It's been a good time recently for anyone who likes their poetry staged. The first half of the University Dramatic Society's major production (at the Philip Sherlock Centre) was a ritual treatment of some Lorna Goodison poems, directed by Brian Heap. At the Dennis Scott Studio Theatre there is Adios Carenage, in which Lloyd Reckord speaks/acts, in person or on film, a programme of (mostly Jamaican) poems selected, produced and directed by Reckord himself.

In spite of some technical mishaps on opening night, Adios Carenage displayed the taste and skills of an experienced theatre practitioner. Lloyd Reckord-75 this year-transmitted dignity, tenderness, exasperation, passion, humour, anguish, anger, with measured assurance. With minimal fuss, the context of each piece was suggested-by an actual introduction, and/or by the music, lighting or the setting filmed. The programme presented live performance roughly alternating with film.

Perhaps partly because on opening night the recorded sound seemed thin, I greatly preferred the pieces presented live. And the only instance where the filmed material seemed to me more than unimaginative illustration was in Martin Carter's "This is the dark time, my love" where a poem originally about British soldiers in Georgetown, Guyana, 50 years ago is given new force by the clips of Jamaican security forces in Kingston.

Some of the film clips struck me as much too literal: in "There was an Indian" we see a naked man walking on a beach; in Brathwaite's great cricket poem "Rites", an actual tailor, needle and thread in hand, contends with another man (played by Blacka Ellis); in Mutabaruka's "A si dung pon de wall" Reckord as a street person muses on the fate of Reckord dressed for the office; Barbara Ferland's "Expect no turbulence" is illustrated by a pair of lovers in bed; for Frank Collymore's "Roman Holiday" we see Reckord in drag, declaring "It was a lovely funeral."

But Reckord is a compelling speaker of verse. He makes well-known poems sound new: poems such as Louise Bennett's "Colonisation in Reverse", Evan Jones's "Song of the Banana Man", Neville Dawes's "Fugue" (not "Fuge"), Bongo Jerry's "Mabrak", Edward Baugh's "Nigger Sweat" and James Weldon Johnson's "Go Down, Death". Good as he is with mischievous pieces, such as "Roman Holiday" or Louise Bennett's "Is Me", he seemed on opening night at his best with pathos, as in Evan Jones's "Lament of the Banana Man", Claude McKay's "Flame Heart" and Derek Walcott's "Adios Carenage". In the pieces presented live, the voice was the undoubted centre of the performance, our attention also focused by sensitive lighting, understated variations in posture and a thoroughly professional use of the hands.

The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner
Voice was not the strength of The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner, conceptualized and directed by Brian Heap for the UWI Dramatic Society. But the concept was very interesting.

Heap has devised "a ritualized theatre presentation of poems of Lorna Goodison". As he writes in the programme, "Her poem 'The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner' [from Turn Thanks] provides the spine of the work, and other poems about people from her past and members of her family punctuate it."
Poems used or sampled, in addition to the poem that gives the piece its title, include "Turn Thanks to Miss Mirry", "Lover Song for Great-Grandmother Leanna", "This is My Father's Country" and "For My Mother (May I Inherit Half Her Strength)".

Wonderful things were done with a length of material about five foot wide, dark on one side, whitish on the other. In the hands of the eighteen student performers, it signified variously: carpet, stream, land, grave, steps, a dress, whatever-it seemed almost inexhaustibly changeable. The performers spoke singly or in shifting groups. They became storytellers or characters in the story. Moods were established or supported by variations in the lighting and recorded music.

Patricia: A Love Story
The second half of the production was Patricia: A Love Story, by a Trinidadian playwright, Zeno Obie Constance. In a series of short scenes, it examines stages in the relationship of a Trinidadian couple, from courtship through to marriage, middle age and death.

Four pairs of actors take turns in acting the couple. By having the pairs change places as in quadrille, Brian Heap underscored connections with some of the relationship themes and the rural Jamaica setting of the Goodison first half.
There was some lively acting, most notably by Danielle Callender, Carla Moore, Clive Forrester and Sonia Boothe.

Mothers can't father

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'