Moon on a Rainbow Shawl

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.

Our Review:

15 March 2012

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...

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Latest User Review

PN Ruane - 19 April 2012:

Very well acted. Staging imaginative, but what was the content? Rather like a Trinidadian 'East Enders'...

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