The Road Make to Walk, written by Zeno Obi Constance and directed by Geneva Drepaulsingh, is a dramatic musical which celebrates the late calypsonian Kitchener. The musical will be staged at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA), Port of Spain, on July 13.
This review of the production, which was staged at Southern Academy for the Performing Arts (SAPA ), San Fernando, on June 11-12, was submitted by Eden Charles.
When the curtain rises on the set of Zeno Obi Constance’s Road Make to Walk at the Sundar Popo auditorium at the Southern Academy for the Performing Arts, (SAPA) San Fernando, the audience is greeted with the silhouetted scene of the Lord Kitchener looking down at his own funeral.
One immediately wonders at the cluster of umbrellas as the flashing lightning and rolling thunder take us back to that sad occasion of the internment of Aldwyn Roberts, the rain they say fell that day like tears from heaven. The umbrellas will be symbolic throughout the play as different characters invite you with open umbrellas or caution you to stand your ground when the parasols are closed.
[caption id="attachment_963879" align="alignnone" width="681"] Joseph Lopez as Sparrow woos Lu Lu played by Darrylle Wong Shing in the Road Make to Walk calypso musical which celebrates Kitchener.. -[/caption]
Director Geneva Drepaulsingh creates out of Constance’s work an existentialist tour de force as the Ghost of Carnival Past, portrayed brilliantly by Chennel Cupid, in the form of a jab molassie, equipped with horns and tail, takes Kitch on his final journey through his star-filled life, the Carnival figure ushering, shooing him into the different scenarios of his career and always seemingly lurking in the background like a celestial watcher.
The Road takes the audience on a trip from Lord Kitchener’s first appearance in a Port of Spain tent in 1943 singing his illustrious Green Fig, to his sojourn in London and then his reappearance in Trinidad. The play makes a full circle/cycle to end with Kitch’s funeral, but the theatrical journey is not that simple and we do not escape so easily. We are forced to join the musical ride as Kitch weaves his way through the cold of England, with his calypso brothers, such as the Mighty Terror, to the warmth of the cleansing fire that changes the Port of Spain landscape on his arrival back home.
[caption id="attachment_963878" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Kurtis Gross, guitar in hand, as Kitchener, preparing to confront the upstart Sparrow in the dramatic calypso musical, Road Make to Walk. -[/caption]
The Road is naturally filled with the calypsoes of his career and when we think that it is the task of the cast to sing and interpret the glorious lyrics and melodies, Drepaulsingh invites us onto the stage alongside the Ghost of Carnival Present (yes there are three ghosts like the ones that haunt Scrooge in the legendary Dickens' tale). This phantasm, played by Eunice Peters, is the essence of the circus ring master “Step right up!”, who summons the unsuspecting pa
