Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

In Par­adiso, a play writ­ten by T&T?Guardian colum­nist Ray­mond Ram­char­i­tar and di­rect­ed by Tim­mia Hearn Feld­man, the dark­est el­e­ments of hu­man ex­cess con­verge, with un­set­tling and re­sound­ing ef­fect. Par­adiso was per­formed on De­cem­ber 9, at the Trinidad The­atre Work­shop on Jern­ing­ham Av­enue, Bel­mont.

The play's events cen­tre on an atroc­i­ty com­mit­ted by one man, who, when asked, calls him­self Hum­bert Swann (al­lud­ing to char­ac­ters by Nabokov and Proust), but whose re­al iden­ti­ty re­mains ob­scure. Charged in his home­town of Paris for the sex­u­al as­sault of Caribbean mi­nors while on va­ca­tion, Swann leads the au­di­ence through the events pre­ced­ing and fol­low­ing this in­dict­ment.

Dou­bling as nar­ra­tor and ac­tor in the sto­ry of his own life, he un­folds Par­adiso through his per­spec­tive. In non-lin­ear style, Swann's pre-Caribbean "ex­cru­ci­at­ing­ly or­di­nary" life is held up for the au­di­ence's scruti­ny, then con­trast­ed against his crime in the is­lands. Pub­lic and so­ci­etal in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the deed is thick with cen­sure, but is there a pos­si­bil­i­ty that Swann's soul can be re­deemed? More im­por­tant­ly, does he even care?

Par­adiso marked the sec­ond of the TTW's Stu­dio The­atre Se­ries, an ini­tia­tive pair­ing play­wrights with di­rec­tors as a play is work­shopped for even­tu­al full pro­duc­tion. The first of these, per­formed the week be­fore, was Fresh Wa­ter, writ­ten by Louris Mar­tin Lee-Sing and al­so di­rect­ed by Hearn Feld­man.

Like Fresh Wa­ter, Par­adiso was per­formed on an un­adorned stage, bare ex­cept for five podi­ums hold­ing scripts, dim­ly lit with the ex­cep­tion of cued yel­low spot­lights. The ac­tors de­liv­ered

Ram­char­i­tar's words with al­ter­nat­ing self-dep­re­ca­tion, bit­ter irony and ap­par­ent res­ig­na­tion to their sep­a­rate but in­ter­twined fates. The role of Swann was played by Mau­rice Brash, who brought the char­ac­ter to life in dis­turb­ing and vivid fash­ion.

Through him, Swann's ex­tend­ed so­lil­o­quies of dis­con­tent­ment, en­nui and jad­ed fa­tal­ism were im­bued with con­sid­er­able force. Au­di­ence mem­bers gasped and chuck­led ner­vous­ly at the dirty truths Swann ex­posed re­gard­ing those al­leged joys of is­land liv­ing.

Brash's per­for­mance ex­em­pli­fied the idea that the anony­mous Hum­bert Swann was name­less for a rea­son: that he could be any one of us, chaf­ing against the yoke of so­ci­ety's ex­pec­ta­tions, des­per­ate to live a lit­tle, then a lit­tle more.

Sup­port­ing cast mem­bers were al­so un­named, and played in­ter­chang­ing roles de­pend­ing on the scene's ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion and time pe­ri­od. Ce­cil­ia Salazar evoked wild­ly dif­fer­ing re­ac­tions in her sep­a­rate in­car­na­tions: the ear­ly ide­al­ism and lat­er sour­ness of Swann's wife; the stol­id sever­i­ty of a Parisian chief jus­tice; the booze-ad­dled ex­hi­bi­tion­ism of an is­land prime min­is­ter's for­eign spouse.

As the self-ap­point­ed lawyer seek­ing to wres­tle Swann away from a life in prison, Michael Cher­rie han­dled the role with bom­bast and ap­pro­pri­ate grim­ness. He paint­ed a telling con­sid­er­a­tion of re­sent­ful alien­ation of the hy­per-ed­u­cat­ed Caribbean schol­ar, ed­u­cat­ed at Oxbridge, in­hab­it­ing nei­ther home nor abroad with com­fort.

Promis­ing young tal­ent Eu­ge­nia Lemo was con­vinc­ing in her sup­ple­men­tary role as a Caribbean maid (and sex­u­al com­mod­i­ty). The dis­tinc­tions among Wayne Lee-Sing's per­for­mances were clear and ef­fi­cient. As the brash Amer­i­can tourist, Swann's young co-work­er with up­ward­ly mo­bile as­pi­ra­tions, and a gen­tly self-ef­fac­ing Grou­cho Marx, Lee-Sing's sup­port­ing roles an­chored sev­er­al scenes, weight­ing them with sol­id be­liev­abil­i­ty.

Au­di­ence mem­bers who at­tend­ed Par­adiso with ex­pec­ta­tions of par­adise would have been not just sore­ly dis­ap­point­ed, but pos­si­bly dis­traught. Par­adiso was not pret­ty, and there­in lay one of its prin­ci­pal strengths: its re­fusal to shy away from the seedy un­der­bel­ly of is­land pol­i­tics, is­land liv­ing and, of course, beau­ti­ful is­land peo­ple.

The play was one of three win­ners at the 2002 British Ware­house The­atre's In­ter­na­tion­al Play­writ­ing Fes­ti­val. In the post-per­for­mance dis­cus­sion, Ram­char­i­tar not­ed that it was writ­ten 12 years ago, over the course of a three-month stint.

De­scribed by one au­di­ence mem­ber as mak­ing sense in "a per­fect mu­si­cal-chairs kind of way," Par­adiso held none of the youth­ful en­thu­si­asm and glee as­so­ci­at­ed with that chil­dren's game. In Ram­char­i­tar's script, words were heat-seek­ing mis­siles, mak­ing it best, per­haps, that no one was of­fi­cial­ly named.

Though it oc­ca­sion­al­ly seemed heav­i­ly over­wrought, and a lit­tle bit in love with its own se­ri­ous­ness, there are worse crimes that a play­wright could com­mit. If we in the Caribbean still live on the pe­riph­ery of the world, then Par­adiso is a grim re­minder that the world comes to our doorstep in sev­er­al un­san­i­tary ways.