Attempted coup of 1982 shatters love story in new musical ‘Subira’

Subira A New Musical’ is a first-class heartbreaker. It is also a beautiful love story between two innocents who steal your heart from the moment you hear the dazzling voices of Zimbabwean Mundawarara Shaun and Kenya’s own Nice Githinji, and see the loving looks in each other’s eyes as they promise to be eternally faithful.

Award-winning Ugandan playwright, lyricist and co-director Adong Judith definitely has a sweet way with words, and especially with the love songs that provide the essential theme of Subira’s story.

Adong also must have a marvelous rapport with her fellow Ugandan composer-multi-instrumentalist Kaz Kasozi since they are billed as having mutually created the music for Subira.

And since the lyrics and music match so effectively in mood, rhythm, and sentiment, their collaboration is a key element in the show’s indisputable success.

The choice of other voices besides the lovers was also critical to ensure Subira’s story came out clearly, both in spoken word and song. In this too, the show never gave us one note that was off key or one character who couldn’t sing melodiously. The two most notable vocalists were Mundawarara and Nice. (We have seen Nice in many productions in the past, but never knew she had such a luscious singing voice until now!) But even Gilbert Lukalia and his recruits projected powerful voices. Also, the chorus which came on several times was all pitch-perfect.

The choreography was imaginatively staged. In particular, the training scene of Army recruits, conducted by the strict Afande Mo (Gilbert Lukalia who co-directed with Adong), added a surprising element of levity (enhanced by the antics of Muthure Andrew) to an otherwise sobering experience, namely prepping for war.

In fact, despite its length of three and a half hours, Subira held our attention easily, given the professionalism of the cast, the richness of the story, the proficiency of the band, and the diversity of musical styles that Kasozi features in the show, from the blues, rap, and reggae to mellow ballads and love songs. Nonetheless, the show was too long.

Whether the songs should have been shortened, or a few cut out, the show needed a paring down. Perhaps Adong included too many nonessential stories, like the sweeper in Lukalia’s hotel or the sudden death of one Army recruit or even the number of drills that Afande Mo put his new recruits through.

Some seemed to distract from the fundamental theme of Lukalia getting back home to his sweetheart, Subira.

There are actually two central themes to the musical, namely Lukalia’s love for Subira and his life-long dream of joining the military. But in the story, what he hasn’t banked on is the attempted coup in 1982 by members of the military, including his best friend and fellow recruit, Alusa (Ouda J. Charles).

What’s worse is the way Lukalia gets blamed for being part of the coup attempt when he hadn’t been. Jailed unjustly for several years, Lukalia never forgets his love for Subira. But after he’s finally released from prison, he learns earth-shattering news.

Should I disclose it and be a spoiler? It’s such a shocker, I can’t ignore the horrifying fact that Alusa had persuaded Subira that Lukalia is never coming back. Betraying his one-time buddy, he lies that Lukalia is probably dead since he had gotten caught and deemed a kingpin in the coup attempt.

He even claims Lukalia had tried to involve him in the plot, which was the exact opposite of the truth.

Alusa is so persuasive, he even gets Subira to marry him and have his kid. So by the time Lukalia gets home, he finds his Subira pregnant by his former best friend.

Discovering Subira is ultimately a tale of sabotage and betrayal, not just love, hope, and life’s future possibilities, is tragic for some of us, especially as we got so deeply invested in the love story itself. But the emotional jolt is what Adong and her co-director Lukalia must have wanted their audiences to feel. In this is their success since we still found Subira riveting and deeply moving.

Without doubt, Subira needs to be shortened. It’s a painful truth that Adong may not want to hear. But being the playwright, lyrist, and co-director means there might not have been room for an editor, critic, or producer to tell her the painful truth.

But irrespective of the length, Subira is a beautiful and bitter-sweet story that also conveys the way Pan-African energies can work together to create a bright view of African artistic expression.