Caribbean heat bubbles through Martina Laird’s atmospheric but ungoverned debut play, set on the brink of independence for Trinidad and Tobago in 1962 and scripted in musical “Trini” Creole. An accomplished stage actress as well as a stalwart of television, Laird has a flair for dialogue and arresting scenarios.
Here, three members of a fragmented black family vie for advantage within the controlling structures of old-school British colonialism and newly aggressive, expansionist American capitalism. It’s set, with heavy symbolism, in a “gentleman’s club” that is basically a brothel. Unfortunately, the play’s blending of sexual, filial and political themes is repetitive and inconsistent.
We are in Alma, one of four “houses” owned by the complacently chuntering Englishman Mansion (Roger Ringrose) in sweltering Port of Spain. Local woman Pearl (Ellen Thomas) collects the takings from his empire on footsore daily rounds. Her light-skinned daughter Ruby (Cat White), implicitly sired by Mansion or another white man, tends to the men who frequent the house. Reports on the independence movement led by Dr Eric Williams pour from the new radiogram in the bar, alongside satirical calypso songs.
Having lived in Alma all her life, Pearl feels it should be her birthright when Mansion returns to Britain. Ruby has her own vision for the business. Then the son Pearl abandoned at birth, Diamond (Martins Imhangbe), arrives with claims of his own. Given the production carries a content warning about incest, his instant interest in Ruby is not strictly fraternal. The phenomenon of Genetic Sexual Attraction is used as a metaphor for the warping influence of foreign domination.
Though vivid, the characters too often reiterate their wildly improbable schemes and desires. The emotional dynamics frequently turn on a sixpence. It is well performed by the central trio, but the corrupt cop, the capitalist and the crooked Yank are more two-dimensional. Director Justin Audibert’s direction features flashes of intensity amid boggy passages, though the rhythm and snap of the language does much to carry it along.
