“It seems to me that mediocrity is the new normal in Trinidad, and that bothers me. We want to present champagne-taste productions with Orchard-juice money and a Solo (sweet-drink) behaviour and approach.”
- Rhoma Spencer, T&T and Canadian actor/director, February 2015
Actor, director and storyteller Rhoma Spencer is back in T&T. She has taken a break from her busy Toronto theatre career to experience her first T&T Carnival season in nine years. In the midst of helping a friend bring out a mas band, acting in Kurt Allen's The Barrack Yard Tent Experience kaiso theatre show, and directing this year's Dimanche Gras programme, the irrepressible and ebullient Spencer has been busy; yet she still took the time to chat with the T&T Guardian, sharing some personal thoughts on Carnival, culture professionalism, and the changing times in which we live.
Spencer said the last time she visited Trinidad was fairly recently, in November 2014, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Tony Hall 1994 play Jean and Dinah. And it's been over 20 years since Spencer herself last played a mas in Trinidad—she played in Peter Minshall's 1993 band Donkey Derby. A lot has changed since then.
We need a cultural policy
“We don't really have a cultural policy in this country,” said Spencer: “We have people who have done good research—but their research is not used, or adapted, or referenced.”
“It seems we carry a Carnival psyche year in, year out. So many of us pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for mas costumes which by Tuesday afternoon, are just mashed up on the road...Is that our culture, a mash-up culture of wastage?” She implied we can get far better value for money with some more thought.
Bring an Arts Council to T&T
As a lifelong theatre practitioner, Rhoma Spencer would love to see T&T have an independent Arts Council to help performing artists develop good work. She feels we spend too much time on transient competitions that can make or break an artist, and not enough time on developing a lasting pool of talent beyond the one or two people who might win a contest.
Such a council should be able to fully account for and report on all public monies it receives, to ensure funding decisions are fair and very transparent, she says. This means people should be able to submit clear proposals on their projects, justify why their projects deserve funding, and know why they were selected, or why they were rejected. And selections should be informed by clear criteria of artistic excellence and standards, which in turn, should emerge from a coherent cultural policy.
Ask stakeholders about the spaces they need
The National Academy for the Performing Arts (Napa) space is way too huge, thinks Spencer, who only saw it for the first time this year. “The stage itself could be another theatre space,” she commented.
She thinks the Napa structure is a waste of good public money, because there was no meaningful, respectful consultation with any of the actual users of the space, who might have given better suggestions for the shape of a more relevant, user-friendly space. Users include theatre workers, pannists and other musicians, singers and choirs, comedians, Carnival mas players, even fashion designers.
If, for instance, the theatre were designed with moveable seating arrangements—being able to retract chairs in, or move them around, for instance—then many other options are opened, such as theatre in the round, or arena-type stage productions, for instance. Such flexibility can draw in more clients and users of the space.
Another idea would have been to have several varied spaces in that same site: a theatre to hold 200 people (for intimate events like small plays), one for 500 (for events like film festivals), and another one for 1,000, for big public events like Dimanche Gras, to allow for showcasing of big costumes.
“We T&T people have been improvising our own theatre spaces for a long time, to create our own work. I've done fantastic productions in panyards. I saw Black Jacobins in Curepe Scherzando Panyard. I did The Blacks by Jean Genet in Exodus panyard,” commented Spencer, “...and when we finally do get a space, it is all wrong.”
Dimanche Gras as a TV production
Apart from helping her friend Roger Hicks bring out Roam the Mas band this year, Spencer's most recent job has been directing the Dimanche Gras show on Sunday, February 15.
She had high praise for Carl “Beaver” Henderson, producer of 2015's Dimanche Gras, and said that ever since she'd seen the 2014 show (also produced by him), she had wanted to be involved, and had submitted her resume for consideration.
The concept this year was a story by Robin Imamshah: about the crises in the world today. Spencer scripted the concept. “We are at this place of Armageddon, and all we really want is peace and love, for us to all live together, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Christian....in harmony with the environment,” commented Spencer on the theme.
Spencer focussed on presenting a television production rather than a live show, because, she says, “More people watch Dimanche Gras on TV than in the Savannah.”
So a lot of her production aesthetic involved use of projected images and videos, she said.
“I see the audience at the Savannah like a live studio audience. But I'm really putting on a show for a local and international TV (and online) audience. I hope the NCC sees, and understands, that we should make Dimanche Gras a TV production, similar to the Grammy awards, or the MTC awards, or the Oscars... And so, let the live audience at the Savannah not pay to come in,” she suggested:
“It could be a first-come, first-served, free show for the live audience seats...while we charge for international rights.”
Plan a year in advance—at least
Spencer made a telling point about our general lack of advance organisation in planning national cultural events:
“By the time Ash Wednesday is done, we should be beginning to plan for the next Dimanche Gras show. You cannot give the producer his contract, his credentials and cheque, to start Dimanche Gras just one month before. Because although he may have his concept, he cannot engage anybody to do anything unless he has a contract.”
As an example, Spencer noted that for her own August 2016 production A Desperate Road to Freedom (a musical about the underground railroad), she has already held the first production meeting in December 2014—more than a year and a half in advance.
“It seems to me that mediocrity is the new normal in Trinidad,” stated Spencer: “And that bothers me.”
“We want to present champagne-taste productions with Orchard-juice money and a Solo (sweet-drink) behaviour and approach.”
Great potential
What does Spencer feel about our local ability to stage large shows?
“Don't underestimate T&T. We have the technology. We have young people who are ripe and ready and raring to go, who understand the technology....I saw it firsthand at Dimanche Gras. I was just amazed at the kind of people and technology I saw.”
People are very committed and passionate, she said, despite challenges. And they can produce good shows, she said.
“One person, an elder, said to me: 'We accustomed to shit. But all ah we have we tall boots.' It's a nice analogy. And he was so right. He said that in reference to the fact that despite problems, we can all pull together and make it happen.”
Who is Rhoma Spencer?
Rhoma Spencer is an actor, director, storyteller and broadcast journalist who began her career in Trinidad. She now lives in Toronto, Canada. Her company, Theatre Archipelago, develops theatre from the Caribbean and its diaspora.
She studied at the University of West Indies (1992, 1988) and gained a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre/Directing from York University (2001).
She has produced, directed and acted in many productions in Trinidad and Canada.
Spencer says her most memorable role so far is still the character of Dinah in the 1994 Tony Hall play Jean and Dinah. The character emerged through a process of collective creation through improvisation and research on warrior women characters who also happened to be prostitutes.