AFTER five nights, the 2017 National Drama Festival came to a close on Wednesday, leaving local theatre buffs satisfied with another year’s staging of the event.
The evening saw three plays which represented a rich mixture of genres, content and actors and served as a reminder that Guyana’s theatre industry still has hopes of thriving with the right support thrown behind it.
Here’s a look at the plays that were staged on the final evening:

`CHILDREN OF BABY’
The night opened with `Children of Baby’, written by Mosa Telford and directed by Kojo McPherson. Its premise lay on the concept of loss and trauma and the results of not dealing with that trauma effectively. The play centered on the lives of Damien and Angel, who at an early age, suffered massive blows at the hands of Baby, a tortured man who massacred Damien’s parents and Angel’s mother with a cutlass before being killed by the police. At the time of Baby’s actions, he had gone berserk after years of depression- having lost his own child who died in childbirth on the same day Damien was born, and, later, becoming the victim of police brutality during which he was raped. The production was not short on poignant moments as the characters struggled to overcome their own demons. It was rich with drama- at some points, a bit too much, but it worked well and was made even more moving through its references to real-life tragedies in society that the audience could easily identify.
Strong performances were given by all of the main cast, particularly Clinton Duncan, who played the agonised Damien. Mark Luke Edwards, who played Baby, Kimberly Fernandes, who played Angel and Colleen Humphrey, who played Ma Dalla also performed well. Other actors included Tashandra Inniss, Nicholas Singh, Nikita Archer, Nelan Benjamin, Jerome Abrams as well as Emmanuel and Justine Hamer who played the young Damien and Angel.

`THE PERFECT MAN’
Written by Ato Vaughn and directed by Tristana Roberts, `The Perfect Man’ was a modern thriller about a young woman, who, desperate to bring her lover back to life, embarks on a dark journey to piece him back together by killing and using various body parts of other men via an African ritual. Extremely raunchy and pushing the envelope with strong representations of sex and sexuality, `The Perfect Man’ did not hold back on censorship, making sections of the audience visibly uncomfortable during some parts. Nevertheless, it was relatively well received- at least by the younger crowd- and ended with an unexpected twist that showed the irony of the concept of “perfection”.

`SPIT’
The evening ended on a light note with the comedy `Spit’. Written and directed by Clinton Duncan, the play was a hilarious take on the real-life struggles of the elderly in society and imagined the desperate measures that three pensioners turn to in the face of financial need. Imagine a Guyanese version of the black comedy ‘Going in Style’ which portrayed a trio of old men who decided to rob a bank. In this case, however, the three characters, Bryan (Mark Luke Edwards), Charles (Leon Cummings) and the cross-dressing Alex (Frederick Minty), desperate to meet their financial demands and low on cash, decide to rob the post office on pension day. The hilarious climax came after a gut-busting series of events including a failed attempt to acquire and sell cocaine by the three geriatrics, and their own experience of being witness to a previous robbery which planted the idea in their head. The term `Spit’ was constantly reiterated by an angry Charles who vowed to spit in the faces of anyone who did him wrong, but more importantly, it represented the frustrations of poor people and their decision to defy the shackles of society at any cost in desperate times.
The cast was a pleasure to watch, particularly Leon Cummings, who continually had the audience in tears throughout the short play. Mark Luke Edwards and Frederick Minty also did well in their performances. Other cast members included Nicholas Singh, Nelan Benjamin, Tikoma Austin and Denise Andrews.

Insight from the playwrights
In an interview with the Pepperpot Magazine, Mosa Telford said that `Children of Baby’ explored the themes of trauma, religious enslavement that discourages individual thought, choices and freedom; and the universal need for healing in a world that is becoming more difficult to exist in. “The idea of the play first occurred when I learned about a boy who had experienced a traumatic event at a very young age, never received any counseling, grew up and joined a gang and was killed at 16 because of gang-related activities,” Mosa said. She noted that other real-life events that influenced her include Baby Arthur killings in Buxton/Friendship, Ronald Waddell’s murder, Colwyn Harding’s alleged abuse by the police, the assassination of Courtney Crum-Ewing.
But she admitted to being nervous about the audience’s reception due to limited time the team had to prepare for the play and other concerns. “However, every time the audience would say something positive or even chuckle where there was humour, I felt relaxed in the moment. So far, I have received many positive reviews,” she said.

The future of theatre and the drama festival
The playwright praised the Drama Festival for helping to keep theatre and drama alive in Guyana, adding that young thespians should now be provided with more opportunities to develop their skills while learning from the veterans in the industry.
“Theatre is largely suffering as it is mainly because people are finding it difficult to acquire funds to do productions and do not make much money especially when they do dramatic plays because many people no longer seem interested in them. Many of the theatre veterans are not very active anymore so what we have is a largely new group of theatre people,” she said. “I believe that opportunities such as training and mentorship should be made available for these young people because often many just have the passion and talent but don’t know what to do with it. There is the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama which is doing a fine job, but training also needs to be ongoing in places outside of Georgetown. And if the veterans would continuously share their experiences, embrace new forms of theatre, then theatre in Guyana would be in good hands.”

Mosa expressed the wish to see the National Drama Festival extended to last over several months in order for theatre to be better celebrated on a larger scale.
“I believe we should start treating it the way carnival is treated in Trinidad. As soon as one is over, the next one is already being planned. Doing it that way would also give Guyanese in other regions the fair chance to participate. I also believe that we can have regional competitions before we even get to the National Drama Festival and the winners from the regional competition are then given the opportunity to compete in the finals,” she said. “I also believe that writers, directors and actors should have access to workshops where they can be guided in how to craft their work. Many times, what you see at the drama festival is good work, but with more time and guidance it could be better.”
Overall, however, she believes that judging by the work she has seen in other plays within the Festival, the acting and directing were both commendable.

THE USE OF COMEDY
For ‘Spit’, Clinton Duncan incorporated themes of aging, long-term friendships and migration in the hopes of finding “betterment”.
“My main influence was looking at how “the system” treats our elderly, especially with regard to ease of access to pension and retirement provisions. It is [also] based on multiple true events, one of which is the post office robbery on Dec 2, 2014, right in my village of Beterverwagting, where gunmen got away with millions on pension day,” Clinton told the Pepperpot Magazine. “I believe that art should reflect life, and at first, I wanted to take a more dramatic route to the exploration of this topic but I soon realised that as a people we need to laugh a lot more. Comedy, and more specifically satire was my contribution to this year’s festival as a non-direct satirical jab at the system.”

And comedy was what his play brought indeed. Clinton related that people still “ burst out laughing” when he runs into them in person. “For the first time in a long time, I could hear the entire audience laugh and applaud a piece of comedy that they could relate to that wasn’t stand-up. The truth is that the stand-up comedy and skit shows have dominated the industry for the past few years, so it was refreshing to see that something of this nature with an extended plot could hold their attention, even after sitting through two prior plays and a one hour set change,” he said.

Clinton is no stranger to voicing his opinions on the need for more support for the local theatre industry, and the important role that young people play in it. “Young people explore more experimental forms of theatre I believe. You should be able to investigate a good piece of theatre and be able to metaphorically see a segment of what the society was like during the time when it was written. The purpose of the youth in theatre is to bridge the gap between the ‘Caribbean theatrical structure’ established by the elders in our industry with a neo-classical and socio-economical vantage point of modern theatrical innovations,” he said.

As for the National Drama Festival itself, Clinton hopes that the Festival would allow for the winning plays to be produced for a wider audience. “We see scores of amazing plays every year and then we never see them again. I think part of the cultural policy of the Ministry attached to the festival should be to foster “year round” support of the drama industry and not just during the festival…For me, theatre is a business. It is not “just something I do for fun” and the “higher ups”. So we need to treat it the same way they treat other industries like sports,” he said. “We need more investment into theatrical infrastructure, better props, more access to subsidies and relaxed taxes on first time producers. The fact is that the local National Drama Festival is the largest in the Caribbean and can be invested in and exploited as a major tourism selling point, but our cultural advisors seem lackadaisical when it comes to the needs of thespians. This has to change, and it has to change very fast!”
Nevertheless, Clinton noted that the festival itself was satisfactory, adding that every night was a night of “entertainment and quality” but wished that more funding for advertisement could have been made so that a larger audience could have been allowed to see local thespians at their best.