Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Hav­ing spent 30 years in jour­nal­ism, See­ta Per­sad’s name is syn­ony­mous with writ­ing in this coun­try. How­ev­er, since re­tir­ing in 2019, she’s stepped bold­ly back in­to the spot­light, not for fame, but to nur­ture the next gen­er­a­tion of sto­ry­tellers through the­atre.

If we re­trace Per­sad’s pas­sion for the arts, we would have to re­turn to when she was ten years old. Per­sad com­pet­ed in a po­et­ry com­pe­ti­tion rep­re­sent­ing her el­e­men­tary school and placed first in the coun­ty, and then first in the coun­try.

“It was the first time the school ever won any com­pe­ti­tion, so when I cel­e­brat­ed in the school, from then I felt as if I be­longed on the stage. Since then, I have al­ways craved the stage. When you get the ap­plause from the au­di­ence as a child, it re­al­ly does leave that im­pres­sion,” she said to WE mag­a­zine in a re­cent in­ter­view.

And so, a life­long jour­ney of writ­ing and recit­ing on stage had be­gun.

Per­sad, who heads the Na­tion­al Lo­tus The­atre, start­ed writ­ing lo­cal plays that would reach com­mu­ni­ties across T&T. She ex­plained, “There was a need in the com­mu­ni­ty to pro­duce the­atre at the vil­lage lev­el and at the na­tion­al lev­el. I found my­self writ­ing be­cause I wasn’t sat­is­fied with the ma­te­r­i­al that I would get from Shake­speare, or any oth­er book, or any oth­er per­son’s writ­ing.”

Per­sad the play­wright would pro­duce plays on Di­vali, East­er, Ze­ro to Hero—plays that were In­do-cen­tric, Amer­i­can, Eu­ro­pean, and Shake­speare­an.

It might sound sim­ple, but some­times lo­cal cul­ture isn’t placed at the fore­front of lo­cal plays. Per­sad aimed to change this.

She added, “I feel like be­cause of the fact that cul­ture is al­ways placed on the back burn­er, where the Gov­ern­ment is con­cerned, and where the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture is con­cerned, they don’t look for the per­sons like my­self, and Vic­tor Ed­wards. They have so many true Best Vil­lage com­pe­ti­tions, artists and writ­ers, but we are not giv­en the fi­nances—and fi­nances are a very im­por­tant thing to pro­duce a pro­gramme.

“I am in­spired by the hap­pen­ings of to­day, and es­pe­cial­ly in our coun­try—our cul­ture, the way in which the peo­ple op­er­ate here, and the lessons that can be learned from the mis­takes that are made in so­cial life and in fam­i­ly life.”

In the last six years, Per­sad has placed young ac­tors and ac­tress­es at the cen­tre of her plays. She’s adamant that the arts could have a pos­i­tive ef­fect on them.

“I think putting work in the hands of the youth, for me, is re­ward­ing in the sense that I know this could change their lives. This could im­pact them. This could be their dream come true,” she said.

“As I was a child, I was giv­en that op­por­tu­ni­ty. So, I would look for tal­ent. I would not on­ly give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty, but I would groom them to be­come the char­ac­ters that I en­vi­sion in my play. I try to in­cor­po­rate at least 50 per cent of the cast with the youth of this coun­try.”

Per­sad has seen young peo­ple ma­ture and ben­e­fit from such ex­po­sure. She added, “I think the the­atre and dra­ma have boost­ed their con­fi­dence, and I see many of these young peo­ple be­ing more con­fi­dent in life. I’ve seen a cou­ple of the peo­ple who were on the mic go on to be ra­dio an­nounc­ers. The whole idea of go­ing be­fore an au­di­ence in the­atre—not nec­es­sar­i­ly for film, but in the­atre—you have to project your voice, and you have to be­come an­oth­er char­ac­ter. It would have boost­ed their con­fi­dence. I have giv­en them some­thing that would have pro­pelled them to be­come bet­ter in­di­vid­u­als.”

Al­though Per­sad’s jour­nal­ism ca­reer and her life on stage were deeply in­ter­twined, each en­rich­ing the oth­er—es­pe­cial­ly her writ­ing—act­ing was nev­er far from her heart, even through­out her 30 years in me­dia.

She said, “I think once you have life, and once you’ve been on this jour­ney, it is not some­thing you can eas­i­ly give up or change, or it can sub­side in some way. It is a boil­ing thing in your heart that you want to pro­duce, that you want to get a sto­ry. Be­cause as a mod­el, with re­tire­ment, I find I have more time, and so my plays now are even bet­ter for it, be­cause of the fact that I have more time to in­vest in the pro­duc­tion.”

Per­sad added, “I al­ways say, some peo­ple crave the stage, but some peo­ple were made for the stage. I feel like I’m at home. I feel like this is my home. This is where I be­long.”

Now, at 64, Per­sad wants to leave a lega­cy for the young peo­ple to fol­low. “I would like peo­ple to fol­low in my foot­steps of nev­er giv­ing up, de­spite the fact that the au­thor­i­ties nev­er recog­nise you, or nev­er give you a help­ing hand. If you have a sto­ry to tell, and if you think that the art can tell your sto­ry, and that you can touch the lives of peo­ple, or you could en­ter­tain a crowd through the medi­um of the­atre arts, then you should go for it—and work from your heart.”