To what lengths would a woman go to keep a man?
The Les Coteaux Close Connection Cultural Club explored this question on Thursday night during its 2022 Tobago Heritage Festival presentation: Folks Tales and Superstition at the Tablepiece Recreation Ground.
Sponsored by Republic Bank Ltd, the community’s production was titled, It Takes Three To Tangle: May The Best One Win.
It covered issues such as infidelity, dishonesty, distrust, spite and vindictiveness.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Les Coteaux play without some element of obeah woven into the script.
[caption id="attachment_967317" align="alignnone" width="911"] Maggie, left, dances with Darwin as he makes false promises to marry her while neighbours spy in the bushes at Les Coteaux's Folk Tales and Superstitions presentation for Tobago Heritage Festival, Tablepiece Recreational Ground, Les Coteaux, Thursday. - David Reid[/caption]
The club’s president, Carion Job, said such scenarios are common in Les Coteaux’s heritage presentations.
“You can’t get rid of the obeah. We either have the man tying the woman or the woman tying the man,” she told Newsday before the show.
Job jokingly encouraged patrons to take notes of the ways in which they can hold on to the significant others in their lives.
As was expected, the play, which lasted close to four hours, had the large audience in stitches. Two large screens were erected on either side of the stage, offering patrons clear vantage points.
[caption id="attachment_967316" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Rosie, left, throws a posy full of urine on spirits which followed her daughter home during Les Coteaux's Folk Tales and Superstitions presentation, Tablepiece Recreational Ground, Les Coteaux, Thursday. - David Reid[/caption]
Among those in the audience were former THA chief secretary Kelvin Charles and his wife Catherine, and members of the Tobago Performing Arts Company.
Job portrayed Dora, a full-figured mother of two with seemingly low self-esteem. She is in a long-term, common-law relationship with Darwin, the father of her children.
But Darwin, with whom she has remained faithful, is also in relationships with two other women named Rosie and Maggie.
Rosie is a feisty, confrontational woman from the village, who frequently taunts Dora, believing she has the upper hand. Darwin has also fathered her four children.
Maggie, a seemingly ambitious younger woman from Mt St George, also has a son with Darwin. But she is later reunited with her husband.
The scenes with Dora and Rosie were especially hilarious. Equally funny were those involving their children, mostly at the village river.
After the welcome procession, Les Coteaux’s theme song and an African dance, the club went straight into their presentation.
It opened with Dora lamenting the way in which her life had turned out.
[caption id="attachment_967315" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Darwin raises a cutlass during an altercation with the husband of Maggie, whom he is having an affair with, at Folk Tales and Superstitions,
