By JAMES LEE WAH

I first saw Trevor Rhone’s Two Can Play in the 80s when, if my memory serves me right, Trevor himself brought his production, I believe to The Little Carib Theatre. I remember enjoying it but I did not think it was a great play. Recently, in memory of Trevor’s passing, I had to direct it for the San Fernando Theatre Workshop and nothing focuses the mind as much as directing. I now believe it to be a great piece of writing and a gem of a play. I believe all West Indian men and women should read it or better yet see it. Why? Because it is an intelligent and thoughtful dissection of one of the most important institutions of the Caribbean, namely marriage. It provides interesting answers to vexed questions like: - “What do women want?” or “What do men want?” and not forgetting “How to satisfy a woman?”
Let me start at the beginning to take a look at that intriguing title- Two Can Play. The simplest interpretation is that Rhone is describing his ability and his decision to write a play with only two characters, a theatrical feat.  He affirms that two are enough to build a drama with.  But one can’t resist the feeling that there is more to the title than that.  I think Rhone is playing with our minds, playing in fact with the word, play.   Not only double entendre but perhaps quadruple entendre.
Play engages the major portion of our lives.  We spend so much of our lives fantasizing.  That’s why we invented television.  Think of the countless fictions we regale ourselves with until sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between fiction and reality.  In fact, fiction has a reality of its own.
The word “play” is used in a bewildering variety of contexts.  Sometimes meaning is elusive.  “He is a player”, I heard recently.  Does that refer to teamwork or something sinister?  Play is also used in the vernacular in many ways e.g. “Play mas”, “Play the arse,” “Play whe”, “Play dead to ketch cobo  alive”, “Play fair”, “Play dirty”,  “Two can play that game”, “Two can play with themselves”.
Let me hazard a guess at Rhone’s intentions.  He seems to imply that people, whatever their differences of gender, race or culture, can get together, can work things out between them and achieve a true partnership of equality and respect for one another.  Perhaps something less than the mystical union of the Christian idea “Two shall become one flesh”, but something enduring and enriching.
Yes, we know marriage often does work, although increasingly in modern society the number of divorces is rising.  But traditional marriages worked because women did not speak up and challenge the status quo.  Rhone does not leave us with wishful thinking.  He actually shows us a couple coping with the stresses and strains and learning, even though late in their marriage, how to have an exciting and productive relationship.

SET/ CHARCTERS/ STRUCTURE/ PLOT

I don’t know if Rhone wrote the play with these considerations in mind, but one notices an underlying symmetry in the play’s shape. The set has two main areas, the bedroom and the dining table, perhaps to reflect the basic preoccupations of married life, sex and food.

The play is constructed in two acts, each with its main movement or progression.
Act I depicts a movement away from the problems of daily life in Jamaica, ending with the decision to migrate.
Act II takes up story of the couple’s initiatives in outwitting the U.S. customs and immigration system. Gloria goes to the U.S.A. and succeeds in arranging a fake marriage to a U.S. citizen. But Gloria’s return to Jamaica precipitates a revolution in her marriage and leads to a reversal of the earlier decision to migrate. The focus of the second act becomes an examination of their marriage. Eventually new understanding leads to a rekindling of love. Simple! Clear! Effective plot! The old saying that character determines action holds true.

CHARACTERS

Jim and Gloria are ordinary folks. I mean that they are typical Caribbean people, lower middle class verging on the edge of poverty. Jim works as a telephone technician. Gloria is a “simple” housewife. They have managed by “hard scrabble” to build their own house and by even harder sacrifice to smuggle their children into the U.S.A. where they think opportunities for a better life exist.

JIM
Jim is the victim of traditional ideas of what being a man means. As “head” of the family, he sees himself as the boss, “The General”. He makes decisions, takes control, and lays down the law. His wife exists to provide his comforts i.e. sex, food, children as well as for cleaning and managing the house.

He plays the role with a certain flair. He is boastful and thinks highly of himself. One can imagine him holding forth on politics and life etc. among his friends when they meet at the rum shop. He has an “outside woman”. He sees himself as smart and being a good citizen, a good father and a good husband.

GLORIA
When we first meet her, Gloria is cast in the role of the traditional wife and mother, giving way to her husband in most matters. That is the conventional wisdom: - the man must lead. There are some indications, however, that she does not always agree with Jim’s decisions. When Jim sent the children to the U.S.A., he gave specific instructions that they shouldn’t attempt to communicate for fear that the illegality of their presence in that country would be discovered. But Gloria, with the help of Jim’s father, worked out a system to keep in contact through coded letters. When Jim is reluctant to go out at night to get medicine from a doctor to treat his ailing father, Gloria undertakes to go in his place. This is in keeping with the sacrificial role played by women whenever calamity threatens the family, whenever someone falls ill or dies. The woman is nurse and comforter.

THE MAIN THEME

At the end of Act I, after the trauma of having to brave gun battles in the streets of Kingston at night in order to get medication for his dying father and later after the near “Death at a Funeral” experience in order to bury his father, Jim proclaims “The …..politician and the ……. gunman  not controlling my life anymore. I taking control.” His idea of taking control is pure escapism i.e. to migrate to the U.S.A.

It is Gloria, in her longing to see her children, who takes the initiative and does all the hard work to get to the U.S.A. and undertakes a fake marriage to a U.S. citizen. The trip to the U.S.A. opens Gloria’s eyes and on her return, she decides to “take control” of her marriage. She refuses to go into the same old relationship and lays down new rules.
“Is time you stop treating me like sh**t”,
“When I say no, I mean NO!”
“Is twenty years of feed meh, feed meh! Dat done”
“Why I shud mek you subject me to be nutten  but a damn dishwasher?”

She condemns his selfishness. She insists that Jim does his share of cooking and cleaning. She wants to be courted again. Jim is totally confused by the new Gloria. Instead of coping with Jamaican politics, Jim finds himself contending with the politics of his marriage. One of the most interesting scenes in the play is a moment when they cook a meal together and reminisce about their early courting days when Jim used to take Gloria to the park to play cricket. Gloria expresses regret that Jim never allowed her to bat. Jim replies that women cannot bat and that their job is to field.

So old habits die hard. He tries to reassert his authority. Fortunately we are spared the violence and death that is usual in such situations. He vindictively smashes Gloria’s best plates. But the most telling blow to his macho self image comes when she tells him that he has never satisfied her sexually. In a rage, he tries (unsuccessfully) to rape her. At this point it seems that the marriage has ended.

But Gloria perseveres and prevails. Her adroit handling of the situation finally dismantles the role Jim has chosen for himself, the role of “The General”. He comes to a new appreciation of his wife’s value and out of the new understanding, love is rekindled.

SUMMARY

What Rhone has done in this play is to give a voice to all women who throughout history have been devalued and undervalued by men. I said earlier that Jim and Gloria were ordinary folks. But Gloria emerges as a true hero. She exhibits a wonderful capacity to re-invent herself, liberate herself from oppression and transform a hopeless situation into a winning one.
She has rare intelligence and a clear vision of what is possible in the institution of marriage. She works with sensitivity and charm to dismantle her husband’s chauvinism and arrogance and to point him in the direction of love. She joins the ranks of those strong women who adorn our classics- “Sophie in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl” and “Flossie in The Rose Slip”, women who are the salt of the earth, women who have the fortitude to endure suffering and deprivation, women who are betrayed and brutalized by men and yet continue to care and love and to hope. They exemplify Denyse Plummer’s calypso- “Woman is Boss”
Anything men can do (Girls can kick balls), women can do as well and often better.

Moloch Tropical, the latest feature film by acclaimed Haitian director Raoul Peck, is one of the nearly 70 films to be screened at the upcoming trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff).
Now in its fifth year, the ttff is an annual celebration of the best in Caribbean filmmaking. The Festival also screens films from the Caribbean Diaspora and Latin American countries in the Caribbean Basin. A number of African films will also be screened, as part of an ongoing heritage initiative which began last year with the screening of films from India.
Inspired by Moloch, Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov’s fictional take on Adolf Hitler, Moloch Tropical details the last hours of the rule of a fictional Haitian leader. Part elegant chamber drama, part absurdist political satire, the film is a scathing, disquieting critique of absolute power and the corrupt legacy of colonial rule.
The trinidad+tobago film festival takes place this year from September 22 to October 5. Venues include MovieTowne Port of Spain, Chaguanas and Tobago, as well as the University of the West Indies, San Fernando Hill and the St James Amphitheatre, among other locations. Apart from film screenings, the Festival includes workshops and discussion panels.
For a full schedule of films and their screening locations and times, go to the Festival’s website at www.trinidadandtobagofilmfestival.com.
A selection of the programme for the ttff/10:
 
Moloch Tropical (Raoul Peck/2009/Haiti)
High up in the mountains of northern Haiti is the towering Citadelle, from where the nation’s autocratic president effects his ruthless reign. On the day that the president is set to welcome a host of foreign dignitaries to commemorate the Haitian Bicentennial, an uprising explodes in the streets. The guests begin to cancel, and the president himself starts to come undone.

Julia and Joyce: Two Stories of Two Dance Pioneers (Sonja Dumas/2010/T&T)
This film looks at aspects of the local dance world and its impact through the eyes of two dance legends, Julia Edwards and Joyce Kirton. A tribute to two pioneering women as much as a history of dance in Trinidad and Tobago.

Hidden Herstories: Women of Change (Multiple directors/2010/United Kingdom)
Profiles of noteworthy women from London’s history, including Amy Ashwood-Garvey, the pan-Africanist and first wife of Marcus Garvey, and Claudia Jones, the Trinidadian activist and “mother” of the Notting Hill Carnival.

Seventeen Colours and a Sitar (Patricia Mohammed & Michael Mooleedhar/2010/T&T)
Painter Rex Dixon and musician Mungal Patasar come together in conversation and find striking similarities in their respective creative processes.

Wole Soyinka: Child of the Forest (Akin Omotuso/2009/Nigeria)
An imaginative and multi-faceted portrait of the great Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Amerindians (Tracy Assing & Sophie Meyer/2010/T&T)
A revealing look inside the Santa Rosa Carib Community, narrated by one of its members.

The Audacity of the Creole Imagination (Kim Johnson/2010/T&T)
This documentary looks at the creation of the steel pan and the milestones along the road to the modern instrument. The tale is told to a score of early pan recordings.

A Regular Black: The Hidden Wuthering Heights (Adam Low/2009/UK)
A provocative examination of Emily Brontë’s classic novel, which looks at the possibility that the book’s hero, Heathcliff, might have been a black slave.

Why do Jamaicans Run so Fast? (Miquel Galofré/2009/Jamaica)
A lively search for the key to Jamaican athletic prowess, as well as a joyful, uplifting tribute
to a nation and its people.

Caribbean Skin, African Identity (Mandisa Pantin/2010/T&T)
An examination of the concept of African identity as it has evolved over time in Trinidad and Tobago. Interviews with African-Caribbean people and scholars help to explain some of the complexities of race in this society.

DAVID CAVE Offers An Artistic Perspective of Miss Universe 2010

LaToya Woods

In August 2010, the stars, moons, planets, and other heavenly bodies were not smiling on Trinidad and Tobago. Latoya Woods and the corporate machinery behind her gambled in Las Vegas and lost; they did not even make it into the first 15 slots. As many Trinbagonians continue to scratch their heads to the point of premature baldness, many others in this beloved land lean back and smile with satisfaction.
This latter the “I told you so” crowd, who filled newspaper pages and online blogs with verbose tirades in the says leading up to the August pageant. Proclaiming a staunch sense of decency, they charged at Ms. Woods’, condemning her risqué topless posing as nothing for our young women to emulate. The hypocrisy of their puritanical position is self-evident; many of these self-righteous do-gooders can be found covered with nothing but bikini and beads come Carnival Monday and Tuesday; or enjoying the view via live TV. The charge against Latoya thus seems to be more about context than action; not what she did but where she did it. It is fine to be virtually naked before Ash Wednesday, but take off your top for an international pageant and there will be hell to pay. The conservatives who yearn for the good ol’ glory days of Penny and Wendy feel vindicated and perhaps stand poised to rub their salient points into the faces of Ms. Woods et al when they return to sweet T&T.
So what does Art have to do with all of this? There were efforts to define the photographs of Ms. Woods as

Josephine Baker

“Art” after they were displayed in print and on the internet. Here I quote the French Modernist Marcel Duchamp of the early 20th Century who once told an interviewer that it is not a question of whether something is art or not, but whether it is good art or bad art. I doubt that we’ll ever see the image Ms. Woods standing on one foot like a featherless flamingo hanging next to a Cazabon painting- but I could be wrong.
I am not here to condemn nor condone the risk taken by our 2010 Miss Universe representative, but like it or not Ms. Woods has made an indelible impact on the iconographic landscape of Trinidad and Tobago. When we hear of Trinidad and Tobago and Miss Universe from now on we are going to think of Penny and her crown, Wendy and her crown and Latoya and her pasties. Notwithstanding the plethora of personal opinions that have been expressed concerning this issue, the controversy will remain. My great fear is that if we do not interrogate this controversy, then we shall be doomed to even more spectacular mistakes on the international stage in the future.
The individuals who expressed their disapproval of Ms Woods’ photos in front of the Mandalay Resort have one significant argument, and that is the issue of exploitation. Western art history over the last two hundred years is rife with what many perceive as the exploitation of non-white women. Take Portrait of a Black Woman by Marie Guillemine Benoist of 1800. This French painting was different, not because of the exposed breast, but more because of the fact that the subject stares directly at the viewer, displaying a degree of frankness and arguable vulnerability. The depiction of a white woman in such a setting would not be seen in art until over sixty years later.

Portrait of a Black Woman by Marie Guillemine Benoist

Moving on to the genre of photography, the first individual to be photographed topless in a public setting was the African-American Josephine Baker. Capturing a white woman in such a context in the early 1920s was considered to be a severe taboo, but doing the same thing to a non-white woman was “exotic”. The subject of Playboy Magazine’s first display of pubic hair was the African-American performer Paula Kelly in August of 1969. Latoya Woods baring her top for a Miss Universe photo shoot clearly represents another part of a historical pattern.
Furthermore, within the Trinidad and Tobago context, Josephine Baker was considered to be the “original showgirl”, and Peter Minshall makes several references to her as a key source of inspiration in his personal notes that were displayed in his Drawing Exhibition of 2006. Minshall also pointed out in an interview with Vernon Ramesar in 2008, that our carnival imagery is caught in a vicious “showgirl” cycle. The stereotypical “showgirl” of Las Vegas who is replete with beads and feathers is a burlesque imitation of the costuming of Josephine Baker. Therefore, for contemporary Carnival Band designers to adhere to the visual paradigm of the Las Vegas showgirl represents a black Trinidadian woman who is imitating a white woman who is, in turn, imitating a black woman. This ridiculous paradox was inherent in Ms. Woods’ National Costume: a well plumed bikini.

By DAVID CAVE

Detail from Carlise Chang’s “The Inherent Nobility of Man”

As we celebrate Emancipation Day, we should remember that our visual expression is a key component of our identity as a liberated people.  Unfortunately, despite the efforts of our artists, their patrons and even the State, our Art is suffering; but this is not news.  We have heard it all before:  the so-called “Starving Artist” calls for more progressive reform, money and enlightened understanding, but after a few cocktail parties and exhibition launchings, cheap hors d’oeuvres and not-so-cheap alcohol, the issues addressed in our art are pushed into the background. What ultimately occupies the centre-stage of our tight and insular community of artists and art aficionados are the art products and the hedonistic context associated with it.  Viewing art, buying it, discussing it, has been reduced to a mildly pleasurable experience bordering on the banal and anodyne.
It is not possible here to deconstruct the past 200 hundred years of our art history in order to explain how our visual art has reached this stage but it is clear that we have a serious problem. Our visual art has changed roles; it is quickly becoming more decoration than expression and is serving a superficial and cosmetic purpose of adornment instead of communicating ideas through an emotive connection with the viewer.  The evidence is all around us. Carnival is today bankrupt of any authenticity because the lack of a creative quest.  There is no narrative, no meaning- just a fleeting attempt to make a quick buck and eat up the excess liquidity of an insatiable society that is mindlessly consuming out of boredom and frustration.
The politicians in power have inflicted their own quota of neglect to Art over the years: Witness the deliberate destruction of Carlisle Chang’s Nobility of Man painting in Piarco Airport, the removal of the installation in the lobby of the Central Bank (also by Carlisle Chang), and the remarkable lack of zeal with which the theft of original Cazabon paintings from President’s House was pursued. 
The greatest lesson that we should take from the NAPA/UDecott fiasco is that money alone will not solve our artistic crisis.  Furthermore, the gimmickry of plastering billboard-sized facsimiles of paintings is nothing more than a short-lived publicity stunt. 
The only long term consequence for these images is succumbing to vandalism or the elements of nature.  Indeed, it is a very undesirable demise for the hard work of the artist.  Imagine the product of one’s intellect and academic training being forced to compete for space and recognition against enticements from a mobile service provider on one side and a pick-up truck on the next. The budding artist, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, can only look forward to temporary publicity now, only to be the victim of the one-trick-pony called the Art Society a couple of years later.  How sad; because there is no space in the National Gallery to display any art on a permanent basis.
So what can be done?  Are there any solutions? I eagerly read the recommendations submitted by Rubadiri Victor on behalf of the Artist Coalition of Trinidad & Tobago (ACTT  to the People’s Partnership before they were voted into power.  The Coalition’s recommendations called for many worthy measures such as the free movement of artists, the reduction/removal of import duties on art supplies and legislative adjustments in support of greater freedom of expression.  Notwithstanding the vision and concern for the development of the Arts expressed in the recommendations, it was hard to avoid cynicism given that it’s all been heard before, in one form or another. We wait to see the response of the new political administration.
 The artistic community also has some responsibility to shoulder. 
One fundamental structural change that is urgently required is the organisation of our art collections.  Almost every prominent museum in the world has a permanent collection that occupies most of the exhibition space with a small section of the building being allocated to a changing collections designed to keep visitors interested and eager to return.  Udecott’s many building projects might well provide ample and appropriate space for housing several art collections where they can be noticed and respected.  “Appropriate” in the art context means arrangements that would ensure accessibility and a sense of permanence in a setting that would make the art pieces marketable.  It is one thing for the Government to spend taxpayers’ money to purchase art, but the greatest travesty is keeping it hidden in a corner where it can’t be viewed by the public.
Further restructuring of our art support mechanism ought to include the management of the curation and sale of local art through a commercial division of the Ministry of Culture that could also handle other lucrative genres such as Music and Film.  Therefore, in addition to the exhibition element, our artists would also benefit from having their work appraised and sold through the national art museums/galleries. Some of the hefty sums spent by the taxpaying public on building these edifices may be recovered through the sale of art which would benefit both the State and the artist.
After almost 50 years of independence we still have to ask ourselves, where is our iconography, where is our visual locus in the world?  This crisis of our creative expression is real, but like some dirty secret, while we know it is present, we feel uncomfortable speaking about it.  For me, the best form of intervention available to us is to take hold of the organisational structure of our art scene.  There is no doubt that while passion and talent continue to abound, and good quality art is always being created here, the visual art sector lacks the perpetually supportive environment that is needed for it to flourish. 
The urgent requirement now, as always, is for a coherent policy for the visual arts. As Leroy Clarke said in his 1977 essay We Mas Dey Carnival, “The tail does not wag the dog”.  If an intervention is required to awaken the relatively dormant state of our art compared to what we have experienced in the past decades, then the active participation of all participants in the art scene is required: artists, patrons, art-lovers and academics as well as professionals in other fields such as Law, Accountancy, Marketing and Economics, Engineering and Management. 
In order for the Arts to serve a wider community, a wider community needs to get involved in the Arts in order to ensure its long term viability and success. Our Art is in a crisis, but we must not lose sight of the fact that it is a crisis that can be met with the resources that are immediately available to us.

The exhibition entitled “Out of One Many (II)” that was held at the Horizons Art Gallery from 13th to 24th April was a bold initiative by the gallery to showcase the art of our Caribbean neighbours.  Apart from the Medianet’s Haitian Art fundraiser, it has been quite some time since this has been done.  If memory serves me right, the last non-Trinidadian exhibition held by Horizons had a St. Lucian focus and that was a few years ago.

Nonetheless, kudos to Horizons for taking the road less travelled by the art gallery fraternity of Trinidad and Tobago and, in the process, broadening our appreciation of Caribbean Art while developing additional insight into how the art of Trinidad and Tobago fits into this wider sphere of regional creative expression.

Out of One Many (II) was a spectacular affair, featuring approximately ten works per painter from eleven artists.  The list was impressive and featured Richard Hall, Coyotito Bennett, Edwin McAlpin, Robert Armstrong, Alphanso Blake, Michael Brooks, John Walters, Elpedio Robinson, Ki Blackdoor, and Michael Layne.  In addition to the wide gamut of artwork on display at this exhibition, it was even more impressive to witness the diversity displayed by some of the individual artists.  For example, although Richard Hall’s work was fairly uniform in terms of line and gesture, the subject matter varied immensely from static poses to landscapes to dynamic movement.  Hall’s pieces proved that he mastered the fine balance between consistency and variation, achieving a remarkable sensation of realism through the use of thick brushstrokes that are usually reserved for abstract expressionism. The work of Robert Armstrong offered even more diversity, for this artist makes it clear that he is capable of shifting between pure abstraction and credible realism.

Another notable piece is the landscape by Michael Brooks entitled “Aripo River.”  The work, obviously referencing Trinidad, stresses on an all-embracing fusion of Trinidad and Jamaica.  It is the Trinidadian landscape as seen through Jamaican eyes and it looks realistic and convincing.  This is a profound statement.  While there are several differences between Jamaica and Trinidad, the cultural and therefore intellectual similarities stress upon our Caribbean identity or as some intellectuals put it, our “Caribbeanness.”

It is this similarity that might have encouraged Horizons to host exhibitions of this nature.  Furthermore, as Brooks represents the Trinidadian landscape through Jamaican eyes, it is absolutely important to analyse this exhibition from a Trinidad and Tobago perspective and context.  In this regard, it might have been useful to have these Jamaican works standing in contrast to some Trinidadian counterparts. The variety and idyllic harmony of Hall and others could have been juxtaposed against the idealism and nostalgia of a Boscoe Holder or a David Moore, for example. Now that would take an exhibition to a whole new level of excitement.

A Short Story By Peter Espinet

This morning I saw a long line of Mini Minors heading north, on their way to one of the beaches between Matura and Matelot, most likely Sans Souci, where currently there’s a surfboard competition. I counted fifteen identical cars, except that each one sported a different pattern of dare-devil colours. I hadn’t imagined that there were so many Minis left in Trinidad, decades after the last brand new one had made its appearance, but Squint, who was sitting on the steps of the Community Centre with me, said that there was a “Mini Club” based in Port of Spain, and that to keep their vintage cars operating members of the club had to import replacement parts from England, the home of the mother of all Mini Clubs.
Somehow the information, coming right after the parade of vividly painted autos, was like a ray of sunshine on the greyness of creeping old age. I happen to like Minis, in fact all tiny cars that look and sound like toys, because their very playfulness makes their owners look silly if they take themselves too seriously. Some men believe it is very macho to drive big automobiles, but when I expressed this view to Squint he scoffed at my naivety. “You must be joking,” he said, “the new class of car aficionados regard the Mini as the most macho of all. In a sense, it is a case of the smaller the bigger. Besides, you have to be real rich to afford a Mini nowadays- if you’re lucky to get one that works. You might have to settle for third, fourth or even fifth hand, otherwise you have to practically make one yourself, and that’s no job for amateurs. First you have to find a shell somewhere, and pay mucho dinero for it, especially if it in mint condition. Then the engine and harness, and don’t talk about magnum rims and other expensive fittings, plus the loudest sound system available, if you want to be in style… Trust me, you could end up spending as much money as you would pay for a B.M.W., like what Lara have.”
 I figure Squint was exaggerating, as usual. He didn’t get his nickname for nothing: he always took a narrow view of things. But after listening to him, I changed my mind about saying that a long, long time ago, when I first got married, I used to own a Mini. It was a dull, nondescript colour, and if I remember correctly my wife and I only paid four hundred dollars for it, but although far from being in mint condition it worked almost perfectly. The chief problems we had were the limited space inside, and that Minis come with only two doors. This was no hassle as long as we didn’t pick up passengers, but if we saw a friend on the road, walking or waiting for a taxi, and we stopped to offer him or her a ride, my wife had to first get out of the car, before our friend could get into the back seat.
At first she didn’t complain because in those days friends were few and far between, but when my wife got pregnant, and her belly got bigger and bigger, she resented having to get out and back into the car for everybody I saw fit to offer a ride, and the truth is I began to offer more and more people rides, friend or no friend, and if they gave me a tip for the convenience, so much the better. After all, we had to borrow the money to buy the car, and the loan had to be repaid, and with my wife going through the process of literally bursting in two, I began to plan for the day when there would be an extra mouth to feed.
This last point has to be kept in mind in order to fully understand why it came to pass that I agreed to transport a goat. Its owner was offering a whole twenty dollars, the distance I had to take it wasn’t great, and since he was a neighbour of ours ? its owner, not the goat- well technically speaking I guess the goat was our neighbour too, a detail which I pointed out to my wife in the aftermath of the whole fiasco, not that it did any good ? I couldn’t very well refuse.

Frankly, I saw no reason why I should tell my wife about the goat. She had a job at the library and while she was busy stamping cards and pretending not to notice that some returned books were overdue, I made necklaces and bracelets with natural materials in a little workshop we had set-up in the living room of a house we rented in Union Hall. My daily routine was to make sure she got to work by eight o’clock, drive back home and start drilling, cutting and stringing bamboo and beads and continue virtually non-stop until close to four, when it was time to go for her where she awaited me at Library Corner in San Fernando. All well and good, but on this particular day I intended to break the routine by taking a ram to meet a ewe in a village called Papoure. A straight-forward arrangement, to my way of thinking, and I certainly didn’t see any reason why my wife should know anything about it. I felt instinctively that she would raise objections. For instance she might sarcastically inquire if we had purchased a livestock cart, instead of a family coupe. And I shuddered to think what she might have to say about my being a sort of pimp for barnyard animals. No, on the whole the less she knew about this deal the better. As for the extra twenty dollars coming into our budget, I could always claim that I had found it in a long forgotten pants pocket, or something…

But as things turned out, that morning my wife decided to stay home. She said that she needed a break from work, and also there were a few chores in the house she had left undone for too long, and anyway the Carnegie Free Library owed her a little holiday after all the unpaid overtime she had put in when batches of new books came in that had to be “classified” and “catalogued” and whatever. While I agreed with her in principle, it meant that I would have to come up with a plausible excuse for going out.  I considered one pretext after another, but in the end I didn’t see the need to give any explanation. I would just say that I’d be gone for a short while on an errand, and with her being preoccupied with her chores, she’d probably just let me leave without too many questions. After all, if she weren’t home I’d be fully in charge, free to go wherever I pleased, wouldn’t I?
That saying about the best laid plans of mice and men going astray is really true. Or, in this case, men and goats. Just as I getting into the car, having informed my wife that I was going for something, without waiting around to hear what she had to say, she popped her head out a window and shouted: “Wait for me!”
What the hell was I to do? The short answer to that is nothing. I had no alternative but to take her along, but ever the optimist, I told myself that the thing might still go smoothly, as long as I didn’t make a big production of it. I would simply stop the car a few houses down the road and ask my wife to open the door and get out briefly for a passenger. I needn’t go into details about the nature of the passenger, and if she noticed that he was a ram, well, by then it would be too late for objections. I didn’t anticipate any difficulty in getting the animal to fit into the back seat either, because its owner had assured me that it was used to travelling, having done that sort of thing many times before, being a “pedigree” in high demand by owners of fertile females. At the time I had my doubts that it had ever gone to service in a vehicle as restricted as a Mini before, but didn’t voice them. For the sake of the cash I would’ve been willing to accommodate a giraffe.
The goat was standing all by itself behind a fence in my neighbour’s yard. I was taken aback a little by this until I remembered that he had said that he had to leave to catch the early bus to Pointe-a-Pierre where he worked, but that I wasn’t to worry, his pet would give no trouble. I wouldn’t have to shove it in or anything, it would just treat my car like a taxi and hop in. I must admit that when he was explaining these things in an off-hand, casual way I was only half listening, so maybe that is why it didn’t register that there was something peculiar about a goat taking a taxi. All I was thinking about was my fee, which in those days represented more money than my wife made in a day.
“Why are you stopping here?” she asked right away, as I pulled up in a position to allow the goat to get a clear view of the car. I was sort of hoping that she wouldn’t be paying all that much attention, distracted as she ought to have been by her own concerns, but I should’ve known better, my wife was the kind of person who would pay attention to my activities no matter what.
“That’s strange,” I said, trying to sound surprised. “Boodram’s goat seems to be heading our way.”
“Never mind the goat,” she said, not even looking in its direction, “what are we waiting for?”
It was time to stop pretending. “Would you mind opening your door?” I asked politely.
“What for?”
 “For it to get in.” At last she took her eyes off me and turned around to stare straight into the eyes of the goat, which by then had marched up to her window and was regarding her with a slightly amused expression. My wife however was far from amused, but I was thinking that no further explanation was necessary, and I was correct.   
“That?” she said, pointing at the long, hairy face confronting her own. But she made no move to do as I had asked. And the goat was beginning to look offended. His whole manner suggested that the sooner we got on with it, the better, and I was of the same opinion. We were at an impasse. I was just making up my mind to try and get it to come around to my side, when my wife abruptly opened her door and got out, with the usual awkwardness caused by her pregnancy. For its part the goat, just as its owner had said would be the case, had little trouble getting in. As soon as I pushed the back rest forward, to make room for it, it squeezed in and made itself comfortable on the back seat.
“Drive,” I thought I heard it say in a low, macho voice, but I couldn’t be certain because my wife was speaking at the time.
“… that this drive would be different,” she was saying, as she got back into the car, “but I had no idea how different it was going to be. You never cease to amaze me, the scrapes you get into. Well, I intend to see this one through to the end. Where are you taking Mr. Ram?”
I eased the car into gear, wondering how to put it diplomatically. It did occur to me that if the goat’s gender was that obvious, then so was its mission, but on the other hand the fact that it was male didn’t necessarily mean it had sex on its mind. My wife, though, might’ve thought otherwise. She tended to think that that is all I ever thought of. Whichever way I looked at it, the situation called for discretion, but as I approached Cross Crossing, taking the long way around to Papoure Village, playing for time, she saved me from having to answer by saying, “Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just drive. God, how hot it is!”
 I risked a quick glance at her, to satisfy myself that it was only the weather she was referring to, and not our passenger. I needn’t have worried, though; the goat, far from panting with amorous anticipation, was sitting back against the upholstery, as cool as you please. It looked as if it was there strictly for the ride. And despite everything, so did my wife. In fact, she was taking things much more calmly that I had expected. Perhaps she didn’t see the point of raising difficulties, since in her experience all my escapades had a way of resolving themselves. Whatever the reason for her apparent resignation, or indifference, or whatever made her so relaxed, I thanked my lucky stars and drove on.
“Why is he watching me like that?” my wife suddenly asked. We were driving pass a row of roadside coconut vendors, so I looked out to see whom she meant. Men were always ogling my wife, even when she was seated next to me, moving away from them at thirty miles an hour or more, but on this occasion I observed no would-be Romeo. People were busily going about their affairs, paying no attention to our little Mini with a goat in it buzzing by.
“I mean your goat. He’s staring at me in the rear-view mirror.”
“He’s not my goat,” I told her. “And the only reason he’s watching you is because you’re watching him.” My wife had adjusted the mirror to reflect what was going on behind her head, not what was going on behind the driver’s, which was hazardous, as she very well knew. It was not the first time she had done it. Sometimes she treated the rear view mirror as an instrument to help her complete her face on its way to work, and I’d admonish her for the illegal practice, not that it ever did any good.
 I re-adjusted the mirror and we drove along in a constrained silence for a while.
“I only wanted to see what he’s up to, back there,” she muttered, and added, in a more assertive tone. “A good thing too, otherwise I wouldn’t have caught him eying me.”
No comment. I could think of nothing neutral to say, so we continued in an even more tense silence. Then gradually I became aware that there were three of us in the front seat, or rather three heads: mine, my wife’s and the goat’s! It had wedged itself between our shoulders and to make matters worse its lips were peeled back in a sly grin, exposing huge yellow teeth, and what was worst, long beads of dribble were descending on us, mostly on my wife. I got the uneasy feeling that as we were approaching our destination the ram’s libido, held in check until then, was taking over.
Years later, long after my wife had divorced me, that particular phase of the bizarre episode would return to haunt me, I don’t know why. Maybe it was because at that point the quadruped appeared to be in charge, or at least to be on equal footing ? or heading ? with the humans in the car. This is not meant to imply that it had anything directly to do with the divorce, although my wife did mention the incident to my lawyer, who after that seemed disinclined to represent me, but in retrospect I think that he was more shocked by the speed with which the goat had done its job than by my involvement in the affair, but I’m getting ahead of the story…
Luckily by then before the ram could commit any more outrages on the person of my wife we had arrived at the scene of the rendezvous. It was a small wooden house exactly like the one described to me by Mr. Boodram, and if any further confirmation was needed, there was a she-goat tied outside. But I looked around in vain for the owner of the ewe. The front door of the house was closed, but both windows on either side of it were open, so presumably the owner, according to Mr. Boodram “a thin Creole lady”, was at home, but out of sight, perhaps at the back of the building somewhere.
“Blow the horn,” my wife said, wiping dribble from her arm with an old rag, and forgetting for the moment that the Mini, manufactured on the theory that no frills equalled quality performance, had finally passed into our hands minus a number of necessities, including a horn, which was one of the reasons why we had gotten it so cheaply. But before I could tactfully remind my wife of this deficiency, without seeming to find ways to increase her irritation, the ram, apparently aroused beyond patience by the sight of the ewe tethered to a stake in the yard, looking so tempting and available, began to butt the inside of the car.
“Get out and let that damn beast do its business before it breaks the glass!” my wife ordered me, and I couldn’t get out fast enough. As soon as it was clear of the car Mr. Ram made a beeline for the object of his desire, and before you could say “Jack Robinson” twice he had mounted, ejaculated and begun cropping grass at her side as if they had been married for years (even though she looked curiously at him). As my wife, who was wearing a watch and had timed the “nuptials,” later testified, it was all over in five seconds flat.
“Thank God,” was her only comment at the time, “if we had gotten here a second later it might have…” but she didn’t finish the sentence, and I couldn’t bear to think of the consequences myself.

RUBADIRI VICTOR Outlines the Case Of How The NAPA Fiasco May Have Dealt A  Fatal Blow to the Manning Administration rubadiri@yahoo.com
It began with one headline declaring NAPA a Tragedy of epic proportions and it continued with a running battle, with the Minister of Community Development , Culture and Gender Affairs and the interim President of the Artists Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago trading blows throughout various media. In the end the battle surrounding the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) captivated the population and punctured one if the most prized accomplishments of the Prime Minister and his government. ACTT interim president Rubadiri Victor takes us behind the scenes of the battle of NAPA that the organization did not know was about to happen.

The esteem that the average Trinbagonian has for local art and culture has plummeted to an all time low over the last 15 years. Even in the midst of an unprecedented boom when other countries might be debating quality of life issues and aesthetics, the people of T&T remained in the grip of bread-and-butter issues: health, roads, water, crime. The emergence of the cultural industries of music, Television and film as pathways to employment and economic diversification remain abstract and unreal to Trinis.
With this as the Trini ‘default mode’, it is passing strange then that the singular protagonist that has propelled so much of the nation’s convulsions, maturation and self revelation in the last couple of months has been the bastard child- Culture. Culture in the form of the home for the Arts that is supposed to be the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) on the old Princes Building Grounds.
One might debate whether it was NAPA that set in motion the ound of events that led to the Rowley controversy and the Commission of Enquiry (hotel at NAPA). It was also NAPA that, arguably helped propel the government into collapse mode upon the revelation of its multi-million dollar flaws.
I daresay that whatever the result of the next election NAPA will continue to be the lightning rod and centre of the country’s stirrings and that until the issues at the heart of NAPA are resolved the country shall not know peace. This is so because our leaders may just have trespassed seriously on something very sacred- the very soul of the nation.

THE ROAD TO COLLAPSE
It is strange. After all, Art would seem not to matter much to the modern Trinbagonian. The knee-jerk protectionist way we talk about ‘Culture’ seems very much an echo of an earlier time when we actually used to believe in it. In the heady thrust of the 2020-bound T&T- ‘Art and Culture’ seem to be an also-ran in the race for what matters. This is why the events of the last year have been so extraordinary.
In April 2008 Prime Minister Manning dismissed his standing Minister of Trade and Industry under the pretext of ‘wajang behaviour’. MP Rowley would later explain that the real reason for his dismissal was his query into a 60-room hotel that had mysteriously appeared in the architectural plans for NAPA. The hotel’s out-of-timing architectural inclusion soon became a symbol of the unfettered, unaccountable influence of the Calder Hart, an executive  man who appeared to act with the full authority and protection of the prime. The NAPA issue thus uncovered not only the extraordinary powers granted to Calder Hart, but also an administration itself gone rogue.

Things collapsed further. NAPA then opened the door for the phenomenal Commission of Enquiry into UDECOTT. This televised Commission was an extraordinary eye-opener to the dealings of big boys, big money and government high handedness- standing naked before public opinion.
Throughout it all, the issue of  NAPA as artistic endeavour disappeared. In the billion dollar cut-and-thrust, the issue was reduced to money. Nonetheless the Artists Coalition of T&T (ACTT) appeared before the Commission to place its quest to make NAPA purpose-built as an immortal part of the public record. ACTT’s submissions were not mentioned in the mainstream press at all which was more interested in Hart’s private guided tours of the facility for Professor Uff- the final time even breaching protocol to do so. So obsessive was their need to sell NAPA as the jewel in the crown. It would prove to be of no avail.
NAPA was subsequently opened for the very purpose for which it had been appropriated from Art - the opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). The facility was introduced with major fanfare and a multi-million dollar show by Brian MacFarlane. The PM and Calder Hart believed that the spectacular show had done its due- the building was declared a ‘masterpiece’ and the PM then went all over the world proclaiming it so. The stakeholder concerns were still being frozen out of the media. As far as the public was concerned all was well. One poll put NAPA’s national popularity rating at 85%. Shortly thereafter another poll declared Minister of Culture Marlene MacDonald the most popular of government ministers. In short months all this would be in tatters…
Meanwhile hundreds of complaints were coming into ACTT from producers, technicians, actors, dancers, senior UTT professors and administrators, and visiting experts. NAPA was grievously flawed just as the artists had warned and predicted for five years. Publicly, however, the government’s propaganda machine rolled on and was now being used to push forward $3 Billion of more cultural buildings. All massively flawed. Work began again on the San Fernando NAPA; and the Savannah Carnival Centre was announced with an April start-date. Plans became advanced for a 200 Community Centre building spree and the secretive John D NAPA. It was full steam ahead with the wind in the sails of the government given the trumpeted declaration that NAPA was a masterpiece.
Meanwhile artist representative groups were trying to do what they could- given the fact of being locked out of the media. An ACTT report was compiled of all the complaints. On Sunday 17th January 2010, four generations of theatre and dance practitioners gathered at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) for a seminar entitled The Way Forward. Part of this exercise involved a tour of the NAPA facility for the first time by the stakeholders who are supposed to be its priority tenants. The tour confirmed many of the complaints and the ACTT Report was finalized.
For five years, the Manning administration had refused to meet with stakeholders to discuss NAPA. The Minister of Culture had refused even to reply to ACTT correspondence. The PM himself, in turn, deferred all matters to the Minister. There was no dialogue with the government on the billions of dollars of mistakes they were about to make. An audience sought with the President His Excellency Professor Max Richards  was granted in March. The President asked what he could do; ACTT suggested a statement. But he wanted to do more and offered to try to get the parties to sit and meet. We eagerly accepted the offer. But events were going to overtake even this.

From 2005 to 2010 artists had sent in 40 press releases to the daily press voicing our concerns about NAPA- not one release ever came out. With a track record like that we did not expect that our 45-page Report was going to get any kind of visibility. The ACTT executive did not even meet to discuss a strategy as to how to get the Report heard. The only interest shown in the Report at this time was the T&T Review- whose deadline had actually helped speed up the Report’s finishing! The Report was distributed to about 5 people- friends. It was these people who started circulating the Report online. Soon it was spreading like wildfire.
Despite all efforts for NAPA to be used as a smokescreen NAPA was about to raise real fire again…
On Sunday March 14th- five years after the first objections to NAPA were raised- the artists got their first report in the papers. This time without trying. It was the Page One lead story with the headline: NAPA TRAGEDY: $80 Million in Flaws. The Report had succeeded where 40 press releases hadn’t. From the moment the Newsday headline broke, and for the next four weeks, it was war. The back and forth in the papers, radio and TV and through press conferences made it clear that something massive was at stake. How big that ’something’ was no one could have predicted.

INSIDE THE WAR FOR HEARTS AND MINDS

The government’s response was swift and the next day saw dueling press conferences. The Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) led by Winston Riley scented blood and, on the heels of the Prime Minister calling for an all-out war with the local construction sector, called ACTT to join a major media conference. The conference was a massive show of force by the local construction sector which resulted in the PM recanting his earlier call to war the following day. At the same time the Minister of Culture, Marlene MacDonald was called into service to defend NAPA- even though her Ministry only oversees less than 1/3rd of the facility and she herself was not in office when any of the shenanigans had gone down. All players knew that the buck really stopped at the offices of the Prime Minister and  Calder Hart. 

The Minister’s press conference accused the head of ACTT of being a closet politician and tool of the Opposition while claiming that there had been widespread stakeholder consultation and no flaws. Within hours, ACTT was responding with a media conference of its own.
ACTT’s conference stood by the findings and spirit of the Report and turned its gaze upon the sitting Minister of Culture. It revealed that the Minister had seem to glory in making stakeholders cry with abusive and bullying ways- shouting and raging at innocent citizens and senior practitioners. It revealed a policy of interaction which had silenced thousands of practitioners by fear of reprisals; of panyards being seized; of meager state subventions being cut or reduced; by the threat of losing jobs; by a withholding of patronage. The fearlessness with which ACTT expressed these truths freed many stakeholders from their bondage and loosened tongues.
The Ministry then launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign on TV and newspaper making a number of claims and disparaging ACTT and its principal. ACTT not having any budget for such a salvo relied on free radio and TV talk-shows. This was a war for the hearts and minds of the population. Within two weeks the Ministry’s campaign lay in ruins.
The Minister of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs issued ads claiming that cultural stakeholder groups had been consulted on NAPA. The following groups publicly denied her claim: National Dance Association of T&T; Pan Trinbago; National Music Festival; SWAHA; Secondary Schools Drama Fest; Emancipation Support Committee; National Council of Indian Culture.. and more.
In the press and media respected artists were stepping forward to endorse ACTT’s positions. Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Dave Williams, who had performed at the opening ceremony of the CHOGM described aspects of the design of NAPA as “dangerous” for dancers and criticised the building as being “nothing more than a very ornate twig”.
He said: “…the NAPA stage has featured dangerous gaps in (its) flooring panels…  When they move and change, the gaps between the moving segments become hazardous as they are of varying and unpredictable sizes, from almost seamless to the size that a big toe can be snapped in”; “the rehearsal spaces and studios are built with concrete floors.” Williams agreed that “the orchestra pit is too deep”; the “lighting board is analogue”; and that “the loading doors to the theatre are too small. And they’re glass.”
Hazel Franco, Ex-president of National Dance said: “…I did see the building during a site visit and the concerns raised by Rubadiri are all legitimate. The building is not appropriate.”
The Ministry also was caught attempting to manipulate the words and image of artists to perpetrate a view that NAPA had widespread stakeholder support. Interviews conducted months before on the opening of the facility were edited to appear as if certain artists had stepped forward to endorse NAPA in the light of ACTT’s revelations. The Ministry received lawyer’s letters from Twiggy, Ravi B and the Original De Fosto Himself demanding they cease and desist from the use of their images for such purposes. The multi-million dollar ads had back-fired. The  legal letters betrayed a greater crisis for the government- Twiggy and De Fosto are from Laventille and the suggestion was that they were being disciplined by the ’street’. It meant that the government had lost the battle even within its own presumed communities.
Things got further complicated when it was revealed that the Minister had turned down a request by the Chutney Foundation to stage the World Chutney Finals in NAPA stating that ‘that kind of thing would not be allowed in here.’ This resulted in a complaint being filed with the Equal Opportunities Commission by GOPIO. Even popular comedian and everyone’s sweetheart, Errol Fabien, felt the backlash when his 2020 ad campaign was used to propagandise NAPA.
The Ministry mis-stepped again when, in the eye of the NAPA storm, it was caught attempting to silence Ms. Pat Bishop- a holder of the nation’s highest honour- the Trinity Cross from speaking at a public function at the National Museum. The Museum itself was embroiled in the controversy as it was revealed that the Acting Curator had suddenly received notice that they were to be evicted. NAPA, it seems, had not been conceived with offices- so the Museum had to be moved into the premises occupied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Foreign Affairs community also was up in arms after receiving eviction orders at short notice as well. Ms. Bishop was an earlier Curator of the Museum and was also the fired principal of NAPA. She had been removed because of her objections to its non-purpose built architecture and foreign curriculum. It was a perfect storm. Uproar to her censorship and ban was universal- starting with Master Artist Leroy Clarke who was asked to sub for her when she was pulled off the Museum event.
Meanwhile, within NAPA, work was being commanded round-the-clock from the highest levels. From outside the facility looked quiet, but through the underground car park hundreds of workers were trying to correct many of the flaws identified. A date was announced for a walk-through by the media. Artists, experts and citizens were not invited. An attempt would be made to completely discredit ACTT. On Friday- apparently to get the Sunday papers- the media were led through a carefully stage-managed tour. It was not enough. The Sunday Guardian of 27 Mar 2010 led with the headline ‘NAPA FLAWED’ Junior Minister Regrello admits $20m to fix NAPA flaws. Nearly all the technical flaws identified by the ACTT report were confirmed by the media. 
Regrello added salt to Chutney’s wound when he backed his minister’s position, saying, “NAPA is not the ideal venue for tassa, chutney and parang…. What the Minister really meant is NAPA is not the space for that. It is infectious. People respond to that kind of music with a real amount of energy, vivacity and joie-de-vivre… The Minister had also denied Pan Trinbago the request to stage Champs In Concert there, too… She never meant it as any disrespect. But merely she wanted to keep it upscale… keep it to a certain type of entertainment. We may even have to upgrade a Best Village show to bring it in here.”
His words raised a firestorm. Was local culture too ‘wajang’ for the NAPA? Is that why NAPA wasn’t built to accommodate local traditions? And why he had chosen to refer to it as “an opera house”?

The public’s response was sharp and immediate. A sample from the Guardian blog under Minister Regrello’s words: “STEUPS!…” Submitted by Nimala. Chaguanasbabe wrote “This is the ‘good work’ that Manning praised Calder Hart for? It it is a national scandal. Shame on Manning and his PNM government . Mr.Regrello sees the NAPA for upscale performances for the big-ups, so when the elections come around, don’t ask the poor people them for votes; go to the big people and let them vote for the PNM.”
The comments went on and on…
The government had lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the population. The jewel in the crown of the PM’s vision had been destroyed. Strategies of propaganda that had worked in the past were floundering. A multi-million dollar campaign had failed against an organization that had no real working capital and had only truth as its shield and sword. Truth and the new media.

THE NEW MEDIA—SAYING EVERYTHING:
Throughout the entire ordeal ACTT’s approach was completely counter-intuitive. ACTT never used clever sound-bytes and brief accessible press releases. Instead, in that fertile period after the NAPA headline, ACTT released the entire documents with the intention being full disclosure of hidden histories. After posting the 45-page report online, ACTT created a Facebook page and posted several long notes documenting every cut and thrust of the conflict.
This culminated with a document called ‘The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth: No Consultation- a Pathway to Disaster’. This was a long document that itemized in great detail every single attempt to get consultation over the last five years. It included dates, times and personalities involved. One newspaper editorial even complained of ACTT’s penchant for releasing these long documents. However, in fact, it was these long detailed documents with verifiable truths that won the day for the organization. This mode was in direct opposition and contradiction of the government’s preferred mode of secrecy, spin, and non-consultation. ACTT on the other hand was almost obsessively open and conversant. It proved to be what people wanted. They wanted to know what was really going on. They wanted the truth and were willing to make the effort to get it.
A letter sent by ACTT to the Minister of Culture asking for massive stakeholder consultation as the way forward was responded to with an attack against its  Interim President (my good self). Copies of the were sent to President Richards, Prime Minister Manning, Professor Ken Julien, the Acting Principal Of Napa Scott Hilton-Clarke and the Acting Chairman Of Udecott,  Jerlean John. None has yet replied.
End of Part One

NEXT: What NAPA was supposed to be: An Examination of the plans that have existed for the facility since the time of George Bailey and Terry Evelyn in the 1960s.

Is Beauty Good Enough To Conquer All?

By DAVID CAVE

“Raging Fire of the Heart”

The recent launch of the three-man exhibition entitled “Perspectives, Memory and Desire” at the National Museum of Trinidad and Tobago is an impressive display of the works of Kenwyn Crichlow, Glenn Roopchand and Carlisle Harris.  Not only is the art worthy of praise, but the museum must also be lauded for the great degree of meticulous care and attention to detail on display.
Ken Crichlow’s art is the first series encountered on entry.  Compared to his previous art, Crichlow’s work here goes beyond mere form and colour.  In this series, colour is used to great effect in creating an experience of harmony for the viewer.  The colours allude to a sense of mass, as if one were looking at a colossal, moving form which hypnotises and draws in the viewer, gently and invitingly. 
In keeping faith with the theme, Crichlow creates a perpetual state of flux with ever-changing perspectives .  This temporality therefore also stresses the importance of memory, for although the images are static their illusion of movement suggests that the artist is arresting perpetual change in the same way that a photograph freezes a moving scene. 

“The Cycle of Life”

In addition to the colour, Crichlow’s use of fine lines to either unify or break up the picture plane also adds to this sense of motion and dynamism.  Finally, despite the apparent homogeneity of this artist’s work, a more profound look at his art shows an overwhelming sense of variation among the pieces.  For example, the tranquillity of “Dreaming Under Blue Skies” is in sharp contrast to the sheer energy of “Raging Fire of the Heart”.
Further down the gallery is the work of Glenn Roopchand with a diverse spectrum of his bricolage, painting and sculpture.  Roopchand’s intent is clear in this exhibition: his interpretation of the main title requires him to express his desire for unity.  It does not matter if this unity is ethnic or physiological, for within the psyche of this artist, the unity concept represents the essence of his identity as a Trinidad and Tobago artist. 
Some of Roopchand’s pieces, such as “The Feminine Principle” present a strong focus on the female form while other pieces such as “Dougla Serenade” treats the issue of racial unity in a very creative and elegant manner.  The smooth lines combined with the rough textures make it clear that Roopchand is not just utilsing simple colour to create this sense of contrast in his art.  He engages the viewer by going past the sense of sight and is now also appealing to the tactile aspect.  To fully appreciate this piece, the viewer has to literally feel the work.
Roopchand’s art in this exhibition goes beyond the mere flat painting or even the raised bas-relief.  For me, his most impressive piece is the assemblage entitled “The Cycle of Life”, where what appears to be a phallic form is bursting through a simple wooden stool, and ascending towards two eccentric circles that suggest a heavenly realm.  A fascinating touch to this piece is the use of the warped black spoons that are made to resemble moving sperm, and the small white human heads that seamlessly blend into the shape of the vase.  This piece is very powerful and provocative, and easily conveys the concepts of conception, death and spiritual ascension. 
Finally there is the exhibit of Carlisle Harris.  Renowned for his Afrocentric focus, Harris’ paintings of the past tended towards the rigid and static.  His new pieces, therefore, came as a surprise. In pieces such as “Strong and Silent Vigil” and “I Will Lead, You Will Follow” there is an elaborate combination of precise and intricate forms and a generous variation of colour that creates an ephemeral and atmospheric effect.  Another notable Harris painting in this exhibit is “Pangs and Pleasures” which presents a purer type of abstraction; everything is reduced to form, colour and texture, thus providing the spectator with a more intimate connection with the art.  In this particular piece, representational elements have been stripped away, leaving an uninhibited sensuality and emotion.
There is no doubt that the art in “Perspectives, Memory and Desire” is powerful.  It is definitely the most elaborate and impressive exhibition thus far for 2010. 

“Strong and Silent Vigil”

However, with so much painstaking effort devoted to the art and the exhibition, how could there still be room for disaster?  Of course, I am referring to the ongoing mystery of Dr. Pat Bishop being uninvited as the feature speaker at the exhibition opening on March 16th. 
But in addition to this issue, I’m referring to the overall sense of stagnation of the visual arts in Trinidad and Tobago that leave our drawings, paintings, sculpture etc. far behind other art forms such as music and the performing arts.  When Leroy Clarke speaks about our artists being “under attack” it is not a trivial matter to be brushed aside as irrelevant bleating.  Artists such as Bishop and Clarke have dedicated their lives to the visual arts, and know whereof they speak.
“Perspectives, Memory and Desire” continues at the National Museum until April 11th.

Upping the Ante On The Search For Relevant Theatre

SUNITY MAHARAJ Reviews March To Caroni
          
Peter Minshall has repeatedly made the point that the mass participation, commitment and joy to be found in Carnival, Ramleela and Hosay suggest something powerful about a form of theatre  that is appropriate and relevant to the cultural expression of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. This view suggests that if we could change our ways of looking at these festival events, we might make an epistemological breakthrough about the nature of art and expression in this part of the world.
The thought came to mind as the March To Caroni made its three-point turn across the St Augustine campus on the night of Friday March 19.
On the hot, dry days of March, there was nothing more tantalising than moonlight theatre in the night-time cool of the campus grounds. Or as director Rawle Gibbons described it in the programme foreword, drawing curtains “under the moon that holds all memory”. He should know. In the seventies , Gibbons cut his director’s teeth at Tapia’s Moonlight Theatre  in the garden where the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies now stands. So, one might say, in March To Caroni, Gibbons makes a return to roots in insisting on having his drama bathed in moonlight.
March To Caroni is a production of UWI’s Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA) with participation from several non-UWI organizations including Arts-in-Action Wordsmiths, the Oilfield Workers Trade Union, the African Cultural Association and the Baal Ramdilla project of the Hindu Prachar Kendra. It is directed by Rawle Gibbons, Louis McWilliams and Marvin George. Its cast is drawn largely from final year DCFA students of theatre, dance, music and other arts programmes who receive credit for their work.
So, from the start, one comes to March To Caroni understanding that it is, in large measure, an amateur production, collaboratively produced for the purposes of teaching and evaluation.
The most telling consequence of this, however, was not so much in the quality of the production but in UWI’s low profile marketing of it.
In every revolution there are moments of high drama; in this drama there were moments of high revolution. For while it draws on Zeno Constance’s Roaring ’70s and the work of Victor Questel, the production takes liberties of every kind as it “constructs memory” of seminal events in the 1970 Black Power explosion in Trinidad.
The first comes just as the audience is beginning to settle into the drama onstage at the Learning Resource Centre (LRC). Suddenly, the play flips, transforming spectators into marchers in a large cast heading down to Caroni for that historic moment when Africans and Indians will unite.  The long march down memory lane makes a pit-stop on the steps of Daaga Hall a couple of hundred yards down the road from the LRC. Here the curtains are drawn on Trinidad circa 1970, played out in mimed scenes inside a bank where blacks need not apply and in churches where the worship of all things white leads inevitably to the altar of a Judeo-Christian God.
The story line is picked up in cameo performances by calypsonians who return from the future to deliver their 1970 songs of protest and pride. On this night of March 19, the live performer is Chalkdust with guitar in hand, delivering “Black Inventors”. On other nights, the calypsonians doing duty included Brother Valentino, Stalin and the Mighty Composer.
From here, the witnesses to history march on to destination Caroni. Along the way, more scenes of 70 punctuate the march. A defiant Jericho Lopinot runs through the crowd, two tall policemen on his tail, declaiming police harassment before breaking into the Kitchener classic “Jericho”. And as the march approaches the UWI Principal’s office, the voice of the late UWI lecturer Walter Rodney returns from the grave to carry the marchers across the sea to Jamaica for an encounter with the power structure that  had banned him from “the land of Garvey” because of his grounding with the brothers.

His voice having been added to the script, Rodney fades back into memory as the march  continues to Caroni, passing through the portals of history manned by a chain-smoking Prime Minister  Eric Williams declaring the state of emergency of April 21, 1970, and the gun-toting Hindu leader Bhadase Sagan Maraj.
Whether it was the effectiveness of the drama or an indication of how little has changed, but time slips easily in and out of the past and present, from 1970 to 2010 and back as the march presses on to Caroni, coming to an end on the grounds opposite the Learning Resource Centre. Here, a wall of fear and hostility stands between sugar workers of the Baal Ramdilla team and the Black Power demonstrators “from town” led by Geddes Granger. As suspicion yields to solidarity, Baal Ramdilla picks up the story and flashes back to 1884 for a re-enactment of the Hosay Massacre in San Fernando. Memory builds on memory in making the point of the shared bond of oppression between the Indians and Africans of Trinidad and Tobago.
To the haunting strains of Raviji singing “When the moon does call we, Bhaiwah/ We did not fail to go/ Make sure to tell the children, Bhaiwah/ They really must know”,   the entire procession eventually makes its way back into the theatre of the Learning Resource Centre where the final scene is played out in death, defiance and demands for justice as the names of those killed by the police are plucked from the past and read into the record of the present.  
As theatre, March To Caroni offers an evolving experience with enough risks to qualify as pioneering. Key among them is the decision to cede direction, not just to the students involved in the production, but to the four participating groups involved and—most risky of all—to its nightly audiences, each unpredictably different from the other. In a society still smarting from a culture of alienation and non-participation, the decision to eschew central direction amounts to a theatre ideology of “bring yuh story and come!”  —itself relying on individual independence tempered with responsibility.
In yielding control of the moving parts of the play, the directors opted for a free-flowing, open-ended experience contained only by the outlines of a script that kept the story moving from point to point. What happened in between- length of each scene, number of participants, even dialogue, was fluid and general rather than specific to the cause. By the end of the performance, depending on their ages, the audience were entitled to believe that they hadn’t so much as gone to a play as lived, or re-lived, the experience of the 1970 Black Power movement in Trinidad.  Catharsis was inevitable. On the final night, Clem Haynes, a member of the NUFF, the National Union of Freedom Fighters walked on stage to deliver a riveting account of the police killing of four members of NUFF including the teenaged Beverly Jones in the Caura Hills of the Northern Range.

The inclusion of calypsonians performing their owns songs of 1970 served both as script as well as entertainment.  The African Cultural Association’s performances added theatrical relief on the “long” march to Caroni. The Baal Ramdilla play-inside-a-play added overtones of Ramleela. On the open field of UWI, circumscribed by both performers and audience, the tale here was not of Ram’s triumph over Rawan’s evil, but of the martyrdom of the ancestors in the cause of future generations. As in Camboulay, so in the Hosay: they died so that we might live. In freedom.
Not everything hit the mark. The ending was often too long; the marchers were sometimes too straggling; the monologues were oftimes pedantic; Art was occasionally strangled by ideology and the complexity of 1970 yielded to a simpler story line. But not even those shortcomings could snuff out the most powerful idea of all represented in March to Caroni: That the search for a relevant form to serve the function of story-telling is a work that is, thankfully, still very much alive and in progress.
Along this journey of self-discovery, every borrowed definition and assumption remains open to challenge and debate and could be subject to change. If nothing else, March to Caroni has re-dynamised the debate about appropriate forms of theatre in this land of Carnival, Ramleela and Hosay.
In the same way it brought Sookoo and Rodney back to life, March to Caroni might just succeed in resurrecting the buried debate about relevant theatre in T&T.

By ORVILLE WRIGHT

Elijah Lee—Pan solo 12 and under category.—Photos:JERMAINE CRUICKSHANK

I was fortunate enough to have been in Trinidad for the Championship Programme of the just concluded 29th Biennial Music Festival, and I believe that patrons at the festival have to be real exuberant about the wealth of talent coming from the sister isles of Trinidad and Tobago.
I was anxious to get back home to get to my piano bench and pull out the evaluation sheet I still cherish from one of the times I participated in Music Festival.  I could not remember exactly the year I played the test piece The Brook, but I knew I kept the evaluation sheet from my class.  It turns out that the year was 1962- yes- 48 years ago, and I fondly look back on those formative years under the tutelage of Miss Olive Walke and later June Joseph for the foundation they provided to make me the musician I am today.
The number of classes and instrumental categories has grown exponentially. In my time there was piano, voice, male and female choirs, mixed choirs, school choirs, vocal duets, and I believe, some stringed instruments. So it was extremely gratifying to discover new categories which included Asian/African ensembles, junior instrumental ensemble any combination, parang, Broadway musical songs—male and female, and of course a number of categories or classes involving the steelpan, to name a few.  

Llettesha Sylvester.—Photo:ROBERTO CODALLO

One of the highlights for me though, was Elijah Lee, one of the participants for the BPTT trophy in the Pan solo 12 years and under on Friday March 19, 2010.  This boy walked on stage as though he did not have a care in the world with his handlers carrying his pans on stage for him.  Once his pans were set- and he stood there making sure that his pans were properly placed- he began to walk off stage probably forgetting that he was there to play and then suddenly turned around, walked back to his pans and began to play.  I am sure that once he stood ready to play his pans, there was but a foot between the top of his pans and the top of his head.  There were three pans on stage, and the skirts of all three were about the same length. I started to wonder what three pan configuration he had on stage and why three pans were needed. As it turned out, one was a lead (tenor) pan to his right, and the other two pans was a double second set.
He played William Tell Overture, using the lead pan for the first part of the tune, and the double second for the second part of the overture. Because of the note configuration on the lead pan, there were not enough low notes on the lead pan whereby he could play the lower parts of the piece.  Hence, he had to use the double second for the second part of the overture. Back in my festival days, pan was just emerging from being a bad John instrument, and although there was a separate festival for pan in Queen’s Hall, you would not have seen pan being played by a child of Asian heritage.  Of the three nights that I was there, I can honestly say that for me, this kid was baaad—a Michael Jackson kinda bad.  I happened to be in the lobby on one of the breaks, and had a short conversation with him.  In response to my question about how he intended to use the skill he had demonstrated on the instrument, he just smiled and said, “I don’t know.”
I was only able to attend three of the championship nights, and the talent I saw on those nights spoke volumes about the raw musical talent of Trinidad & Tobago.  I was impressed with the choirs and ensembles that performed and Dr. John Paul Johnson- the primary spokesperson for the adjudicators with a plethora of metaphors- appropriately showered quite a bit of praise on the ensemble directors. 
From my perspective, though, those choir and ensemble directors who chose not to memorize their scores, were at a slight disadvantage in terms of getting the best out of their ensembles.  As one who has had to coach choirs and ensembles, my experience has taught me that I can better focus and concentrate on the nuances of a piece of music for a final performance if I do not have to be worrying about turning pages.  Of course, there is a need to have the score on the stand during the many hours of rehearsal, so that all the composer’s notes in terms of dynamics, tempos, and other nuances are meticulously followed.  There are conductors who have the score on the stand during final performance as a back up, and really do not need it, but have to exert a little extra energy turning the pages. However, I believe that if a musician has been involved with the intricacies of teaching a particular selection for a period of two to three months—and I suspect that these directors have been involved with these pieces for quite some time—their ensembles or choirs will respond better to the directors when they can freely give all the cues and entries for the piece they are conducting.

Such a case can be made for the trophy winner in the Fitzgerald “Jerry” Jemmott Steelpan Chamber Ensemble category where conductor Akua Leith of the Trinity All Generations ensemble did a masterful job with his players. The well-executed dynamics can be attributed to the control and, if I may add, the personality that Akua exhibited.  More importantly though, the students played as if they were thoroughly enjoying what they were doing, which I can tell you, makes a difference.  I knew and worked with the late Jerry Jemmott and know of the legacy he has left with All Stars in terms of performance protocol. He would have been proud to have the Trinity All Generations ensemble accept the award in his name.
Two other ensembles (vocal) also impressed me, and while the word Bishop is in the title of their ensembles, their performances and class (categorization for the festival) were very different.  Bishop Anstey Secondary school from Port of Spain—all female voices—and Bishop’s High school from Tobago—mixed voices—also had conductors who did not use music (conductor’s score) to direct their ensembles.  I remember the vivid warmth of the voices after the first few bars from the mixed choir from Tobago. In this case, there was a test piece and it was easy to compare the choirs.  In the Secondary School Choirs category, I really appreciated Larraine Granderson’s control of the choir and her cueing of the various parts of the ensemble.
Llettesha Sylvester, a student at the University of the Southern Caribbean (USC) from Laventille, has a voice so angelic that it is easy to predict a bright future ahead of her.  The night I heard her, she was singing Summertime from Porgy and Bess. With a prop of a baby wrapped in her left arm, she sat on stage and rendered an unforgettable performance. Having studied voice many years ago, I know that a singer performs best from a standing posture, and so I marveled at the breath control she demonstrated in a crouched position as she sang Summertime. I understand that she racked up the most awards at the festival and in years to come I am sure that she will be mentioned as one of the best from Trinidad. She emerged winner in the female category for the Dr. Dorrell Philip trophy for Broadway Musical Songs, among others.
The winner in the male category for Broadway Musical Songs was Andre Mangatal who sang Younger Than Springtime from the musical South Pacific.  Here again, Andre’s voice was just a pure delight to listen to.  This category somehow warranted either a prop or a companion on stage, and Andre made use of a beautiful female in garnering the most points from the adjudicators to take the Dr. Dorrell Philip trophy (male).
While I had hoped to write about all the winners on the nights I was at Queens Hall, this review would not be complete without mentioning one stringed instrument category that I do not believe was part of the Music Festival when I participated forty-eight years ago.  That was the guitar. Christian Lloyd won the Newsday Cup for his guitar solo performance on Friday night. I have always had a fond admiration for acoustic guitar players because it takes quite a bit of discipline to carefully navigate those strings on the guitar without plucking another string in error. Christian was careful in his delivery and gave a confident performance.
For two of the nights I was there, I sat next to Anne Fridal who, like me, had studied our music abroad. Together, we simply marveled at the quality and quantity of performances from this generation of Trinbagonians being trained at home.  We had quite a bit of fun trying to figure out who would have won in some of the classes and I must say that 99% of the time, our choices proved correct. 
While I was pleased at the number of trophies awarded and the expansion of classes, I was disappointed at the absence of trophies named for some of our best known music- piano-teachers of the past and present.  While there was a La Petite Musicale trophy for the Best Folk Song Choir, I felt there should have been a piano class trophy in honour of Miss Olive Walke whose name is inextricably linked to Petite Musicale.  Mine may be a biased and selfish sentiment, but I believe the large number of piano students who either went to 106 Fredrick Street or 123 Long Circular Road for piano lessons with Miss Walke would agree with me.  I also believe there should be a trophy honoring the work of June Joseph who continues to have a piano studio in Trinidad.  Perhaps there may be trophies in their names—but the Championship and Junior Finale programmes I saw did not have their names.
As fulfilling as it was in terms of talent on display, there were nonetheless some negative comment to be heard about a declining quality of organization and lower audience attendance.  On one of the nights I was there, the adjudicators writing table collapsed—twice.  Also, in a world of instant access to information—American Idol results, Dancing with the Stars results, Olympic results— it was frustrating trying to access information on the festival.  While the dailies provided bits and pieces, often days after the fact,   it would have been nice to be able to access comprehensive information on the festival on the Internet.
Hopefully, in 2012, the Festival will have an internet site supported by a tech intern with the photographic skills neededto upload photos and information on participants, their selections, and the results of the various classes within minutes of their performances. Better yet, we might have live streaming of the T&T Music Festival to the world.