allAfrica.com: Uganda: The Struggle for Screen Stardom (Page 1 of 2)

WHAT does it take to be a Ugawood star? Our reporter attended auditions for an upcoming movie, The Unforgettable Friend, and discovered that its takes guts as well as talent.

BLAME it on the ride I hitched to the Basement Discotheque that Saturday morning. What? Basement what? On a Saturday morning? Well, the ride that I hitched was hooked to a radio station. The radio station kept reminding us about a certain Buzz Teeniez Award ceremony the other side of town.

When we arrived at the Basement at 10:50am, I immediately began to wonder why the Buzz Award organisers had to change the venue from Lugogo to here without any notice.

That, of course, wasn't the case. What the Basement forecourt was teeming with were movie star hopefuls, young men and women itching to become the next best thing on the silver screen. This was a movie audition. The best that I could do here, if I had my way, was to go the safe "behind-the-scenes" way, and simply enjoy the show. Unfortunately, the assignment this time round was that I take a plunge and audition!

I had never been to this sort of thing before. The closest I had done was the last time I attended a music audition. Was I going to apply the same script in a movie setting? When I stepped up to the Basement hallway, I quickly realised I would not have to quake over which movie star's lines I would have to repeat.

There were scripts doing the rounds, extracts from the upcoming movie, from which were lines of dialogue we were expected to act out.

Up to now, I had not yet brought myself to believe I was actually going to go on a stage to make an utter fool of myself in the name of auditioning for a movie in which I would never want to feature anyway.

Lynn, my friend from Hot 100 FM, thought I had come to do either of two things: make a fool of myself, or cover the auditions as part of my work. I assured her that I was here for the same reason as her - I wanted to become the next Uga-wood star! Soon, Lynn's attitude turned from "You must be kidding" to "Go, boy, go! You can make it!"

Before I knew it, Lynn had identified the characters we were to act - Jayden and Lucinda. She took me through the basics of getting in character, of stage presence, confidence, use of gestures, body language But, try as I did, I just did not seem to have the fluidity, the spontaneity, the will, in the first place, to perfect my lines.

My part entailed acting a suave, smooth-talking, adulterous young man who is busted by his wife while on an outing with another girl.

"You know how you guys behave when you are caught cheating, don't you?" Lynn challenged me. In this trade, it is stupid to say you can't act a "player" because you are not one. That is the reason it is called acting, right?

Anyway, something happened between the organisers and management that saw us relocate to Club Rouge. As soon as the word went around, a large procession, akin to that in a peaceful demonstration, hit the road, headed to Rouge. We drove to the new venue through Buganda Road. To our utter shock, we found the procession already by the Rouge entrance. They had jumped on bodabodas. No taking chances!

At Rouge, Lynn and I got back to our script. My role as Jayden involved reciting just three lines. I could memorise only the first. The rest was chaos! The whole thing felt like those boring religious education notes that I never had an option but to cram, so as to not flunk the exam. My mind was too occupied with memorising my lines to think up any gestures. Talking and gesturing were two masters so distant apart.

It was 12:30pm when Esther took to the stage before the three-man panel of judges. "Hi, Esther. You've read through the script, and you want to act "

opened one of the judges. Since it was a dialogue, one of the judges offered to be the interlocutor. After about two minutes, the script was taken from Esther, who was then asked to ad lib.

Everyone who came on stage in the next hour or so followed the same routine without much ceremony. The judges were only interested in voice projection.

The raging, ulcers-induced pangs in my stomach forced me out to lunch at 1:30pm. But I resolved to be on stage when I got back and my number, 95, was read out. I returned from lunch to find a more tense session. At first each auditioner was allotted roughly three minutes. Now you were lucky if they let you stay on stage for 20 seconds. A young man called James walked up to the stage.

"Yes, how old are you?" asked one of the judges.

"Nineteen."

"What role do you want to play?"

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