Trincity-based theatre company, Eh Bien Oui Don Don, selected the challenging Christian D Leach interpretation of her own dramatic poem, Saffronia, as its offering to the Independence Folk Festival Finals which continued at the South Campus of the National Academy of the Performing Arts last Monday.
Poor promotion of the hectic schedule of activities virtually guaranteed a low turnout for one of the better theatrical presentations of the year. Yet, the Bishop Anstey/Trinity College East (BATCE) alumni who comprise Eh Bien, put their best foot forward in a memorable performance before a panel of judges and a scanty but enthusiastic audience.
An American creative busy-body who describes herself as "an artist making music, a poet singing songs, a musician doing films, a songwriter spinning text, a visionary on an art journey," Leach is responsible for a hard-hitting paean to the plight of a young, female mulatto slave child who changes hands, torn from her mother's arms and transported to a world of sexual exploitation.
Demii Patterson as Saffronia is at home on-stage and manages a role which, in lesser hands, would have been given to indelicate treatment. Renaldo Frederick plays slave-master William Stanhope, who maintains a separate dwelling for Saffronia who serves as his concubine and is promised the freedom of her mother from who she had been snatched as a young child.
No new-comer to the stage, Frederick's performance is expert and he manages the complexity of Stanhope's bipolar personality. He loves Saffronia, he says, yet is prepared to murder her new-born baby conceived as a result of a liaison with young slave, Elijah, played by Nicholas Subero, another gifted thespian produced by the eastern college.
"Only that which is white is worthy of staying," Stanhope tells Saffronia with a knife in his hand and murder in his eyes. "It will be just a little cut, just like slicing a zaboca."
The tragic end leaves both Stanhope and Elijah dead. Elijah is shot by Stanhope's drunken brother, Evan, who is played by Jovan Hutchinson while Stanhope is shot and killed by Saffronia as he is about to kill the baby.
The plays musical interludes are skilfully delivered by a band under the direction of Giselle Glasgow while choreography is by Roxanne De Souza.
Outstanding work is done on costuming under the guidance of designers Daphne Nieves and Roxanne De Souza and the projected backdrop was thoughtfully designed and delivered on the evening.
BATCE teacher and director, Shawn Smart, would have been proud of his charges.
As an Independence offering, the play conveys messages of love and betrayal and the steely grit required to survive the pain of what Leach describes as "an evil system that perpetuates pain on all involved–bondage on many levels."
Hopefully, theatre-goers have another opportunity to witness this wonderfully executed project sometime in the near future.