Driftwood
They say we all have one great story in us. Well, actor Martina Laird arguably has three. But it may not have been a great idea for her debut play Driftwood to try and tell all of them at once.
The setting is an intriguing, little-dramatised one: the Trinidadian capital Port of Spain on the eve of the 1956 general election which would set the island and its sibling Tobago on the route to independence from Britain.
The action revolves around Alma, a drinking den that’s owned by posh, childish white Brit Mansion (Roger Ringnose), but run by the hardnosed, weary Pearl (Ellen Thomas) and her beautiful, fiery daughter Ruby (Cat White). Justin Audibert’s production brings this small corner of a lost world to life very nicely indeed. Calypso blares on the radio; different brands of rum are sampled and argued over; the superficially charming but under the surface obnoxious Mansion loudly refuses to believe that the – to his mind – hapless Black population would ever vote for independence.
It’s an intriguing snapshot of both the times and Trinidad’s diversity, with its significant Indian population represented by Seldom (Shane David-Joseph), an affable policeman, whose comings and goings are dictated by the febrile politics of the island. Though you soon adjust, the accents are far from the generic Caribbean lilt – it’s very authentic and impressive work from dialect coach Aundrea Fudge.
Still, Laird never really drills down into this as she might, with the plot rather focussing on...