voice speaking, as Paulina had claimed to have remembered the doctor’s voice, even after around 15 years.
When Roberto appears in act 1, Scene 2, he is in a white shirt, our next revelation of him portrays him tied up, his forehead with blood and shirt having blood stains, this kind of makeup was to explain the heavy thud sound heard by the audience in act 1, Scene 3, when Paulina had entered his room.
The colors used on the production, from the stage designs props colors like the red carpet, to the costumes used in the play all played a significant role in communicating the character, for example, notably, was Paulina’s costume in the play which was red to signify the danger that would come with her, plus a black top, to communicate her trauma and how she has been in a dark place all her life, seeking for a way out, and either a confession or death of the oppressor would settle that, she was entirely determined.
Death and the Maiden tells the story of a woman shattered by a torturous experience, who finds revenge through violently taking hostage a man whom she unwavering believes to be the man responsible for the trauma that plagues her. In my vision, and according to my production, I wished to present all the questions in the play, those that were answered, made it feel things, and have a rollercoaster of Emotions, only to leave the decision to them of whose truth they were to accept, but it wasn’t coming easy, as I removed the very last scene of the play to end it on the Act 3, Scene 1 with a slight change, where Roberto is left alone with Paulina after the confession, Paulina instead of letting the man go, points the gun at him- all this was in script until my ending which consisted of Gerardo coming in to find the two fighting with the gun, and at this point, I lowered the curtains and a shot was heard, giving the audience the opportunity of killing that, whom deserved to die, since now, they knew the full story.
Cast
Paulina- Namara Jolly
Gerardo 1- Kyobe Jerom
Gerardo 2- Busingye Emmanuel
Dr. Roberto Miranda- Timosewo Baguma
Crew
Producer- Railroad Pictures Company Limited & Timosewo Baguma
Director – Timosewo Baguma
Stage Manager – Nsimenta Precious
Assistant Stage Manager- Mboowa Gideon
Sound and Lighting – Rukundo Ivan Stanley
Sound(lapel microphones)- Adnan Ssenkumba
Costume Designer- Madeby Zurah
Photograoher- Frank Spencer Tumuhairwe
Supervisor- Jessica Kaahwa( for Makerere University)
