Synopsis For the teeming populace of Old Mack's cacophonous yard in Port of Spain, Trinidad, it's a cheek by jowl existence lived out on a sweltering public stage. Snatches of calypso compete with hymn tunes, drums and street cries as neighbours drink, brawl, pass judgment, make love, look out for each other and crave a better life. But Ephraim is no dreamer and nothing, not even the seductive Rosa, is going to stop him escaping his dead-end job for a fresh start in England. Sponsored by Travelex £12 Tickets
Dates: Opens 14 March 2012. Mar 7,8,9,10,12,13,15,23,24,26,27, Apr 2,3,4,5,7,9,10,17,18,25,26,27,28,30, May 1,2,17,18,19,21,22,23,28,29,30, Jun 7,8,9 at 19:30. Mar 24, Apr 5,7,10,18,28, May 19,22,30, Jun 9 Mats 14:30. Mar 14 at 19:00
Jade Anouka in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl. Photo credit: Jonathan Keenan
Date: 20 March 2012
A revival of Errol John's 1953 play Moon on a Rainbow Shawl opened last week at the National's Cottesloe Theatre (14 March 2012, previews from 7 March 2012).
Set as returning troops from the Second World War fill the town with their raucous celebrations the play, directed by Michael Buffong, depicts a vibrant, cosmopolitan world that is as harsh as it is filled with colour and warmth.
"Errol John's 1953 play is no mere poverty porn. By methodically laying out the obstacles that prevent escape, poverty's cyclical grip, it's too kindly and empathetic for that ... In this, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl transcends both race and place ... Michael Buffong's... languid, heartfelt production ... John's play can be over-insistent and transparent, but Buffong always draws attention to its human side and perfectly achieves the atmosphere of scorched melancholy. He's helped by a terrific ensemble, all comfortable with the slow pace, hanging silences and gorgeous intimacy of Soutra Gilmour's traverse staging ... Sapani's softness ensures Ephraim never seems cruel ... Martina Laird captures all of Sofia's steely mettle with saintly patience ... Strong work from Tahirah Sharif's eager Esther and Jude Akuwudike's dead beat Charlie in this fine find of a play."
"Errol John's bruising, brilliantly witty 1958 play. The inhabitants of five, down-at-heel rooms (lovingly rendered in Soutra Gilmour's weatherbeaten design ... Danny Sapani's magnetic performance ... It is the women who rule this space, and director Michael Buffong's stage. Jenny Jules's show-stoppingly bitchy hooker, Mavis, is engaged in an unceasing war with a foreboding matriarch, Martina Laird's frowsy, formidable cleaning lady, Sophia ... Buffong draws every ounce of comedy from John's wonderfully precise, West-Indian dialogue ... His huge-hearted production ... The play hasn't aged perfectly: its plotting creaks on occasion, there are few surprises, and some characters are not fully fledged. But the lead performances are simply firecracker fare and, as the pressure mounts and bruises blossom, this cramped, highly particular Trinidadian yard becomes a window onto deprivation everywhere."
"It amply justifies revival since, in its vivid portrait of life in a Trinidadian backyard in the immediate postwar period, it explains much about Caribbean history ... I suspect John was an admirer of Tennessee Williams, since his tragicomedy is full of heat, streetcars and sexual longing ... He pins down the conflict between high-flying aspirations and harsh realities in a cosmopolitan British colony: the most touching character is Charlie's 12-year-old daughter who yearns to get to high school and recite poetry, but whose ambitions are held in check by poverty and her father's ultimate disgrace ... Even if it takes its time, Michael Buffong's admirably restrained production treats the characters as real people rather than outrageous exotics. Buffong also gets fine performances from Danny Sapani ... Jude Akuwudike as the hapless Charlie and Martina Laird as his long-suffering wife ... Two richly remarkable contributions from Jenny Jules ... Burt Caesar as the dude landlord ... Justice, you feel, has at last been done to an important postwar play."
"A Caribbean classic (if a partially neglected one) the drama pulses with colourful life but is also steeped in a suffocating atmosphere...and is full of the thwarted hopes and ambitions of its poverty-stricken characters ... The traverse staging in director Michael Buffong's atmospheric revival captures the work's claustrophobia ... And yet the work – pioneering in its time and due a revival – proves less moving than I had hoped. Nevertheless, with a cast that bring their parts vibrantly to life, the production is warm-hearted and absorbing ... Danny Sapani is like a muscular coiled spring ... Martina Laird has a feisty resignation ... Tahirah Sharif exudes an enthusiastic youthfulness ... Jenny Jules is wonderfully self-flaunting as the loose neighbour they love to hate."
"Michael Buffong's sensitive revival...comes across as an intriguing mix of kitchen sink drama and tragicomedy — poignant, yet dense with slang and warm humanity ... A tightly packed design by Soutra Gilmour ... Danny Sapani's Ephraim combines strength and solidity with a constant flow of unsettling opinions, managing to retain a robust dignity even when he's acting like a cad ... Martina Laird makes Sophia the aching backbone of this little community, while Jude Akuwudike brings a muffled pathos to Charlie. And in Jenny Jules's scene-stealing interpretation Mavis has a feline air of superiority ... The play itself isn't pacey, and the unfolding of events is largely predictable. But there's real interest in the tangled elationships, which reek of ambition, yearning and regret ... The production's power gradually accumulates. Although there are moments of furious confrontation, for the most part its potency is quiet. With apt music by the Ebony Steel Band and an array of vivid performances, it's a well-crafted slow burner, spiced with humour."
Libby Purves The Times ★★★★
“I was spellbound since the start, thrilled by one of the 20th century's great neglected plays ... Its warmth is universal. Michael Buffong directs and his cast — appropriately a Trinidadian rainbow from pale Creole to darkest African — displays what brilliant black British actors we now have ... Martina Laird is a lovely Sophie: witty, impatient, warm, scolding, the eternal matriarch holding it together. She brilliantly does the cruel, wrenching moment of self-doubt ... Young Tahirah Sharif gives the child Esther a luminous innocence; Danny Sapani as the emigrant powerfully conveys the battle between ambition and self-disgust, and Jenny Jules is a disgracefully funny, strutting, thrustingly tarty neighbour ... Jude Akuwudike as Charlie is most poignant of all ... The only cavil is the physical format: the yard is lovingly detailed, from the distressed, sun-cracked wooden porch to the communal tap. But Soutra Gilmour sets it between opposing banks of seats ... But it's the only flaw: lets hope this lovely production migrates to other stages. Meanwhile, just go."
"A well-balanced play and Michael Buffong here directs a strong production that had me pretty damp round the headlamps by the end ... The most obvious thing about the show is its doorstep sandwich-thick dialect. Many lines will be lost to the average English ear, particularly at the start of the evening. You still pretty much get the drift of what is being said but it is not always easy. Martina Laird is super as tired, dignified Sophia. Danny Sapani provides balance as Sophia's desperate neighbour Ephraim. Ray Emmet Brown does a comical turn as the tart's suitor. Tahirah Sharif makes a touching teenage daughter, particularly when things start to go awry. If you can fight your way past the accents, you are in for a sweet show that leaves you counting your blessings."
From an over-crowded patch of a Trinidad housing estate, everyone looks up at the same moon and dreams of escape. Here, noise constantly seeps through corrugated iron walls: someone else’s music, someone else’s arguments, someone else’s sexual groans. Eyes peer into private spaces as nosey neighbours pry. Tempers fray and territorial lines are drawn. The residents follow one another around with mocking catcalls. And it’s hot; the sort of sapping humidity that makes everything heavy and slow.
Little wonder that those living so on top of each other want out. Danny Sapani’s Ephraim, worn down by the daily grind of driving a trolleybus, has himself a ticket to England; Esther, his neighbours’ daughter, has won a scholarship and Mavis (Jenny Jules), a brassy prostitute living on the other side, is trying to sleep her way out of the slum.
For some, even brief respite is enough: Charlie, for whom cricket once offered hope of a better life in England, steals from his landlord’s business and enjoys a carefree night of drinking, to the frustration of his pragmatist wife Sophia.
Yet Errol John’s 1953 play is no mere poverty porn. By methodically laying out the obstacles that prevent escape, poverty’s cyclical grip, it’s too kindly and empathetic for that. Esther’s scholarship, for example, still doesn’t cover the cost of her uniform. She should be studying, but there are chores to be done and errands to run. Ephraim is wary of the trap, but any route out comes at the expense of his peers. By leaving, he abandons Rosa, pregnant with his child, just as Mavis slowly hauls herself out by making his neighbours’ lives a misery.
[WOS_QU@TE]#There's no doubt director Michael Buffong intends us to see echoes of London's poorest estates#[/WOS_QU@TE]
In this, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl transcends both race and place. Despite its historical interest around immigration, there’s no doubt director Michael Buffong intends us to see echoes of London’s poorest estates, but his languid, heartfelt production lets us make the leap ourselves. John’s play can be over-insistent and transparent, but Buffong always draws attention to its human side and perfectly achieves the atmosphere of scorched melancholy.
He’s helped by a terrific ensemble, all comfortable with the slow pace, hanging silences and gorgeous intimacy of Soutra Gilmour’s traverse staging. Their eyes glaze as their brains whir idle dreams. Sapani’s softness ensures Ephraim never seems cruel, even when damning Jade Anouka’s bright-eyed Rosa to the quicksands of poverty. Martina Laird captures all of Sofia’s steely mettle with saintly patience. On discovering Charlie’s crime, she steps back in disappointment, then steps forward to find a solution. Jules walks a catwalk-model’s hip-swinging snap, but stops short of ridiculing Mavis, and there’s strong work from Tahirah Sharif’s eager Esther and Jude Akuwudike’s dead beat Charlie in this fine find of a play.
Very well acted. Staging imaginative, but what was the content? Rather like a Trinidadian 'East Enders' - PN Ruane
19 Apr 12
I'll admit I'm not an expert in Trinidadian accents of the '40's, but I'm not at all scared to say that this production is wholly convincing and wonderful. Yes, it's intricately observed, and for some that will mean it's uneventful and slow, but it's heartfelt and touching, and the characters are well-defined and portrayed. The set is a little too attractive to be the hellhole it is described as being. The fact that there is only one outside tap is the only reason I wouldn't want to live there myself. Unlike the previous reviewer, I found Danny Sapani's performance as angry Ephraim to be wholly believable (albeit physically perhaps a little too fat to be as magnetic to the girls as he is), caring, yet utterly ruthless in his determination to escape his roots. Not one actor emitted a false note, not Martina Laird (brilliant), not Jenny Jules, not Tahirah Sharif, not Jude Akuwudike. I think Errol John would have been very proud of this production, and I was very moved. - steveatplays
28 Mar 12
It seems like people are scared to give an honest critique of a black production for fear of being accused of racism or not being open... The fact is, this play was very slow, the casting was overly ambitious in a unrealistic kind of way and the leading Actors look armature at best namely Danny Sapani and Jade Anouka.
Michael Buffong or Wendy Spon (Head Casting Dir National Theatre) were not brave in their decision to cast the part of Ephraim and chickened out by hiring someone with "experience", I think it was a gamble not worth taking as it did not pay off at all.
Martian has issues with playing black women with any kind of class and always opts for the obvious choice of playing them with such low status. She however having been the only native trinidadian gave the best accent the rest were questionable on a large scale.
As the casting was so off across the board I think it failed miserably, but the story itself is a good one. So I give it a 1 star just for that. I fear the same nonsensical theatre especially when it comes to black theatre if people like Wendy Spon and Michael Buffong don't get creative and cast properly and give our younger Actors an opportunity to carry what should and so easily could have been a beautiful play. - Minds Peak
17 Mar 12
Fifty-four years after it’s premiere, and 24 years after I first saw it, this new National Theatre production of Errol John’s play set in post-war Trinidad in the dying days of the colonial period proves itself a classic.
It’s a fascinating piece of social history as well as the personal story of five adults and two children sharing a backyard (and a water supply) surrounding their small homes. Soutra Gilmour’s brilliantly realistic design is atmospheric and suitably claustrophobic, with audience on two sides providing an intimate staging – you’re as ‘on top’ of them as they are ‘on top’ of each other.
Trolley bus driver Ephraim (a passionate Danny Sapani) decides to emigrate to Liverpool instead of settling for a promotion to inspector, leaving behind his girlfriend Rosa who he thinks is trying to entrap him. Mavis (a terrific Jenny Jules) decides to stop ‘entertaining’ the visiting US military and becomes engaged to clownish wide boy Prince (a superb Ray Emmet Brown). The lives of Sophia and Charlie (two more excellent performances by Martina Laird & Jude Akuwudike), proud at their daughter Esther’s scholarship to high school, are turned upside down when Charlie makes one big mistake whilst out on a bender.
All of this takes place as troops are returning victorious from the war, the Americans are using the island as a base and the country is approaching independence. It takes a while to attune to the dialect and for these peoples lives to unfold, but it proves to be a thoroughly satisfying story which gets a perfect staging by Michael Buffong. In addition to the ones I’ve already named, there are other great performances here - notably Tahirah Sharif’s sweetly innocent Esther and Burt Caesar’s predatory Old Mack.
A very welcome revival which at last gets the production the writer wanted, sadly when he’s no longer here to see it. Not to be missed. - Gareth James
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