Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 12/Aug 04:08

Lord Blakie musical, Sunday with The Warlord coming to Queen’s Hall

RAY FUNK Dawad Philip is excited that his play Sunday with The Warlord, which played at the Naparima Bowl and the Little Carib during the Carnival season, is now scheduled to appear at Queen’s Hall on September 1. The play had been inspired by the late Tony Hall, who had worked with Timmy Mora to create a film version of Philip’s A Mural by the Sea, one of three books of Philip’s poems. A Mural by the Sea focused on growing up in San Fernando and the two segments of the film are online at Visual Art and Production. As Philip explained, “We were talking about the playwrights’ workshops that he conducted for both Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and UWI. I was telling him I have this idea for a play and I want to do it, but I want him to direct it. He said, ‘Go ahead. Show me something.” Philip started writing Warlord in 2019 although at that point his primary focus was completing his massive and detailed book Ayedemah, History and Profiles of the San Fernando Carnival, commissioned by the City of San Fernando. The legendary Lord Blakie is one of Philip’s heroes. Blakie first became part of his life as a child, when, in 1954, the calysonian’s hit Steelband Clash was everywhere during the Carnival season on the radio – “When de two band clash, mama yo! If you see cutlass!” Philip said that as a child listening to Blakie’s words, he was almost afraid to go to Carnival because of such clashes and recalled seeing the bard’s image in fancy suits in the newspapers. [caption id="attachment_1101845" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Kurtis Gross as Lordie Blakie, left, and Penelope Spencer in the role of Queenie in a scene from the play Sunday with the Warlord. -[/caption] “He was larger than life for me from then on,” Philip admitted. “Then I saw him when he came to San Fernando to meet Stalin.” At the time, Blakie was looking for new talent to go on tour with him. “I got bold enough to speak to him. To me he was menacing and I tell myself, I’ll never talk to that man again.” But as Philip got older his love and respect for the great calypsonian never wavered. Philip’s life changed when he moved to New York City in 1968 and became a journalist, eventually becoming the editor of the Daily Challenge. He also became a mas designer for Brooklyn Carnival. His involvement in and love of calypso moved him to get involved more and more in community activities and eventually he became a Caribbean event promoter. In fact, Philip became the main promoter of calypso music in New York City, first with his long-running Living Legends of Calypso series, with shows around New York City and even in Boston, Montreal and Toronto, then running the Big Apple Calypso tent, starting in 2000, for 11 years, before he resettled in San Fernando. The idea of being a promoter had been tied up since the beginning with his desire to bring Blakie to Brooklyn, but that was not easy. The singer had faced some minor legal issue years before in Puerto Rico that prevented him from getting a visa. It took years of effort by many people to get it resolved. [caption id="attachment_1101844" align="aligncenter" width="598"] Lord Blakie -[/caption] Phillip’s play is a re-telling of those efforts and the life of one of TT’s greatest calypsonians. After playwright Tony Hall died in 2020, Philip contacted St Lucian Dr Travis Weekes to direct – Weekes had called on him to participate in a International Poetry Day and they had got to know each other. Weekes is the theatre co-ordinator at the Department of Creative and Festival Arts at UWI, St Augustine. Philip knew he needed a special actor to play Blakie. The task was finding one who could take on Blakie’s larger-than-life persona. “It was the laugh that nailed it. For all Blakie lovers know that he had a special laugh, a laugh that always part of his calypso performances,” he explained. “That’s the thing that sold me with Kurtis Gross – when Kurtis laughed, I knew that was Blakie. Because that’s not an easy thing to replicate.” The other star of the show is Penelope Spencer, whom Philip has known for years. [caption id="attachment_1101843" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Marva Newton, left, Dr Travis Weekes, Penelope Spencer, Dwad Phillips, Kurits Gross and designer Kimo Ifetayo Philip.-[/caption] “I worked with Penelope in Tony Hall’s Jean and Dinah and I had seen her in an early production of the play and later brought it to New York City in 1994.” Weekes grew up with theatre, as his father, Allan Weekes, was a co-director of the St Lucia Guild with Derek Walcott and his twin brother Roderick. Weekes became an actor, playwright, teacher, researcher and academic in St Lucia, attending the Jamaican School of Drama and going on to get his doctorate in cultural studies with a dissertation on the Creole Theatre of Derek Walcott before joining UWI St Augustine in 2018, where, beyond teaching, directing, he has collaborated with the film programme. He also has recently published two of his plays and is developing a new one, Coal Carriers, about the female workers who struck for better wages in 1907 in St Lucia. Philip’s play, with its roots in calypso theatre, The Warlord is exactly the kind of production he wants to direct. Music director Marva Newton has just come off working on Rawle Gibbon’s Pantopia. She commented that Warlord has been a very rewarding experience. “Most of the work that I have been doing since debuting with Rawle Gibbons’ Canboulay Productions in 1992 has centred on celebrating our local music icons – calypsonians in particular – and preserving cultural memory.” She is thankful to Sylvon Sylvester for doing the musical transcriptions of Blakie’s music. Newton started as guitarist for Gibbon’s calypso musical Ah Wanna Fall and has been music director for a series of his Canboulay productions, as well working with leading directors including Louis McWilliams, Dr Lester Efebo Wilkinson, Eintou Pearl Springer, Rhoma Spencer and others. Philip notes there are a few changes in the new mounting of the play. “We’ve upgraded… in terms of the dance, brought on a couple more dancers, just wardrobe changes and some set improvements.” Travel plans for Sunday with The Warlord to be performed in the US and UK are in the works. But now it is coming to Queen’s Hall on Independence weekend, and that is the place to be to hear that inimitable laugh, the great calypsoes and the tale of Lord Blakie. Ayedemah is available for sale at City Hall, San Fernando or through Dawadphlp41@gmail.com.   The post Lord Blakie musical, Sunday with The Warlord coming to Queen’s Hall appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.