CARNIVAL
STORY
THEATRE OF THE
STREETS
By Terry Joseph
Episode 13
Express
March 4, 2000
Page 28
Protests from competing carnival bandleaders have been endorsed in the
latter day by audiences at the main competition venues when, in the attempt to
authenticate their presentations, some bands employ the use of theatre.
But
dramatic presentations are not new to Carnival. In fact, no mas was staged long ago without some kind of
re-enactment of what the band said it was portraying. Individuals and small groups went the same route.
The
first recorded evidence of a band presenting its mas in this way was as far
back as 1935. On Carnival Monday,
Oliver Cromwell's band, Ironsides, put on a lengthy and elaborate
depiction of the beheading of Charles I.
In the latter-day, instead of the applause that Cromwell enjoyed, bands
that attempt to produce theatre on stage have often been lambasted for
"spoiling the Carnival and causing congestion."
The
legendary George Bailey, in presenting his prize winning band, Ye Saga of
Merrie England in 1960, re-enacted aspects of British history on stage.
The
presentation included a royal carriage drawn by four white horses, which
stopped in the middle of the stage. A
flamboyant knight then spread his coat so that the queen could alight - all
theatricised to the absolute delight of the Grand Stand audience, which gave
the band a standing ovation.
The
infamous Valmond Jones, a notorious swindler who made off with heaps of money
after having sold out a non-existent concert marketed as a one-night stand by
American rhythm and blues singer Sam Cooke, was one of the best loved
masqueraders at the 1955 Carnival.
Jones, portraying Emperor Nero, king of Harold "Saldenah's band (Imperial
Rome), wore a costume of plush royal purple velvet with gold trim that
included a cape 20 yards long. True to
his legendary talent for deception, Jones played the mas to the hilt, fiddling
while Rome burned and actually shedding tears into a weeping-cup.
Military
mas, the preferred portrayals of the majority of steelbands in those days,
often played out whole battles on stage, with soldiers and ratings under the
histrionic direction of superior officers going to great lengths to ensure that
the "war" looked like the real thing. In the same year that Bailey presented Ye Saga of
Merrie England, the Tripoli steel orchestra also put on an elaborate re-creation
of The Surrender of Japan.
During
a sequence described as "smoking out of the enemy" the exercise got
completely out of hand, erupting into a full-scale fire on the stage.
None
of the regulations devised to improve the flow of Carnival bands has ever
sought to restrict this kind of theatre of the streets. Indeed, most of the rules of the parade of
the Carnival bands have dealt with protection of the spectator from
over-zealous masqueraders, or have been confined to security issues, steering
clear of intrusion on the bandleaders' creative work.
In
1935, transvestite portrayals were banned by proclamation, as was the daubing
of spectators by jab molassies, devils or other forms of mucky mas.
Also
outlawed was the badgering of spectators for money by midnight robbers.
Nor
was theatre confined to pretty mas. The
basic military portrayals were to undergo a magical transformation, caused by
nothing more complex than an ice-cream cone.