MAS THROUGH THE
EYES OF A MASTER
An appreciation by
Pat Ganase
Express
February 5, 2000
Page 26
The
spotlight dimmed and gleamed for a last second upon his
balding, bowed head, his eyes sunken in shadow, large hands folded over his
knees.
Thus
ended Peter Minshall's three-hour monologue, with slides, about his life in the
mas a simple 'act one' in a three-part production that included the performance
pieces MonkeyBird and Dance of the Cloth.
Some
of the stories we have heard before.
His
first 'costume' made when he was 13 and living in Cascade next to the river,
was an African witch doctor.
Cardboard
box, dry grass, bush, Christmas ornaments, some silver paint and 'two ounces of
artist's charcoal for 43 cents' won Minshall first prize for originality in
Auntie Kay's Red Cross Kiddies Carnival.
Two
years later, in J'Ouvert, the skinny teenage Minshall boy stuffed out his fine
frame with padding and stockings. A
'baby doll' wire mask, coconut fibre hair from his mattress, his sister's
debutante gown - 'blue organdie over pink', and his mother's slippers and
handbag transformed him into a "Charlotte Street virago."
Thus
liberated and transformed in the age-old tradition of dame Lorraine, he
accosted and upbraided his QRC mathematics teacher for 'child maintenance'.
He
spoke of an idyllic August vacation with Motie Narinesingh's family in Fyzabad:
a Hindu home that offered insights to traditions of a simple country lifestyle;
bus excursions and a visit to Icacos on the tip of Trinidad's toe.
And
then he chanted a Hindi song, which translated "Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust…"
The
same truth, he said, is the root of J'Ouvert, where we take the mud of Mother
Earth and daub it on our bodies - adornment and acknowledgement of our
essential nature.
Finally,
in Trinidad, working as a radio commentator, he also started designing sets and
costumes for Carnival queens.
The
mas, he said, was then "something of a small island" and a boy
growing up in those times wanted to make his mark on the world.
Entry
to Central School of Art and Design in London seemed to be his gateway. His father, an artist, thought theatre
design would give his son a more secure livelihood.
So
it was, his 'island' eyes made him different and special in classes where
everyone else had the same perspective.
But
it was not until he had triumphed, receiving a standing ovation at Sadler's
Wells' opening of the Scottish Theatre Ballet's 'Beauty and the Beast,' that he
felt the self-contempt of the island boy lift from his heart. Because he knew that his special and
different designs had been born of the Carnival creatures that wee his
familiars.
He
had not seen, he admitted, the Carnival of his youth with the same eyes he has
today.
But
look, he said, we had sailors that were more surreal than Dali or Magritte.
And
he showed sailors with noses that were Hawaiian mermaids; with giant pink crabs
on their heads. He showed how India of
the East combined with native Indians of the West to inform fabulous, giant
headpieces "built with pride and love."
Mavis
Clowns were all sunshine; but the things of the night were always a part of
Carnival.
The
Carnival bat - so marvelously replicated from real life studies - became the
basis and inspiration of his life's work.
Minshall's
return to Trinidad was to make for his mother a costume for her adopted
daughter Sherry Ann Guy that would win the Queen of the Junior Carnival. With a grip full of silks and sequins, he
returned at Christmas to begin the most grueling test of his life - "A
love letter to Trinidad" that took 12 people five weeks to make. The miracle of Sherry Ann as the Humming
Bird was a turning point in Carnival 1974.
Then,
in purest line, he showed how his "dissection" of the bat design led
to what he calls "the architecture of his mas and the thread that linked
all his work from Humming Bird to ManCrab to Tan-tan and Saga Boy.
See
how the canes attached and articulated by the arms move the fabric. The dance of all mas characters - devil,
sailor, bat - comes out of the movement of the body through the extension of
the costume.
"See
the music. Hear the mas."
Driven
to express the Carnival in universal terms, Peter Minshall earned critical
acclaim as designer of the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympic opening
ceremonies. His Adoration of Hiroshima
led the parade in Washington DC on the 40th anniversary of the
bombing of Hiroshima. He received a
Guggenheim Fellowship. He was awarded
Trinidad & Tobago's highest honour, the Trinity Cross.
And
yet, on Wednesday night in the stark setting of the Central Bank Auditorium,
through sponsorship of the Governor of the Central Bank, Dr. Winston Dookeran,
Peter Minshall, alone on a stage bare of everything bar a single chair, a small
table, a carafe of water and a 'maljo blue' drinking glass, bemoaned the "abandoning
of the Carnival to the market."
He
pleaded for a concert hall, and a theatre that was not a paddock, a pitch walk,
or a tent. Treasure the artist, he
said: the Boogsie, the David Rudder, Lord Kitchener, the native creators who
have given us Bat and Fancy Sailor. By
building palaces to our art, he said, show that "We love ourselves."
Act
two - MonkeyBird - saw five male dancers, each with five-foot long pheasant
feathers on each finger, demonstrate Minshall's extensions of human energy.
Act
three - Dance of the Cloth - saw three
virgin white silk squares, danced to the stark and sombre Albinoni's 'Adagio,'
and finally bloodied by a spray of red.
"That's
all folks," Minshall ended the evening.
It was almost four hours after he started.
In
1967, Errol Hill wrote in his book The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for
a National Theatre, that Trinidad Carnival has the "ingredients
from which a national theatre can be developed that would give permanent
artistic form to aspects of indigenous culture."
The
production, 'Minshall and the Mas' put on by The Callaloo Company, indicates
that one man at least has been able to make the transition from
"indigenous" native form to that which gave Greece its drama, England
its Shakespeare and Globe, and almost every other ancient civilization a living
theater.