As tributes continue to pour in for theatre legend Alex Mukulu, one thing has become increasingly clear: the man being mourned was many things to many people.
To some, he was a perfectionist who could spend hours demanding that an actor get a single moment right. To others, he was a mentor who taught an entire generation that theatre was not simply about showing up on stage and making people laugh.
To Christine Mukulu, his former wife, he remained something even more personal.
“My boyfriend.”
It was a description that drew attention during the tributes, not because of its humour, but because of the decades of history behind it.
“We thank God for my ‘boyfriend’s’ life,” Christine said. “I consider him my boyfriend because we started dating when I was 14 years while Alex was 19. All my youthful years, we were together and we played plays together. Whatever I am, it’s because of him.”
It was perhaps one of the most intimate portraits yet of a man the country knew from the stage.
Christine said Mukulu was there during the years that shaped her life and career, teaching her much of what she would become. And in a final act that brought their long journey full circle, she was beside him during his last moments.
“During his final hour, I was beside him. I was there.”
But away from the personal memories of a woman who had known him since her teenage years, another picture of Mukulu emerged from the voices of the theatre community: that of a man who was not merely part of Ugandan theatre, but one of the people who helped define its standards.
Charles Senkubuge “Siasa” did not begin his tribute quietly.
“I wasn’t meant to speak but to just complain,” he said. “Let me first quarrel and then make a speech.”
And complain he did.
Senkubuge expressed frustration at the way artists are often treated, saying they are criticised when they work, criticised when they do not and abused even when they choose to remain silent.
But beneath the anger was a deeper point. Mukulu, he argued, was no ordinary artist.
“People like Alex Mukulu are a rare breed in this world,” he said.
To explain just how rare, Senkubuge reached beyond Uganda.
“Nigeria has Wole Soyinka. In Kenya there is Chinua Achebe. In England there is Shakespeare,” he said, arguing that certain individuals emerge only once in a generation and leave behind a mark too large to be replaced.
For him, Mukulu belonged in that category. Christine Mukulu,
“God gave him to us for 72 years,” he said.
The Mukulu remembered by his colleagues was not always an easy man. He was a referee, a critic and, as Senkubuge put it, an “IGG” of sorts within the creative industry, someone who would tell an artist when they had done badly and tell them to improve even when they thought they had done well. He was, in other words, difficult to impress.
But it was that uncompromising approach that helped shape generations of performers.
Senkubuge recalled a period when about 100 artists under the Theatrical Association of Uganda gathered in Kabowa and experienced what Mukulu considered proper theatre training.
They watched rehearsals. They were assessed. They were introduced to the discipline behind the art.
“People got to know that drama is scripted, drama is rehearsal, drama is representation,” Senkubuge said. “And he taught us well.”
That statement goes to the centre of the legacy now being discussed in the days following Mukulu’s death.
At a time when many theatre practitioners are worried that preparation and precision are being replaced by improvisation and shortcuts, Mukulu represented an older school of theatre: learn the script, rehearse the role and respect the audience enough to arrive prepared.
And if you thought you understood his work after watching it once, Senkubuge had a warning.
“For Alex Mukulu’s plays, you need to watch them three times to understand him.”
It was not theatre designed simply to fill an evening. Mukulu wanted audiences to think.
His former wife remembered the man who shaped her youth. His colleagues remembered the teacher who shaped their careers. But Phina Mugerwa, vice chairperson of the Uganda National Cultural Centre board of trustees, widened the picture even further.
“Beyond the performances, Alex’s legacy lies in the people he mentored, trained and inspired,” she said.
That may ultimately be the most enduring measure of Mukulu’s life.
Actors can leave behind recordings. Playwrights can leave behind scripts. But mentors leave something less tangible and, sometimes, more lasting: people.
Mugerwa said Mukulu contributed not only to the growth of theatre but also to Uganda’s creative economy and, by extension, the country’s social and economic development.
He understood the culture,” she said.
The National Theatre, where Mukulu’s journey became intertwined with Uganda’s cultural story, will forever remain part of that legacy.
But Mugerwa also used the moment to deliver a challenge that has become a recurring theme throughout Mukulu’s farewell: why do Ugandans wait until their greatest cultural figures are gone before fully appreciating them?
“We need to pick something from the people we are living with and not celebrate when they are gone,” she said.
It is a question that hangs heavily over Mukulu’s passing.
The tributes have been glowing. The praise has been unanimous. Government officials, fellow artists, family and audiences have all spoken about his contribution.
Yet the uncomfortable question remains: how much of that recognition did Mukulu receive while he was still here to hear it?
Perhaps that is why Senkubuge’s anger was not really just anger. It was grief mixed with exhaustion.
He spoke of a man who was misunderstood by some but deeply known by those who worked closely with him. A man whose compassion extended beyond the stage.
“He spent nights at Sanyu Babies Home,” Senkubuge said, recalling Mukulu’s connection with the less privileged.
For those closest to him, that was the Alex Mukulu they knew: the demanding director, the uncompromising teacher, the critic, the mentor, the friend and, to Christine, the boy she met when she was just 14 and who, decades later, she could still call her “boyfriend.”
Perhaps that is the beauty and complexity of Mukulu’s story.
Uganda is not simply burying an actor.
It is saying goodbye to a teacher who trained performers, a cultural custodian who understood the value of preparation, a critic who refused to flatter mediocrity, a mentor who helped artists discover their potential and a man whose life extended beyond the applause of the stage.
For Senkubuge, one conclusion is unavoidable.
“He is irreplaceable.”
And perhaps that is why the challenge now is bigger than organising a fitting farewell.
The question is what Uganda does with everything Alex Mukulu left behind.
Will his discipline survive?
Will the generations he mentored pass on what they learned?
Will his plays continue to be studied, performed and understood?
Or will Uganda, as Mugerwa warned, become comfortable with celebrating another giant only after he is gone?
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