Pe­ter Ray Blood

?I'm back, hav­ing giv­en up my chair last Fri­day to Bo­bie-Lee Dixon for her fea­ture com­mem­o­rat­ing the first an­niver­sary of Michael Jack­son's pass­ing. Thanks to new Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters and NA­PA ( Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts) of­fi­cials Michael Mur­ray and Mar­lon de Bique, I got my first ever in­vi­ta­tion to the con­tro­ver­sial fa­cil­i­ty in Port-of-Spain. I didn't have the time to tour the en­tire premis­es but the lit­tle a saw on Sat­ur­day night, when the Min­istry pre­miered last week­end's Pop Meets Steel (part of Na­pa Fest 2010), was im­pres­sive. I shall re­turn to in­spect oth­er ar­eas of the premis­es; tar­gets of much crit­i­cism, like the dress­ing rooms, the stage sur­face, the mov­ing stage, the mossy and stag­nant ponds, the sup­pos­ed­ly small and in­ad­e­quate door­ways lead­ing to the stage, and the signs writ­ten in Chi­nese.

On Sat­ur­day night, be­side en­joy­ing a spec­tac­u­lar pro­duc­tion fea­tur­ing our na­tion­al in­stru­ment, I got to meet some pret­ty im­por­tant peo­ple, like Ger­man Am­bas­sador Dr Ernst Klaus Kon­rad Martens; Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Esme Rawl­ins-Charles; Min­istry of Sports per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Jen­nifer Jones; Di­rec­tor of Cul­ture In­grid Ruben-Ryan; and, Prime Min­is­ter Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion di­rec­tor Nor­van Fuller­ton. Out­side and above the ex­pan­sive steel and glass, flo­ral-de­signed ed­i­fice, hung a lu­mi­nous full moon, its beam iri­des­cent­ly re­flect­ing off the cas­cad­ing wa­ter spouts of the lit foun­tain sur­round­ing the build­ing.

On the in­side the sweet­est of steel­pan mu­sic filled the cavenous, well-ap­point­ed au­di­to­ri­um, each item sound­ly ap­plaud­ed by an ap­pre­cia­tive and an­i­mat­ed au­di­ence.

Each band was at the top of its game but I was par­tic­u­lar­ly touched by the ex­e­cu­tion of In a Monas­try Gar­den (Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars); Ganges Meets the Nile (Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus); Ex­cerpt from Zam­pa Over­ture (Wit­co Des­per­a­does); Bass­man (Katzen­jam­mers); Dance with my fa­ther (Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders); Hu­man Na­ture (NL­CB Fon­claire, fea­tur­ing Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore and Jerome Bisses­sar); and the show's open­ing, a med­ley of retro vin­tage kaiso by St James Tripol­lians. With the ju­ry still out on NA­PA, all I can say about NA­PA Fest at this point is, the pro­duc­tion is one of the best de­ci­sions made by the past ad­min­is­tra­tion; and, the de­ci­sion to con­tin­ue its run post-gen­er­al elec­tion, is one of the best de­ci­sions made thus far by the present ad­min­is­tra­tion. Though wor­thy of at least a $300 ad­mis­sion fee, the or­gan­is­ers wise­ly charged a pal­try $75, al­low­ing gen­er­ous pa­tron­age by a wide cross sec­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty.

?Round the City with Glenn

?It was one of the best the­atri­cal events I've at­tend­ed for some time. Round the City, a new play by Er­ic Bar­ry, staged at Queen's Hall by Tete-a-Tete The­atre, pro­vid­ed me with a most de­light­ful nigh out. Four mod­ules com­prised the pro­duc­tion, punc­tu­at­ed by five scenes star­ring Glenn Davis as a taxi dri­ver trans­port­ing a va­ri­ety of pas­sen­gers to their des­ti­na­tions. Yes­ter­day is Gone, fea­tur­ing sis­ters Joy (Kar­la Gon­za­les) and Ann (Anne Marie An­toine), touched on the con­tro­ver­sial top­ic of eu­thana­sia. Gon­za­les al­so starred in Man and 'Oman as two-tim­ing wife Pa­tri­cia, caught in a com­pro­mis­ing po­si­tion with "horner man" Michael (Kevon Brooks) by her cut­lass-wield­ing hus­band An­tho­ny (Pri­or Joseph). In Don't Ask. Dont Tell., Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er ap­par­ent Jay (Pri­or Joseph), who is now a mar­ried man with a child, is vis­it­ed on the eve of his as­sum­ing of­fice by a friend from his past, con­niv­ing ho­mo­sex­u­al Ken (Kevin Brooks).

Round­ing off the pro­gramme was Ed­u­cat­ing Pe­ter, a grim ac­count of a kid­nap­ping gone awry, set atop the old adage, "crime doesn't pay." Gon­za­les, play­ing kid­nap vic­tim Ms Lalchan, was out­stand­ing in this seg­ment, cast­ed op­po­site Pe­ter (Mar­vin Dowridge), a kid­nap­per with a con­science. The sup­port­ing cast, seen as pas­sen­gers in Davis' cab in­clud­ed Jameela Phillips, Dean Ray­side, Rachelle Khan, Bernadette Bac­chus, Ron­delle Al­leyne, Shan­na Lee de Fre­itas, Pene­lope Spencer, Aaron Schnei­der, Arnold Go­ingdhan and Car­los Alexan­der. Round the City was a most wel­come de­par­ture from the fare that has per­me­at­ed lo­cal the­atre in re­cent years. It is a pro­duc­tion that is cry­ing out for a reprise, prob­a­bly a run down south as well.