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George Bwanika Seremba was born in Kampala and holds a B.A. from Makerere University Kampala; an MPhil and a PhD in (Theatre Studies), from Trinity College Dublin. He served as an Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve, USA, and twice held the IWP Fellowship at Brown University (RI). His essay, “Myth, Mythopoeia and Robert Serumaga’s Majangwa” was published in APR (2017). His monograph: Robert Serumaga and the Golden Age of Uganda’s Theatre Activism and Innovation (1968-1978), will soon be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Seremba is also an actor and playwright; has appeared on Television and the Movies in Ireland, Canada and the USA. He has performed in numerous plays, including Athol Fugard’s The Blood knot, Master Harold and … “the boys”, as well as his autobiographical play, Come Good Rain, for which he won a Dora award for Outstanding New Play. He has written a prose memoir (in two volumes), for which he is still looking for a publisher. But, it tells the story of his activism as an undergraduate at Makerere; his abduction, interrogation, torture, botched execution and escape from Obote’s Uganda in December 1980, with even more harrowing details than in the stage play. Canada has been home for Seremba since the mid-80s. He continues to lecture and research, perform and write for the theatre. Home, for him, is now split between Toronto (Canada) and Stuttgart (Germany). He feels immensely honoured by the invitation to perform Come Good Rain on Ugandan soil. Amidst the joy, grief, and memories that include the loam soils of Namanve forest of December 10-11, and all the miles the play has logged, he is pleased as punch and grateful to, far too many, particularly the people of Bweyogerere village. He still continues to thank them for risking their lives and coming to his rescue, the morning after his ordeal. He would also like to publicly thank his friend and sister-in-the-arts: Deborah Asiimwe and one and all at the KITF.

Synopsis

Come Good Rain. (Uganda/Canada)

Abducted, tortured, and eventually left for dead in Uganda’s notorious Namanve forest,

George Seremba’s autobiographical account of his experiences in Come Good Rain is a

montage of dramatic forces that work together to produce a simple, stunning, poetic tale of

one young man’s survival against all odds.

Set in Uganda during the turbulent and murderous regimes of Milton Obote as well as Idi

Amin, Come Good Rain, chronicles George Seremba’s life as a young man growing up and

witnessing the reckless abandon with which the “Pearl of Africa” becomes its own festering

curse. While pursuing studies in literature and drama he becomes swept up in the polarised

tide of power struggles, living with constant fear for his companions, contemporaries, and

most of all, his family. Combining African mythology, history and dynamic narrative (and

the presence of an African drummer); this play emerges finally as a celebration of the

indefatigable nature of the human spirit.