Witness Uganda tells the true story of a young, white do-gooder, Griffin Matthews, who traveled to Uganda after graduating from Carnegie Mellon to help build a school for orphaned kids. Matthews ended up starting his own non-profit aimed at making it possible for those orphans to get a high school or college education. Later, he and his partner, Matt Gould, put together an off-Broadway revue (“Invisible Thread”) aimed at raising money for his cause. He starred in it and Gould served as musical director. That revue has evolved into a full-fledged musical, Witness Uganda, which has just opened at The Wallis with Matthews on keyboard and an African-American actor, Jamar Williams, playing Matthews. Thirteen other actors fill out the cast, all of whom sing, dance and emote in spirited fashion. The story dramatizes the difficulties Matthews encountered in Uganda while trying, with the help of others, to realize his goals: political and religious opposition, homophobia, racial prejudice, corruption, internecine battles, superstition, disease, mosquitoes, fire and death. In the end, despite his non-profit’s valiant, heroic efforts, only a dozen out of millions of Ugandan orphans have been helped. Witness Uganda does not shy away from telling hard truths about life in Africa, but that’s not to say the show is a downer. On the contrary, it emphasizes the humanity, courage and potential of most Ugandans, a people ground down by one dishonest, brutal regime after another. A four-piece band, which is, of course, heavy on percussion and drums, underscores the action, which unfolds in one short, staccato-like scene after another. Matthews, who also directed Witness Uganda, was helped mightily by choreographer Abdur-Rahim Jackson, lighting designer David Hernandez, and sound designer Martin Carillo. Together that creative team, aided by some of the cast’s powerhouse voices—notably Jamar Williams, Emma Hunton as Ryan, Matthew’s white sidekick, and Amber Iman as Joy, an African matriarch—have brought considerable theatrical magic to the stage. Matthews and Gould wrote two dozen songs for the show. Sung in English and, at times, Ugandan, they are somewhat uneven in quality, but when they work, they worked exceedingly well.
