PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - The promising young Caribbean musician walks out on a rehearsal for a piano recital, saying he would prefer to try a new way of making melodies - using the underside of a steel drum.
His European teacher is infuriated.

WALCOTT. Steel is a tribute to Trinidad.

"It's not music and it will never be," the teacher bellows. "It's a garbage pan and can only produce garbage." This is a scene from Steel, a musical by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott that traces the history and development of the steel drum from a working-class fringe instrument to one that has come to represent the soul of the Caribbean - especially in the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

The musical is not new - a version played at Harvard Univerity in the United States in 1991 - but it was performed for a Caribbean audience for the first time last week in a six-night series at the historic Queens Hall in the capital, Port of Spain.

The opening on Tuesday was a big event in Trinidad, with President George Maxwell Richards and local celebrities in attendance.
For Walcott, the 1992 recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, it was important to hold what he called the "world premier" of the musical in the city of its setting and where the steel drum, or pan as it's often called, plays such an important cultural role.

"Steel is a tribute to Trinidad, it's what I owe it," the 75-year-old writer said in a brief interview after the opening night performance. "I would like this play to express my joy and gratitude."

It was also, he said, a good place to find the musicians needed for a score written by composer Galt MacDermot.

"I have always been fascinated by the musical talent, the calypso, the carnival and the sweet sound of pan," said Walcott, a native of the island of St Lucia. "Trinidad was the best place to host the world premier and to display the vast local talent."

The musical portrays the development of steel drum music in the 1930s and 1940s as a metaphor for the Caribbean's struggle to shake itself free of European colonial domination and assert its own cultural identity.

The character Winston Marshall, who abandons his piano recital, is one of the symbols of that struggle in post-World War II Trinidad, where the idea of making music from a trash can was an affront to upper-class society and those who aspired to join it.

"What about London? What about your future?" Marshall's teacher yells at his retreating figure.
Beyond the music, Steel also tackles other demons of Caribbean life in the post-war years - violence, poverty and prostitution - in the three-hour production.

The play runs in Trinidad only through September 18, but Walcott said he hopes to bring the musical to other countries but he has not yet finalised plans to for future performances.

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