Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

The Trinidad Theatre Workshop’s (TTW) School for the Arts showcase on January 23 showed off a host of talented actors of all ages who are sure to grace the stages and screens of T&T in years to come.

The Showcase was put on by members of the latest Children’s, Teens, Beginning Adult Actors and Advanced Adult Actors classes held at TTW.
Afi Ford-Hopson, who taught the five-member children’s class, said the two skits which were presented were developed entirely by the children themselves. “They speak about two issues – responsibility and bullying. The contents might be of a young adult nature but what we tried to do here at TTW is explore with experiential theatre, where we encourage the kids to explore issues and then we have them perform it out, so they have some firsthand experience in being involved in an issue and probably helping to solve it.”
The members of the children’s class were Deja Mckenzie, Rhianna Antione Persad, Jamaiya Johnson, Caydee Kydd, and Ivy Bradford. Their first skit showed a girl who was left by her mother to watch her younger siblings sneaking out to go to a party, where another child gets alcohol poisoning. When the child tries to sneak back into the house, she is caught by her mother who grounds her for three months.
The second skit portrayed two bullies taking lunch money from smaller girls in school and physically retaliating when they are stood up to. They were suspended by the Principal and later confess they were stealing because they didn’t have food of their own and were hungry.
The seven-member Teenage Class was comprised of Mikail Roberts, Fasina Aluko, Ifayomi Aluko, Vionne Shaw, Perdie Bradford, Hakeem Dublin and Stephan Messiah.
The first skit was a hilarious portrayal of a courtroom drama, where a student was accused of stabbing the lunch lady to death with a spork. Under the laughter, issues of race and class were also raised, as the accused was white, and said the black lunch lady often refused her food. The verdict was left to the imagination of the audience.
The next skit took place in the middle of a hurricane, with the actors portraying a preacher, con-man, a child who lost her parents and a man who lost his child, who were trapped together. Here too there was a wonderful sense of comedic timing, right up to the unexpected ending, which revealed that they had all died.
Shaw gave a stirring performance of “Oh!” which spoke of her loss of the love of a same sex significant other, who doesn’t know she found out they were cheating. Messiah was last, speaking of his heartbreak after his girl left him for another man.
The five members of the New Actors class, Jisselle Williams, Jeneil Stephen, Ria Carrera-Tony, Willa M. Superville and Shaun Rambaran, gave different interpretations of Bolom’s monologue from “Ti Jean and His Brothers” written by Derek Walcott. Body language, simple additions to their all-black costumes and props helped to bring out individual interpretations as a crone, a mother, a politician, a young woman and a gypsy woman.

The Advanced Adult class, Renaldo Bachan, Bendel Jack, Sandra Ali, Sherika Herbert, Kala Neehall, Abdi Waithe and Stephen Hadeed Jr. then showed off their skills with a short play and a series of monologues. The play, called “Love Song,” was striking for the use of the repetition of the same phrases to show different relationships between each couple who took the stage, including a couple in love, another pair of a dealer and his client, the next of a young married couple, a man threatening his male lover and a nurse and her psychiatric patient.

Bachan performed “Golf Club” from José Rivera’s Marisol, with an excellent portrayal of a psychotic character; Jack performed “Makak” from Derek Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain; Ali’s monologue was that of “Jean” from Tony Hall’s Jean and Dinah, with its memories of Carnival and stickfighting. Herbert was excellent as “Marisol” from José Rivera’s Marisol; Kala Neehall had the audience spellbound with her portrayal of “Blanche” from Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire and Waithe’s performance as “Jesus” from Stephen Guirgis’s The Last Days for Judas Iscariot as chilling.
The showcase was put on as part of TTW’s continuing fundraising efforts to purchase the building which houses them at 23 Jerningham Avenue, Belmont. Interested persons can find more information at http://www.trinidadtheatreworkshop.com/ or find them on Facebook at Trinidad Theatre Workshop.