Af­ter a four-year ab­sence from the lo­cal stage, Cacique Award win­ner Er­ic Bar­ry re­turns with his newest and most am­bi­tious the­atri­cal ef­fort–Round the City. Round the City is a col­lec­tion of four short sto­ries set in and around a city in Trinidad. Wo­ven to­geth­er by a taxi dri­ving nar­ra­tor, Glenn Davis, the sto­ries ex­plore themes of love, ob­ses­sion, re­la­tion­ships and crime. The four sto­ries are: Yes­ter­day is Gone, a eu­thana­sia tale of two sis­ters torn apart be­cause of their moth­er's five-year-long co­ma; Man and 'Oman, a look at in­fi­deli­ty from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive; Don't Tell. Don't Ask, a trag­ic ho­mo­sex­u­al af­fair in high of­fice; and, Ed­u­cat­ing Pe­ter, a psy­cho­log­i­cal ex­plo­ration of the crim­i­nal mind.

Al­so sit­ting in the di­rec­tor's chair, Bar­ry says that this pro­duc­tion is a cre­ative chal­lenge. It us­es a com­bi­na­tion of mul­ti-me­dia and live ac­tion to tell the sto­ries. Bar­ry's ear­ly days in the the­atre was as an ac­tor with the San Fer­nan­do City The­atre Move­ment led by Shane Bick­ram dur­ing the late 80s and ear­ly 90s. With the com­pa­ny, he per­formed in a num­ber of mem­o­rable roles such as Ed­win Car­val­ho in Who Killed Pahlo Sier­ra?; and, Bobo in Junc­tion Vil­lage. Bar­ry lat­er went on to UWI Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre to study The­atre Arts. Grad­u­at­ing in 1993, he be­gan to per­form with such north­ern based com­pa­nies as Ray­mond Choo Kong Pro­duc­tions, Ra­goo Pro­duc­tions and UWI Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre.

With the Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre, he made his mark play­ing Tou­s­saint L'Ou­ver­ture in The Black Ja­cobins; and, Siew­dass Sad­hu in Tem­ple in the Sea. In 2000, Bar­ry en­tered a new phase in his cre­ative life by launch­ing t�te-�-t�te The­atre, the com­pa­ny he co-found­ed with friends Car­los Alexan­der and Michelle Camp­bell. From then to now, the com­pa­ny has staged four orig­i­nal works writ­ten by Bar­ry–The Five Fool­ish Friends in Shhh... it hap­pens; The Five Fool­ish Friends in Shhh... it is Christ­mas; The Five Fool­ish Friends in Shhh... it is Car­ni­val; and, The Cat­a­lyst. In to­tal, these pro­duc­tions have gar­nered sev­en Cacique Awards for ex­cel­lence.

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Round the City will run at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, on June 24-27, and fea­tures Glenn Davis, Kar­la Gon­za­les, Mar­vin Dowridge, Kevon Brooks, Pri­or Joseph and Anne Marie An­toinne, with ap­pear­ances by Pene­lope Spencer, Arnold Goind­han, Aaron Schnei­der, Jamee­lah Phillips, Bernadette Bac­chus, Ron­delle Al­leyne, Rachel Khan, Shan­nalee De Fre­itas and Car­los Alexan­der. For tick­ets, call the box of­fice at 624-1284 (Ext 1), from noon to 6 pm, or go to caribbean­box­of­fice.net for on­line pur­chas­es.