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

Original post in Trinidad Guardian Nov 11, 2018

The Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA) will present its annual New Director’s Forum: Festival of Plays between November 23 and 25. The Festival features six plays beginning at 6 pm and 8 pm on Friday and Saturday and 4 pm and 6 pm on Sunday.
This annual student production showcases student directors pursuing the Directing II course, which is part of their Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre Arts. DCFA Head of Department Louis McWilliams said “Festival of Plays is a series of directing examinations that are presented to the UWI community and a wider cross-section of the theatre-going public. It showcases the work of six student directors who would have been trained in creating stage action and managing a rehearsal process that takes the work from the page to the stage. Each year, through the choices of plays and the innovative techniques, audiences are sure to witness refreshing work from these young talented new directors.” The Festival is part of the DCFA’s Season of the Arts, which runs from November 9 to December 9.
This year, the directors are Christopher Best, Shontel Williams, Dominique Friday, Christian-Kendahl Rock, Shanelle Cielto and Kerise-Marie Rawlins. The plays they have chosen take on issues of abuse, mental illness, gender equality and racism, among others.
Best’s play, Keisha Julien’s “Who do you expect me to be when?” is about a young girl who struggles to overcome the constant abuse from the men she encounters in her life’s journey. It explores issues of neglect, domestic violence, sexual abuse and finding hope through all of these tragedies. Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis, directed by Williams, portrays depression as experienced by the playwright and discusses suicide, medication, possible causes of depression, dependency, relationships and love, among other topics.
The Respectful Prostitute (French: La Putain respectueuse) is a French play by Jean-Paul Sartre and directed by Dominique Friday. Written in 1946, it observes the title character who is caught up in a racially tense period of American history. Sartre’s play is believed to have been based on the infamous Scottsboro case, in which two white prostitutes accused nine black teenagers of rape on a train traveling through Alabama in 1931. The tale takes a brief look at the loss of freedom inside a cruel world.
In Luci Hammans’ “Who Diablesse”, directed by Christian-Kendahl Rock, Christa-Leah, a young Caribbean girl, discovers that she is the latest incarnation of the legendary La Diablesse. With the help of her friends she explores the range of her newfound female powers and has the opportunity to confront the evils of gender-based violence in her school. But Christa-Leah struggles: is this power a blessing or a curse? Both the director and the playwright hail from Barbados.
“Akini Mata”, (women’s work) is a Nigerian adaptation of the Greek comedy Lysistrata, translated and adapted by TW Harrison and James Simmons and directed by Shanelle Cielto. It is a comic account of a woman’s extraordinary mission to end the war by denying all the men in the land sex which was the only thing they truly desired. Magajiiy persuades the women of Hausaland to withhold sexual desires from their husbands as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace.
In Ralph Maharaj’s “Cynthia Sweetness”, directed by Kerise-Marie Rawlins, the title character has the amorous attention of two very different young men, Dwight the artist and revolutionary, and Lenny, wealthy scholarship winner from the upper echelons. In the battle for Cynthia, the playwright unearths some deep-seated social prejudices and imbalances that fuelled the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1970s and which persist to this very day.
Each ticket enables the audience member to see two plays. Tickets are $60 for adults and $40 for students, while a season pass for all six plays costs $150. Visit the DCFA office at Cheeseman Avenue, St. Augustine or contact 272-3232 to reserve tickets. Find more information on the Festival of Plays at New Directors Forum 2018 – Festival of Plays.