Kitalo nnyo.
The lights have gone down.
Alex Mukulu died on Saturday, August 15, 2026. He was 72.
Uganda did not just lose an actor. We lost the man who taught us how to use laughter as a weapon, silence as a sentence, and a stage as a courtroom. For nearly 50 years, if you wanted to know what Uganda was really thinking, you didn’t read a newspaper first. You went to watch Mukulu.
A Life In Lines
He was born in 1954 in Misebe, Ssingo County, Buganda. To Paulo Kayizi Lugaizi and Victoria Ndagire. Ordinary roots. Extraordinary voice.
Mukulu came up in a Uganda that was learning how to talk to itself again after years of gunfire. Theatre was one of the few places where you could say dangerous things and get away with it if you were clever, if you were funny, if you were Mukulu.
He didn’t write plays to decorate the weekend. He wrote them to hold a mirror up. And the mirror was not kind.
`30 Years of Bananas` made us laugh at ourselves. A nation of promise, a nation of excuses. It toured, it sold out, it got quoted in taxis. People left the theatre saying “that was us” and then went back to being us the next morning.
`Wounds of Africa` stripped the romance. It asked about the cost of war, of displacement, of leaders who confuse the country with their house. It was uncomfortable. That was the point.
`Guest of Honour` was the one that made powerful people shift in their seats. Because Mukulu had a way of dressing truth in comedy until the laughter died and you were left with the truth alone.
Those three plays are not just titles. They are chapters in how Uganda has talked about itself.
The Director Nobody Could Fool
If you acted for Mukulu, you worked.
He was infamous for it. Strict. Loud. No time for mediocrity. He would curse you out in rehearsals and then stand in the front row on opening night with his arms folded, daring you to disappoint him.
Actors hated it. Then they thanked him later. Because he produced discipline. He produced stars. Generations of Ugandan performers passed through his hands. Some went to film, some to radio, some to teach. All of them carried some of his arrogance, his timing, his refusal to accept lazy art.
That was his real school. Not a building. A rehearsal room where he told you the audience paid with their transport and their time, so you better earn it.
The Critic Who Wouldn’t Clap
In daily life Mukulu was not a soft man.
He had no patience for people who didn’t read, didn’t think, didn’t ask questions. He said it to their faces. He scorned pretence.
And he was a fierce, consistent critic of President Museveni’s leadership. Not because he hated the man. Because he believed power makes people forget.
His most quoted line says it all:
“When the drums of power beat too loud, the leaders forget that the dancers are human beings with tired legs.”
That’s Mukulu. No sugar. No hiding. Just the image, and you had to deal with it.
For an artist to say that for decades and still get on stage is not common. In Uganda, it’s rare. That’s why young writers, comedians, and activists kept going to him. He showed them you could be critical and still be Ugandan. You could love the country and still fight it on stage.
What We Lose When The Curtain Falls
To the ordinary Ugandan:
We lose the man who translated our frustration into jokes we could repeat. The boda rider who quotes Mukulu at a stage. The market vendor who saw `30 Years of Bananas` and felt seen. Theatre was expensive, but Mukulu made sure the ideas leaked out and reached the street.
To the elite:
We lose a conscience with a microphone. Policy papers are important. But Mukulu did what no report could, he made the contradictions human. He forced ministers, donors, and professors to sit next to students and laugh at the same joke about corruption. That’s dangerous. That’s necessary.
We also lose a bridge. Mukulu belonged to a generation that believed art was public duty. Not content. Not branding. Duty. To record, to warn, to remember.
The Questions He Leaves Behind
His death at 72 feels sudden because giants don’t die quietly.
But the real shock is this: Who picks up the pen now?
Who will write the play about 2026 that makes us uncomfortable?
Who will rehearse a cast until they are tired enough to be honest?
Who will say the thing on stage that everyone is whispering in WhatsApp groups?
The stages in Kampala, in Gulu, in Mbarara will still have lights. But the voice that told us to look at ourselves is gone.
Final Bow
Alex Mukulu told our stories.
He held up the mirror.
He did us proud.
He did not care if you liked him. He cared if you thought.
For that, we owe him more than RIP posts. We owe him seats filled. We owe him new plays that are brave. We owe him students who are as arrogant about excellence as he was.
The curtain has come down on Alex Mukulu.
But in Ugandan theatre, the curtain is never really down. It just waits for the next person brave enough to pull it open.
Fare thee well, Mzee.
