by Petamber Persaud
A Play Subtitled Medal of Service.
(Extract of interview with Desiree Edghill, Georgetown, Guyana, November 2016. Edghill is Director of Artiste in Direct Support, a versatile theatre personality, a health activist and educator. Edghill was recently awarded a Medal of Service.)
PP: We cannot divorce the drama from theatre in Guyana because the history of theatre in Guyana is characterized mainly by highs [high drama] and lows [low gravy]. There is a school of thought that views the fortunes of theatre as a reflection of the state of country’s fortunes.
Theatre in Guyana started with the Coffee House Theatre and the Minor Theatre and the Theatre Royal, all the while evolving until the concerted effort that resulted in the founding of the Theatre Guild Playhouse in 1957. But just before that movement, there were other efforts like the Sugar Estate Drama Festival and the British Guiana Dramatic Society among others…
As we’re on highs and lows of theatre in Guyana, what period did you start theatre?
DE: I started theatre in 1979 with the Guyana Stores Group – the PEWITT (People Working in Total Togetherness); I was working with Guyana Stores at that time and I was asked to join the group. I didn’t think I was a dramatist at that time but I was having an altercation on the floor when the PR passed and heard me extolling myself and he turned to me saying that they were putting on a play and he would like me to play a part. Of course, I replied that I was not an actress to which he said that I didn’t know that I was acting with that attitude and that was the same attitude he was looking for to fill the part…so that was where it all started.
PP: What was the state of theatre then and the state of the country at that time?
DE: Well, at that time theatre was not an important part of my life – I was a mother, a single mother, looking for a job so I was not a part of theatre when I started. I became a part of the theatre in 1982 at Theatre Guild when our group used to perform there. Also at that time we had Rolland Phillips who was part of our group while he was working at the radio station. Allan Cooper was part of the PEEWITT group, Sydney Benjamin was our choreographer and there was Leon Saul who was one of our directors…
PP: Ras Leon Saul has being around theatre quite a while!
DE: Yes, he has.
The chairman of theatre Guild at that time was John Rawlins and he came and saw a production I did in 1981 at St. Rose’s – we used to perform at the St. Rose’s High School which had a beautiful auditorium – and the production was the ‘Porknocker’ wherein I played the prostitute….So John Rawlings came and saw me. At the end, he called me to say there was a reading for a play at the Theatre Guild – ‘Juno and the Peacock’. At that time there was Anthony Stewart, Ulita Anthony, G. Walcott, Godfrey Naughton, Howard Lorimar – they were the people in that production. So when John Rawlings invited me to do the reading, I said I was not into acting to which he responded that I suited the part for I looked like Anthony Stewart’s daughter who was brown-skinned with bonnie long hair and I had lovely long plaits.
PP: We’d return to that later but I’d like for us to expand on the fact that a number of corporate entities were hosting their own little, in-house drama groups….
DE: Guysuco Drama Group, City Hall …
PP: Ian Valz…
DE: Yes, he was from the City Hall group and he was the one who did ‘House of Pressure’ with others from that group first performing ‘House of Pressure’.
Yes, there were many little drama groups around apart from the Theatre Guild but it was at the Theatre Guild where you really got your training to learn the stage craft.
I remember when I went to do production there; I had to become a member of the Theatre Guild workshop which was held every Monday evening ….
PP: You had to be a rounded person – theatre personality …
DE: …Yes, you had to be – you couldn’t just jump on the stage. We rehearsed for that play for over three months which means you had to take time to get to that point – into character.
I don’t think we do long rehearsals now…
PP: …And it shows in contemporary theatre – missed lines, missed cues, lighting off-cue, long blackouts….
Let’s dwell a bit more on that training.
DE: That training was my foundation….But that wasn’t all; you also had to learn backstage, stage management, lights, sounds, you also had to learn front of house apart from cleaning the theatre…you had to clean your house – that’s how it was presented to us.
PP: By doing all these things, theatre was getting into your blood.
DE: Yes! You became a part of the theatre and theatre became a part of you.
We never got paid when we did Theatre Guild workshop productions, that was our give-back in return for been trained in the arts. When we do a workshop production is when we gave back and importantly that’s when directors came and scouted for actors and actresses … so that’s another reason you gave of your best because that is how you will get cast.
I remember just after I did ‘Juno and the Peacock’, I went on to do ‘House of pressure’; right away Ian Valz cast me in ‘House of Pressure’ playing the girl friend to the Pressure Family’s daughter.
At the time though when I entered theatre at the Guild, local theatre was now becoming vibrant – we were having writers, Paloma Mohamed, Ian Valz, Ronald Hollingsworth, Harold Bascom, Mr Lloyd Grannum – a whole lot of people started to write local theatre, a lot of people was now gravitating towards local theatre….
Remember at the Guild, we were doing English and American plays where you had to speak the Queen ’s English.
PP: We’ll examine that change in a bit but let’s go back to something you said earlier. You said at the Theatre Guild, you were not performing for monetary gains.
DE: In my time, we use to have Theatre Guild awards every year and that was our reward for performing. Now it’s monetary and I see nothing wrong with that. My concern is that the numbers of plays that people are in at the same time. In our days, if you’re in a production, you give your all to it. If you are in six productions in the Drama Festival, you can’t give your all; how much of you can you give to any one production.
For me, I think quality will be jeopardized. I remember I had done, once in my life, three plays in one month – performed the first one at the beginning of the month, that means, I was not rehearsing for that play in that particular month. I did one in the middle and I did one in the end. I rehearsed for the two simultaneously; one was for the Theatre Guild and one for the National Cultural Centre. I begged Kwesi Oginga to take me out of the one for Theatre Guild because I felt I wasn’t [present] there enough to rehearse with the others so I felt it was unfair and unjust to the rest of the cast but he wanted me to do the lead role so badly that he made them rehearse without me by putting a stand-in and I was not happy with this because I feel you owe it to the people you working on stage with to give them the vibes….
PP: You touched on one important aspect of working together. What other things come out of working together as a team?
DE: We all became one so there is no small role because the lead depends on someone even with one line for the progression of the play; you become family – this play is us, this is not me or you. So that togetherness, that gelling really speaks volume and once you gel on stage, that gelling is thrown to the audience because the audience sees the family – we worked well together because we rehearse together. But once I was done with NCC, I gave all of my time to the production at the Theatre Guild, working in the day and working in the night. At that time, I had quit my day job and went into acting professionally – that was 1986….
PP: Wow, that was a concerted move because you knew or you had to know what you were getting into …
DE: I did know like I said earlier local theatre was just becoming popular and I was been asked to do a lot of plays and I couldn’t learn my lines while I was at work so I made a conscious decision to leave my job at Guyana Stores; my manager saying something like this D if you don’t make it, come back – you are a good staff and I said to her that there was no turning back…I am going to do theatre; I am going to act, I am going to write, I am going to direct, I am going into this wholly. Let me know wood [knocking the table] I am still there because that’s what I wanted, I found my first love in theatre and that’s where I wanted to be. So I continue in that same vein, when I came off the job, I remember I did ‘House of Pressure’ the second time when I played Mrs Pressure….
Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
What’s Happening:
The eleventh conference of the Guyana Institute of Historical Research is set for June 30, 2018; for further information please contact Hazel Woolford at 220-4759/644-8877 (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
