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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Jean & Dinah goes to Brooklyn

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20140809

New York's Sapodil­la Sis­ters will stage Tony Hall's play Jean & Di­nah at Brook­lyn's Trop­i­cal Re­flec­tions Ball­room on Au­gust 17.

Pro­duced by Lord­street The­atre and di­rect­ed by Hall, the play, which stars Rhoma Spencer as Di­nah and Pene­lope Spencer as Jean, was pre­vi­ous­ly staged in New York 20 years ago.

This play, in­spired by Mighty Spar­row's clas­sic ca­lyp­so of the same name, of­fers an in­sid­er's per­spec­tive in­to the re­al lives of Jean and Di­nah, two "work­ing girls" dur­ing the time of the Amer­i­can oc­cu­pa­tion of Trinidad dur­ing World War II.

Viewed through the frame­work of Hall's the­o­ry of "jamette con­scious­ness," these mar­gin­alised char­ac­ters emerge as hero­ines who led and lived a fight against colo­nial­ism, his­to­ry and old no­tions of fem­i­nin­i­ty.

"Jean & Di­nah would be the fem­i­nist spokes­women of our time," said Hall. "Their sto­ries may be harsh and un­ro­man­tic but it is in fact the chron­i­cling of the jamette his­to­ry that is very much a part of T&T."

The ca­lyp­so Jean and Di­nah launched the ca­reer of the Mighty Spar­row, known as the ca­lyp­so King of the World. In the song, Spar­row com­ment­ed on the large-scale pros­ti­tu­tion that the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary bases once sup­port­ed and the des­per­a­tion of these pros­ti­tutes fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of the Amer­i­cans af­ter WWII.

In the ca­lyp­so, Spar­row sang that Jean, Di­nah and their co­horts, Rosi­ta and Clementi­na, are: "on the cor­ner pos­ing...and if you catch them bro­ken you could get them all for noth­ing."

But the re­al women, the hero­ines of Hall's play, are typ­i­cal of a cul­ture that has to deal with pover­ty and so­cial prob­lems.

"I am so elat­ed to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to host Pro­fes­sor Hall and the tal­ent­ed cast of Jean & Di­nah in this Brook­lyn event," said au­thor and play­wright Nan­di Keyi of Sapodil­la Pro­duc­tions.

"I be­lieve that it is a red-let­ter day for Caribbean the­atre in Brook­lyn to have this play come to us di­rect from T&T," said Ketyi, co-pro­duc­er of Sapodil­la Sis­ters along with me­dia con­sul­tant Glen­da Cado­gan.

In oth­er events to mark the 20th an­niver­sary of the stag­ing of Jean and Di­nah in New York, Tony Hall will be fea­tured in a talk­shop at Medgar Evers Col­lege on Au­gust 13.

The event is staged joint­ly by Sapodil­la Pro­duc­tions and the Cen­ter for Black Lit­er­a­ture and will fea­ture Hall dis­cussing his "jamette con­scious­ness" and "Jou­vay process" the­o­ries with two vet­er­an Trinida­di­an broad­cast­ers, Dave El­cock and Er­ic St Bernard.

On Au­gust 14, the cast of the Jean & Di­nah will make a spe­cial ap­pear­ance at the pop­u­lar Trinida­di­an-owned eatery Su­per Wings for a two-hour street im­pro­vi­sa­tion the­atre ses­sion.

Su­per Wings is one of the play's spon­sors and own­er Co­lette Cyrus-Bur­nett has cre­at­ed a spe­cial "Jean & Di­nah wing" to mark the oc­ca­sion.

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ABOUT SAPODIL­LA SIS­TERS

Sapodil­la Sis­ters is a world-wide pro­mo­tions and pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny with head­quar­ters in New York City. Its pri­ma­ry own­ers are Nan­di Keyi, au­thor of the True Nan­ny Di­aries and Flam­beaux, and Glen­da Cado­gan, an award-win­ning jour­nal­ist.

The in­di­vid­ual ef­forts of Keyi and Cado­gan have pro­duced sev­er­al events in the Caribbean-Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty like At The Feet of the Mas­ters, The Crab Hole and Fire­side Chat and Yes­ter­day's Chil­dren.


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