The Tramping Man + Duenne

 I happened to be in Guyana when the Theatre Guild put on a production after a hiatus due to COVID. Both productions had a strong Trinidadian link and the former was written 60 yrs ago and adapted to Guyanese circumstances.

Duenne, I was later told, is used as a CXE book for Literature and explores themes of relationships and what happens in pre-life. The stage was set closer to the audience and gave a more intimate feel with the actors utilizing all parts of the auditorium, reminding me of the warehouse theatres in London-- sadly mostly closed down. I thought the actors were very good - having to shift scenes in near darkness!

The play opened with the Creator getting ready to send one of his creations to earth and we were also introduced to the recipient of this creation - an artist living a bohemian life. Luckily I am not a parent but I wondered how I would feel about the description of (happy!) post-coital musings to my 15 yr old. My view is that the young of today already have the joys of childhood stripped away from them way too fast. Another friend who attended observed to me that the average 15yr old in Guyana would have been exposed to enough sexual views just riding the minibuses! Sheltered middle class must be a dying breed?

The spirit child was not keen on leaving her comfortable existence but as her father God explained - how could she be said to exist if her presence on earth is not manifest? Our bohemian artist meanwhile been abandoned by her 'love' and finds herself pregnant with all the misgivings about her condition being voiced. Meanwhile the spirit child has had a change of heart and is prepared to manifest as an earthly presence and tries to console the potential mother although they are in different planes of existence. I liked that the Guyanese description of 'throw the baby away' was worked in and kudos to Paloma for an original play with a nod to the Trinidadian concept of duenne.

The Tramping Man I had a bigger problem with as the only noticeable Indian actor in both plays was the policeman who was carrying out orders of his commandant to bully the happy go lucky and probably mystical working class local 'Pied Piper' of all men. The blurb in the program explained the play was written 60yrs ago most probably while the writer was in Trinidad. The play was re-written using Guyanese locations and must have been performed around the mid to latter part of the 1960s.

Before I proceed, I should point out my background: I was brought to Guyana as a 4yrs old after my mother was appalled when my older brother came home to ask her 'what is a paki' - being called that at a school she gave up her career to become a teacher in -  a private Kindergarten. I think at that time I did not question why most visible public people were white and it never occurred to me the complete change in colour of the population when we moved to Guyana. HOWEVER, when the maid took me to the Empire Cinema around the corner from the rented house we were living in - my first Indian movie was a complete RELEVATION- here were Indian people doing regular things - and covering the whole spectrum - the goodies, the baddies, the comics and ordinary roles! Somehow my 5 yr old self now had a picture of how Life could be.  My Nigerian friend in London amused me in 1996 by buying black magazines to scatter around the home so her toddler could also have these positive images. 

The local Guyanese newspapers both at that time and now have mainly pictures of people of African origin and mixed races. It has always irked me how the images never reflected the silent and largely bullied majority - thanks US and UK.  Today's Stabroek News has a letter with this observation: 'George Lamming argued that the Anglo-Saxon was taken over by the Afro-Saxon in the Caribbean since little has changed. This is the birth of neo-colonialism.'  In London currently the pendulum has swung completely the other way to ridiculous where Anne Boleyn is black and when practically every family in TV Ads is a Black and White mix, in spite of the population having more people looking like they came from the Indian sub-continent than the African one - however with a lot of Africa planning on jumping on little boats to get to Europe and the UK - I m guessing that might change and it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But back to the play, the main story is that the powers that be are threatened by a country (Berbice) upstart who is uniting the masses cutting across class lines. As a Guyanese, the play would make more sense to me if the Indian actor was the Tramping Man upsetting the status quo - that would represent pre-independence Guyana.  However I concede that he was not as good an actor in terms of projecting his voice as the actor who did play the Tramping Man. One can argue that the audience ought to look past the race of the actor but in the Guyanese context  - post 1998 certain segments of the black working class took to tramping the streets at the behest of Hoyte as he had lost the elections and I thought having a Indian police in this play represented the perception of the Government at that time as promoted by Hoyte.

My friend who was also there said it never occurred to him about the significance of the race of the actor who was the police and thought he represented the colonial powers and I suppose the tramping man those colonies agitating for independence.

Poison for the Fairies

This was a more modern Mexican film than the previous ones shown at the Mexican Embassy in Guyana. The Ambassador explained that this film was released about the same time they started the Film Institute to celebrate Mexico’s film industry making this year its 40th anniversary.

The film started with one isolated, orphaned child, Verónica, being assigned to help a late comer, Flavia, who was also an only child and a bit of a loner. Veronica’s imagination is encouraged by the tales of witches by her nanny but she is also fairly strong willed and manipulative and gradually starts to dominate and bully Flavia who becomes scared to resist her.

Veronica makes Flavia get her invited to Flavia’s family’s ranch for the holidays and the girls spend a lot of time collecting witchy ingredients to make a potion to kill the fairies as they have the power to kill witches. The idea being to sprinkle the potion on any places where the fairies might hang out. Of course the girls break the parents’ rules but the film concentrates mainly on the girls’ activities and the mainly faceless adults seem oblivious to gradual domination and change of character of Flavia. The final straw for Flavia is the demand for her beloved pet - a small black dog, who Verónica thinks would be a good substitute for the traditional witches’ black cat to help with the spell. There was an unexpected twist at the end. The Ambassador  revealed at the end that the actress playing Verónica went on the be one of the famous telenovela actresses in Mexico who specialised in playing villainesses!