The Jamaican Theatre: Highlights of the Performing Arts in the Twentieth Century by Wycliffe Bennett, and Hazel Bennett

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Jamaican Theatre: Highlights of the Performing Arts in the Twentieth Century by Wycliffe Bennett, and Hazel Bennett Nicosia Shakes (bio) Bennett, Wycliffe, and Hazel Bennett. The Jamaican Theatre: Highlights of the Performing Arts in the Twentieth Century. Kingston: U of the West Indies P, 2011. Since Errol Hill’s groundbreaking text, The Jamaican Stage 1655–1900: Profile of a Colonial Theatre (1992), there has been a serious need for a monograph that assesses Jamaican theater in the modern period. Wycliffe Bennett and Hazel Bennett’s The Jamaican Theatre: Highlights of the Performing Arts in the Twentieth Century is important because it goes a considerable way towards filling the dearth of information that exists on theater in that country. It outlines the development of Jamaican theater from the early-twentieth century to the present, highlighting various achievements, influences, important landmark institutions, and events as well as individuals and groups who have contributed to the national development of theater. The book is divided into eighteen chapters categorized into four “Acts” or sections. Act I: “Setting the Scene” provides a historiographical overview of Jamaican theater from the seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Much of it focuses on business and management and less on technique and aesthetic influences on form. In the first chapter, the authors examine the development of theater juxtaposed with significant phases in Jamaican [End Page 1194] history. The various periods are delineated as such: the period up to the First World War (pre-1914), the period between the First and Second World Wars (1914–1945), the period between the Second World War and Independence (1945–1962), and the post-Independence period (post-1962). There is a brief discussion of the process of “creolization,” particularly as regards the blending of African and European cultures that impacted the formation of theatrical and other performance arts. Notably, the authors conduct a succinct analysis of the predominance of African culture and its denial and suppression during and after the period of slavery. Other chapters delve into the institutions and landmark productions that came to define and influence Jamaican theater in the pre-Independence era, as well as the importance of patronage. One chapter that stands out amongst the rest focuses on the significant production, Jamaica Triumphant, staged in 1937 under the direction of Father Daniel Lord. Jamaica Triumphant was a landmark historical pageant that told the story of the country’s history from the pre-Columbian Taino era up to the twentieth century. Featuring a cast of four hundred, and attended by twenty thousand people over the course of four performances, Jamaica Triumphant was the largest theatrical production in the country’s history, and one that harnessed the creative talents of many Jamaicans. According to Bennett and Bennett, “the production required overseas help in only two departments,” and “Many practitioners have dated their important beginnings in the theatre from this show” (45). This chapter also provides an important commentary regarding the formation of a national theater. It is one of the few instances in which Bennett and Bennett present a critical opinion on theater and society in Jamaica. The country does not currently have a national theater per se, and though the commentary is brief it is worth quoting: … a national theatre—that theatre that is most characteristic of a country at a particular time—will derive its shape and substance from psychological dispositions that predominate the national life. If men of vision as distinct from mere copyists take the lead, the national theatre may even go further and be somewhat ahead of current thinking. The national theatre will be among the first groups to perceive ultimate directions and help the society realize its ideal. (46) Act II: “The Jamaican Stage” covers the period after the Second World War to the formation of theater institutions in the latter part of the twentieth century. Here, the focus is on the development of a distinctly Jamaican theater industry. Most of the section is dedicated to the chapter on the annual national Pantomime, and the Pantomime Company, arguably one of the most well-known, well-patronized fixtures in the country’s theater scene. Chapter 8 chronicles the dramatic institutions developed at the...