Tremaine So­ca Warn­er

Af­ter spend­ing a few years away from the spot­light, Cacique award-win­ning ac­tress Eu­nice Al­leyne mount­ed the stage once more on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day to per­form in Pearl Ein­tou Springer's short play Free­dom Morn­ing Come. In it, Al­leyne played the role of Ma San­drin, a Yoru­ba el­der and one of the many en­slaved Africans who gath­ered out­side the Trea­sury Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, to hear Gov­er­nor George Fitzger­ald Hill read the Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion in 1834.

While Fri­day's na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tions com­mem­o­rat­ed the abo­li­tion of slav­ery and ho­n­oured the en­slaved Africans who suf­fered through it, Al­leyne was among the liv­ing fig­ures ho­n­oured by the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee with a Spir­it of Eman­ci­pa­tion Award for her con­tri­bu­tions to lo­cal the­atre.

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day at her home in San­ta Cruz, Al­leyne re­count­ed some of the high­lights of her ca­reer as an ac­tress and as a pub­lic ser­vant.

She was born in Venezuela, where her par­ents got mar­ried, be­fore mov­ing to Trinidad at the age of two. Af­ter study­ing at St Joseph's Con­vent Port-of-Spain, she be­gan a ca­reer in the pub­lic ser­vice that would span 36 years.

She worked for a num­ber of years in both ra­dio and tele­vi­sion on what was then known as the Gov­ern­ment Broad­cast­ing Unit be­fore be­com­ing di­rec­tor of in­for­ma­tion at the of­fice of the prime min­ster. "From broad­cast­ing at Trinidad House, I went over to White Hall to work with Er­ic Williams. That was a scary time I would say. He was such a big, dy­nam­ic fig­ure. As a young girl leav­ing Trinidad House to go work with the prime min­is­ter, it must be some­thing scary. De­spite that, I set­tled in there well."

It was while work­ing there that she re­ceived a gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ship to study mass com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty. While most of her work­ing ca­reer was spent in the pub­lic ser­vice, Al­leyne told the Sun­day Guardian that she was al­ways in­volved in the the­atre and spent lots of time de­vel­op­ing her craft.

"Even while at St Joseph's Con­vent, I re­mem­ber Moth­er Fran­cis Xavier saw me, analysed my voice and said that I could do some­thing in the­atre. I com­pet­ed with the Catholic Youth Or­gan­i­sa­tion. I did choral speak­ing, and I re­mem­ber win­ning the is­land­wide prose and verse com­pe­ti­tion. Ever since then, I've been in the­atre."

Through­out her ca­reer, she worked close­ly with play­wright and po­et Derek Wal­cott. In 1998 she won the Cacique award for Best Ac­tress for her per­for­mance in his play Re­mem­brance. She was among the found­ing mem­bers of the Trinidad The­atre Work­shop (TTW) which Wal­cott found­ed along with Er­rol Jones, Beryl Mc Burnie and Stan­ley Mar­shall.

"Around 1959 we start­ed with a lit­tle thatch-roofed struc­ture down at the Lit­tle Carib The­atre. It wasn't as it is now. We worked there, we had our work­shops, our im­pro­vi­sa­tions. You were not stars at first. You had to work and train very hard to get on­stage, and you would have work­shops for like two years be­fore you got on­stage."

Asked her thoughts on the train­ing of young lo­cal thes­pi­ans, she said: "Peo­ple rush on­stage too quick­ly. They see the lights and the stage and they are pri­ma don­nas be­fore ac­tu­al­ly do­ing the hard work. The­atre is craft that you con­tin­ue to work on and hone. Many peo­ple think it's a hob­by or a gift. Yes, you can have the gift of a good voice but the­atre de­mands hard work."

Among the younger ac­tress­es who stand out in her view are Eve­lyn Cae­sar Munroe and Ce­cil­ia Salazar.

Over the last three weeks, she has had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with young, promis­ing per­form­ers in­clud­ing Tis­han­na Williams, Camille Quam­i­na and Muham­mad Muwak­il while prepar­ing for Springer's Free­dom Morn­ing Come.

Al­leyne is the last sur­viv­ing fe­male foun­da­tion mem­ber of the TTW and she re­mains one of its board mem­bers. In 2003 she won the Life­time Achieve­ment Award from the Na­tion­al Dra­ma As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T.

It wasn't the first time she act­ed in the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day play–she did it in 2011 and was con­tact­ed again this year by Springer to play the role of Ma San­drin.

De­scrib­ing the role, she said, "Ma San­drin is a Yoru­ba el­der and as an el­der, she has gone through the mill of pain, degra­da­tion, beat­ings and rape. Play­ing the role was quite a painful ex­pe­ri­ence. As the char­ac­ter re­counts all these things, you re­alise all that she has en­dured. Some in the au­di­ence cried and even I was brought to tears."

She said each re­hearsal for the play pre­sent­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for her to learn some­thing from Springer, who she de­scribes as a "store­house of in­for­ma­tion on African his­to­ry."

Al­leyne was sur­prised to learn that she was one of this year's re­cip­i­ents of the Spir­it of Eman­ci­pa­tion Award which the ESC gives to liv­ing per­sons whose work and tal­ent "up­lift gen­er­a­tions of African peo­ples every­where."

She said she recog­nised the val­ue of the award adding that "part of eman­ci­pa­tion is cel­e­brat­ing the ac­com­plish­ments.

There is too much in­vis­i­bil­i­ty of black ac­com­plish­ment. That is where we need to be eman­ci­pat­ed. We need to recog­nise and ac­cept how much we have con­tributed and ac­com­plished."