Rawle Gibbons, one of TT’s most noted playwrights, has a new play on the music of pan legend Ray Holman, Pantopia.
Gibbons is the author of a number of plays, but best known for his trilogy on calypso history, Sing de Chorus, Ah Wanna Fall, and Ten to One, produced through his Camboulay Productions. The first two were revived in 2018 and 2019.
Pantopia is Gibbons’s second play about pan. The first, Ogun Ayan – As in Pan, was performed in March 2006 at the Scherzando Pan Theatre.
It was a very different type of play. Scholar Louis Regis noted, “The action of Ogun Iyan is set in the spirit kingdom of the Yoruba religion, in orisha yard (sacred space for Yoruba ritual practice), and in the steelband yard (temporal space).”
While that play looked at the origins of pan, this one focuses on the music of one of its greatest innovators.
Ray Holman grew up playing in Invaders, then spending many years with Starlift, but went on to be a Panorama arranger for many other steelbands.
Also a noted soloist, he has performed in many settings. He has been an in-demand teacher for US pan ensembles from coast to coast, and had a tenure at the University of Washington and as far away as Alaska, as well as performing all over the world.
He was awarded the Chaconia Gold medal back in 1988 and an honorary doctorate from UWI in 2021.
Pantopia came about because Gibbons had long wanted to work with Holman. He said, “Back in the days when I was at the Creative Arts Centre at UWI, I always wanted to work with Ray, because Ray is one of our most prolific and important composers but it never happened for one reason or another.
But when he got the honorary degree, I felt that this was an opportunity for us to explore his work. Getting a degree is all well and good, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that your work is given the kind of attention that it deserves. So I’m using the medium of theatre to bring his work to another audience. I was interested not so much in his personal story, but in the story of his music.”
Holman sent Gibbons a lot of his music, and Gibbons selected what he thought he could use to “construct a storyline of a composer/arranger dissatisfied with the state of things in pan and wanting to change the music, to do something different, which brings him in conflict with the band.
There’s a period when he drifts away, not just from music, but it’s a kind of drift where he’s questioning himself, finding out what he’s really about. Some of his tunes had no lyrics. I had to write new lyrics and in other cases, to change existing lyrics to suit the situation.”
There have been a number of other plays about pan over the years, starting with Errol Hill’s Ping Pong from 1958, and including Nobel laureate Derek Walcott’s musical Steel, produced in Trinidad in 2005.
Ronald Amoroso has written three that have been performed in school competitions in Trinidad. There was a play on the history of pan that was regularly performed in the early 1970s at the Casablanca panyard in Belmont.
More recently, Marvin Ismael has written two pan musicals, with Ian Jones, but they have only been performed in Canada. But this new musical is the first in many years to focus on the national instrument.
The director of this production is Louis McWilliams, a longtime faculty member and then director of the Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA) before his own recent retirement, though he is still teaching part-time.
McWilliams has a long history of directing, and also working closely with Gibbons, who noted, “Louis was a director at the Malick Folk Performance Company and as a student, he brought that Best Village experience…He can choreograph, he drums, he’s sensitive to the music, he acts, he always brings a strong bag of skills to what we’re doing.”
Marva Newton is the voice coach for the production. Her role has been taking the playwright’s newly composed lyrics, fitting them into Holman’s established melodies, and then teaching the cast. She has been on the music scene for decades.
Most recently she had a show of traditional calypso at Café Blue with her group Kairi Kaiso, and was the musical director for Dawad Philip’s recent play about Lord Blakie.
She has been involved with many Canboulay Productions plays and other works (including a radio series) over her 30-year relationship with Gibbons and his company.
Her involvement in music, theatre, and the arts began in 1992 when she played guitar, under the musical direction of Desmond Waithe, for Gibbons’s Ah Wanna Fall.
Akua Leith leads the National Steel Symphony Orchestra in this production. A former long-term member, he was its artistic director and conductor for six years.
He left in 2022 to run MITT CO, the pan-manufacturing plant in Diego Martin. He also has a long history with Phase II, having been the driller for the band.
His first Panorama experience was with Carib Tokyo, when Holman arranged for his composition Guitar Pan.
Gibbons recalled, “He is a graduate of the Creative and Festival Arts Centre. That’s where I knew of him. He did a very good graduate project. I’ve known him since, and when I approached him about this project, he was the director of the National Steel Symphony Orchestra, who will be supporting the performance. They’re not involved with the action but are the stage orchestra.” Leith is jubilant at being involved “The experience has been very exciting. Seeing the script come to life with all the characters and personalities has been a magical experience. Can’t wait for it to come together on stage!”
There are 11 actors in the show. Gibbons noted they had to be skilled in three disciplines. “They have to sing, act and play pan. It was challenging to cast!” T
he lead actor is Syntyche Bishop, who has many years of experience. A member of the National Theatre Company, she was the female lead in the revival of Sing de Chorus, is the lead with the Suite Chorale, and has been a singer on Carnival Cruise Lines.
The creation of the play evolved over months. An early phase was school-based, Gibbons noted. “About four weeks, during October-November last year, we did workshops in four schools in different parts of Trinidad. They were magnet schools so that other schools in the area would come there for the workshop.” These included Naparima Girls’ College, Waterloo Secondary School, Trinity College East, and Mucurapo Secondary West. Now some of those students will get to see the final production. “Very fortunately, we have a group of Fatima Old Boys (Holman taught there for many years) who agreed to sponsor tickets for the participation of the schools.”
This new production is part of what keeps Gibbons busy since his retirement from UWI in 2016, after long service as the director of the Centre for Creative and Festival Arts.
He has been very active with the Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean and is the programme director of the Yard Campus, exploring ways to pass on indigenous knowledge throughout the Caribbean. Gibbons is currently developing a new programme there.
“We want to start more advanced workshops or advanced training for people who are engaged in theatre right now. They graduated from the various colleges, and we want to provide opportunities for some of those young directors, young actors to gain more experience in the studio, to help them with the productions that they’re doing.”
He also has a new book, Traditional Enactments of Trinidad: Towards a Third Theatre, based on his 1979 thesis. It main thrust is that if theatre in the Caribbean is to realise itself, it must ground both its methods and inspiration in this environment, taking into account local communities and the complex rituals and traditions unique to the Caribbean.
This latest play continues that exploration and takes his playwriting in a new direction. For Gibbons, the most important thing for patrons of the production is the timeliness of Pantopia. “With all the crime, the lack of direction among young people and in the society as a whole, I think these are the questions and the issues that the play addresses.
“We’re dealing with history, but this show points a way for all of us in this society, through the music to come through these difficult times.”
Holman has been attending rehearsals of Pantopia and has felt overwhelmed. “I feel greatly honoured that someone would take the time and effort to use my music as the basis for a musical.”
His legacy has been celebrated recently in different forums. Mark Loquan produced a documentary film Pan on the Move (1972), its Journey And Impact – A 50th-Anniversary Tribute to Dr Ray Holman. Calypso Monarch Chuck Gordon featured last year Hip Hip HooRay, a wonderful big-band calypso tribute to Holman, who had co-written calypsoes that brought Gordon the monarchy.
It’s well worth watching the documentary, listening to Gordon’s tribute and hearing some of Holman’s great music on the internet to prepare for going to the musical. Pantopia runs at the Phase II Pan Groove Panyard for two weekends, April 5-7 and 12-14. Shows are at 7 pm on Friday and Saturday and 6 pm on Sunday.
