Dramatic Productions
A full length production is planned for Saturday and Sunday evenings. Plans are in progress to stage the following:
COUNT IT ALL JOY
(The Wheel of Fire)
The play Count it All Joy, has to do with conversations. Conversations between man and God, Fathers and sons, men and women. All of the characters in this play are on a quest for something more than they’ve been given.
The central character is Legion, who is a sort of prodigal son who is returning to the island of his birth after years of exile in America and his experience of serving in a fruitless war in the Middle East solely to achieve citizenship. What he feels is therefore a combination of guilt and exhaustion. So much so, in fact, that he is willing to chance the uncertainty of life on a volcanic island.
The play therefore asks a question (as all good plays must):
“Is it possible for a young man (the favored son) who has been in exile both from his country and himself, to achieve healing on his return?”
The secondary character is that of Jonah Baptist, a not so young Calypsonian who has fallen from grace. He is therefore also in quest. For Jonah though, the search is for the lost talent he once had, the confidence and certainty which is the fountainhead of the Calypsonian’s art. For to be without certainty is to find oneself trapped in the belly of some beast in what can only be called darkness, the whale, the Leviathan. For only the Devil can steal your talent. So we see that Jonah too is in exile, exiled from self, and when he listens to some calypso he once wrote, it is as if someone else had written it, a stranger.
As Jonah says: “I’ve lost the trick of it. The trick of success. But maybe this time, maybe this way, God me father may forgive me if I tell it sweet.” And the story he chooses to tell is that of Legion and his return. It’s important for Jonah to tell it right, for this is his last chance too.
Next there is the father “Bull-Bud Daley” who is the quintessential West Indian father. Strong, authoritative and never apologetic for his excesses, be they illegitimate children, drink or gambling. His attitude simply put: “I give you birth, what more you want from me now?” He feels a true man should be able to take it from there if he calls himself a man.
Daley encounters life hand to hand and face to face, yet the one enemy he fears is senility. Alzheimers is cruel because it comes in silence. The one enemy he can’t fight with his hands. His son Legion’s return only makes him feel more vulnerable. For Daley now has two sons but can’t remember which one hates him more.
Thorn is the older son and Legion’s half brother. Thorn is the brother who stayed home and worked the land in the expectation of inheriting at least one thing from his selfish father. He therefore sees in Legion’s return a further threat to that inheritance. Thorn needs no further threats. His father has already sold his birthright in a desperate attempt to gain a young mistress before he becomes too senile to even remember her name.
Lastly there is Freshwater, the love interest of Legion, the object of his desire. He has never before used the word love to any one in his life, he has always preferred to travel light and yet something in him needs her especially now when his greatest enemy is sleep, for with sleep, comes memory of the faces and the carnage which was Iraq. What he wants from her is absolution. Freshwater however has no time for absolving anyone of guilt for she too is on a quest. Her quest is for vengeance.
“Broken Dolls”
Written and directed by
Yvonne Selina Weekes
This play revolves around six characters who find themselves interacting on a psychiatric ward of a general hospital. Using the beautiful songs of the late Bob Marley, the play explores the power of words to either lift or destroy and the way in which our own actions and the actions of others can leave us broken. The play also shows us, through the lives of these characters, how we can transform even the most debilitating situation into a redemption song.
The DVD of this production will be shown.