Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
Worldly Kampala benefits from the presence of the Kampala Amateur Dramatics Society, KADS, who have been performing musicals and plays for the last decade or so. This time around, they're putting up a rendition of the Shakespeare comedy Twelth Night, pretty much in its original form. This being my last night, for a while at least, in Uganda, a bunch of us went to the play's opening night in Kampala's National Theatre.
It's a light play, a comedy of mistaken identity, of course, which is thought to have been put together to celebrate the 12th, and last, day of Christmas, apparently in days past, known for its rowdy character.
Oddly, the play is set in Illyria, the eastern coast of the Adriatic.
It's always great to see theatre in out of the way places, most of Africa not being known for its theatrical prowess. And several of the performances were pretty darn good. Unfortunately, the theatre, though small, doesn't have the best acoustics and some of the female players weren't always that easy to understand, the men putting up much louder shows.
Probably the biggest challenge, possibly both for the players and the audience, was the play being done in the old English of Shakespeare's days. As it's a comedy, I'm sure that several of the jokes were lost on me, and many only registered after a short lag, having to decode the old English first.
In a way, it's odd, or at least interesting, that KADS chose to not go for a contemporary adaptation.
Nevertheless, rather good fun. Go see it while you can, if you can!