Zahra Gor­don

Ac­tress Mar­ti­na Laird's re­spons­es were mea­sured as she took time to con­sid­er both the ques­tions and an­swers. And even when some an­swers were punc­tu­at­ed by laugh­ter there re­mained a thought­ful con­fi­dence to her words.

Sur­pris­ing­ly, Laird's Tri­ni ac­cent is in­tact af­ter study­ing, liv­ing and work­ing in the UK for more than 20 years. UK res­i­den­cy aside, it seems Laird nev­er re­al­ly left T&T–at least not in spir­it.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view on her par­ents' high-rise ve­ran­dah in West­moor­ings last week, Laird shared how she over­came an ini­tial lack of op­por­tu­ni­ties.

"Be­ing Trinida­di­an I would get com­ments like, 'She's a bit too ex­ot­ic' or 'A bit too strong.' I think the Trinida­di­an-ness was hard for them to place but what I've dis­cov­ered is most peo­ple who en­joy any sense of ful­fill­ment in this in­dus­try tend to cre­ate work that ex­press­es who they are it's not just about wait­ing to be grant­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty."

It would have been hard for Laird to for­get T&T, how­ev­er, when her ear­ly in­flu­ences read like a who's who in T&T list. The daugh­ter of not­ed ar­chi­tect Col­in Laird and sis­ter of TV and film pro­duc­er Christo­pher Laird, she stud­ied with Beryl McBurnie, No­ble Dou­glas and Car­ol La Chapelle. She be­gan study­ing dra­ma at age sev­en and by 13 was part of a Banyan pro­duc­tion, Epiphany, work­ing with the likes of Joanne Kil­go­ur, Tony Hall and Christo­pher Pin­heiro. Laird was al­so a reg­u­lar mem­ber of the au­di­ence at the Lit­tle Carib The­atre where she was most en­thralled by the work of Derek Wal­cott.

Laird was able to bring all these in­flu­ences to­geth­er last March when she took on her first Caribbean role in the UK Na­tion­al The­atre's pro­duc­tion of Er­rol John's Moon on a Rain­bow Shawl where she played Sophia Adams. The role of Sophia Adams was a long cry away from her most mem­o­rable role on the BBC's TV dra­ma ca­su­al­ty as para­medic Com­fort Jones or on Chan­nel 4's Shame­less where she played broth­el own­er Michelle.

"As an ac­tor your first re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to the piece, but if there's an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be who you are in your work then ob­vi­ous­ly every artist waits for this. I think that was the joy for me in be­ing in Moon on a Rain­bow Shawl–to be able to bring all your ex­pe­ri­ence to your work."

"I re­alise that my British coun­ter­parts are very lucky be­cause that's what they can do with every role, Moon on a Rain­bow Shawl was a first op­por­tu­ni­ty to pay trib­ute to all the peo­ple and places and ex­pe­ri­ences in my life by bring­ing them to­geth­er in one room."

Hav­ing read Moon on a Rain­bow Shawl in sec­ondary school, Laird was able to de­vel­op a new ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the work as well. "I re­mem­ber as a child think­ing it's good but this is fa­mil­iar, this is just us. I thought a clas­sic had to be some­thing where you need­ed to reach be­yond your­self be­cause you weren't go­ing to get it. It was amaz­ing for me to look at Er­rol John's writ­ing and see the beau­ty, the hu­man­i­ty and the po­et­ry."

Her con­nec­tion to T&T al­so led Laird to team up with fel­low UK-based Trinida­di­an artists Rene Cas­tle and In­dra Ove to form the group Cas­cadu­ra.

"We re­alise that our work and our ex­pres­sions and who we are means that we are al­ways re­turn­ing to our coun­try. What I think the mis­sion might be is to find the most pow­er­ful way that our tra­di­tions in­form each oth­er both as a Trinida­di­an but al­so as peo­ple who have learnt and stud­ied and worked un­der a Eu­ro­pean sys­tem."

The group's first project was the pro­duc­tion of yet an­oth­er UK-based Tri­ni play­wright Mustapha Matu­ra. The group read his play Three Sis­ters dur­ing the High Com­mis­sion's in­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tion arts fes­ti­val last year. Lat­er this year, they'll be work­ing trans­pos­ing a Shake­speare piece to Trinida­di­an sen­si­bil­i­ties. The piece will be set dur­ing Car­ni­val.

"It's just amaz­ing and en­light­en­ing how well Shake­speare is served by Trinida­di­an voice and ex­pres­sion. We have a re­sponse to Shake­speare that is im­me­di­ate and au­then­tic in ways that maybe even British au­di­ences don't re­late which is very in­ter­est­ing," she said.

Lat­er this year, Laird will al­so be re­turn­ing to T&T to par­tic­i­pate in lo­cal pro­duc­tions for the first time. In April, she will be re­hears­ing a new work by Wal­cott while in May she'll be work­ing Cait­lyn Kam­min­ga and Do­minique Le Gen­dre on a new piece called Jab Mo­lassie fund­ed by Cal­abash Foun­da­tion for the Arts.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in projects that are ex­plic­it­ly Caribbean or Trinida­di­an or at least writ­ten by those of Caribbean de­scent fits part­ly in­to Laird's artis­tic phi­los­o­phy, which is based on truth.

"I think the first du­ty of the artist is the truth, al­ways. And truth can be ug­ly and it is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to face that full on be­cause it is our role to ex­am­ine through our own ex­pe­ri­ences. As long as one is truth­ful I don't think you're ever com­pro­mis­ing your­self or those you rep­re­sent. It is when things are bi­ased and un­truth­ful that we have to be vig­i­lant. My per­son­al chal­lenge will al­ways be to con­front the com­plex­i­ties."

Mar­ti­na Laird at­tend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kent and Web­ber Dou­glas Acad­e­my in Eng­land. She is the re­cip­i­ent of the Screen Na­tion Best TV Ac­tress and Michael El­liot Best Orig­i­nal Tele­vi­sion Per­for­mance Awards. She has al­so been longlist­ed for the Evening Stan­dard The­atre Awards for Best Ac­tress. Laird's film cred­its in­clude Blitz, For-Get-Me-Not, The Hurt­ing and Dead­meat while her the­atre and TV cred­its in­clude The Five Wives of Mau­rice Pin­der; The White Dev­il, Three Hours Af­ter Mar­riage, Lon­don's Burn­ing, Coro­na­tion Street, Miss­ing and Doc­tors.

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