STAGE REVIEW : ‘Wounds’: A Call for Decency

In the ‘70s, Uganda had Idi Amin. In the ‘80s, it had AIDS. (It still does, and it’s only getting worse.) Visitors talk about a country with Edenic beauty that seems to be cursed. Can art cure it?

Ugandan Drama Troupe founder Alex Mukulu appears determined to at least, as he says, “present the truth,” if not offer a remedy. His company performed the Mukulu-authored “Wounds of Africa” at Biola University in La Mirada Tuesday (it will appear at Montecito’s Westmount College Friday).

The seven-member ensemble, led by Mukulu on guitar and as an imprisoned wise man, begins as a precocious, slightly unruly group of students at “Africa High School.” We’re in a mythical place where all of Africa is in a room--and after graduation, becomes disillusioned, unemployed and desperate. The killing of a police thug seems to provide an opening to freedom, but again, there’s just the chance that this, too, is a myth.

Blending village performing traditions, ironic comedy, narrative incantations and direct political address, “Wounds of Africa” is anchored by the troupe’s sometimes ebullient harmonic singing. It acts as a collective human call for decency and freedom: one player faces us and asks us, “Can you believe that I have never voted for a president of my choice?”

The Biola audience, perhaps recalling Amin’s mad rule, wondered if Mukulu can play this in his own country. Not only has he done so, he reports, but President Yoweri Museveni liked it. * “ Wounds of Africa,” Westmount College, 955 La Paz Road, Montecito, 9:15 a.m., Friday. Free. (805) 565-6170. Running time: 1 hour,40 minutes.