Af­ter 20 years in pol­i­tics, in­clud­ing be­ing a Cab­i­net min­is­ter and par­lia­men­tar­i­an for more than a decade, Ralph Maraj re­turns to his first love–the the­atre. He is now re­hears­ing one of his plays The Saint, for per­for­mances at the Na­pari­ma Bowl on March 15 and 16 at 8.30 pm.

"I am re­al­ly glad to be back in the the­atre. I nev­er knew how much I missed it, how much I need­ed it." It is so nour­ish­ing and lib­er­at­ing com­pared to the arid­i­ty of pol­i­tics. I will nev­er leave my art again," Maraj said in a re­lease.

The for­mer min­is­ter start­ed his ca­reer in the the­atre as a teenag­er at Na­pari­ma Col­lege in the '60s when he won two Best Ac­tor awards at the Sec­ondary Schools Dra­ma Fes­ti­val.

He lat­er joined the Dra­ma Guild and un­der the di­rec­tion of James Lee Wah, played an amaz­ing va­ri­ety of roles from clas­si­cal to lo­cal in­clud­ing Romeo, Mark Antony, Mac­beth, Shy­lock, Mar­quis de Sade, Ed­die Car­bone in A View from the Bridge, Boyle in Juno and the Pay­cock, the lead role in Man Bet­ter Man.

Maraj start­ed writ­ing and di­rect­ing plays in the mid-'70s and in a space of ten years pro­duced over 20 full-length plays, many of which won awards at the Na­tion­al Dra­ma Fes­ti­val. These in­clude, The Miss­ing File, Un­der the Sapodil­la Tree, Cyn­thia Sweet­ness, The Bro­ken Bridge, Flow­ers of the Na­tion, The Arch­bish­op and the Prime Min­is­ter, The Saint and oth­ers.

Maraj al­so played lead roles in two lo­cal movies, The Right and the Wrong and Bim. He was the host of the three tele­vi­sion se­ries Cross Coun­try, Book Talk and Feed­back. Maraj was al­so the Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Dra­ma As­so­ci­a­tion for three con­sec­u­tive terms.

He was al­so the longest serv­ing For­eign Min­is­ter of this coun­try, serv­ing for ten years in that ca­pac­i­ty. He was al­so the Min­is­ter of In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and rep­re­sent­ed the con­stituen­cies of San Fer­nan­do and Na­pari­ma for the 11 con­tin­u­ous years he served as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. He is al­so a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and was a teacher at Na­pari­ma Col­lege for 17 years.

He wrote and staged The Saint in the 80s to the de­light of packed au­di­ences. The play is set in a rich busi­ness fam­i­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Prob­lems arise when the el­der of two sons wants to be­come a saint and de­cides to give up world­ly am­bi­tions. His younger broth­er must now take charge of the fam­i­ly busi­ness.

Maraj said The Saint is a hu­man dra­ma dur­ing which all the char­ac­ters ex­pe­ri­ence some de­gree of evo­lu­tion. He al­so not­ed that the play is suit­able for all ages.

Tick­ets are now on sale at the Na­pari­ma Bowl, SRS Drugs in Mara­bel­la and Ur­ban Cur­ry Caf� in Gulf City.

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