Voices in the Creation of an Indigenous Trinidad and Tobago Theatre

This book explores how, from the mid-20th century, a new form of theatre emerged in Trinidad and Tobago as its playwrights came to mine the Afro-Creole Trinidadian folk milieu. This book focuses primarily on the period from the 1950s through to the contemporary moment, investigating how Trinidad’s theatrical practitioners developed methodologies that formulated an indigenous theatre. It examines how in its creation, it would distance itself from Western forms as the stage was decolonized, making way for a variety of new forms that mimetically reflect the reality of Trinidad’s Afro-Creole folk. This book establishes a premise on which the terms “folk” and “indigenous” have been shaped by Trinidad’s socio-historical past. It develops an argument that outlines how Trinidad’s African cultural retentions form a central basis on which a theatrical tradition was established.

This book traces the historical impetus and driving forces that gave rise to a body of writers for whom the vitally important link between the production of drama and the search for identity in the immediacy of the post-colonial period is established. The book develops a structure that forms three lines of discrete research: folk expression, women, their portrayal and their emergence as theatrical practitioners, and theatrical developments through the decades. These subject areas are examined through the work of a broad body of playwrights. Exploring their theory and praxis, their work is described in terms that exhibit a variety of genres, with tropes that have become indelible resources for theatrical practitioners to draw from. With a theatrical base that extends from popular comedy to avant-garde spiritual works, the theatre is shown to represent a composite entity, one that accommodates a plurality of forms, which, in their summation, express the breadth and depth of Trinidad and Tobago’s theatrical journey, one that is still very much underway.

Readers that have an interest in theatre, cultural, gender, post-colonial, or Caribbean studies will enjoy this book.

Patrick Brennan holds a PhD in English Literatures from the University of Wollongong, Australia. His studies also include a First Class Honour’s degree and a Bachelor of Arts (Distinction) in English Literatures, also from the University of Wollongong. His research interests are literature studies, literary criticism, modern literature, comparative literature, critical theory, cultural studies, and film criticism.