Remembrance and Pantomime

Book excerpt: First produced by Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival in 1979, Remembrance is the story of an evasively eloquent retired teacher who cannot reconcile his anachronistic love of British culture with the evolution of his family and community in independent Trinidad. "A lyrical, audience-pleasing work" (Variety). Mr. Walcott is a poet, and his writing is of a quality we seldom hear in the theatre" (The New Yorker). Pantomime is a fast-paced comedy set in Tobaco. In the hope of entertaining future guests, an English hotel owner proposes that he and his black handyman work up a satire on the Robinson Crusoe story. The play was produced by BBC Radio and London's Keskidee Theatre in 1979. "A brilliantly extended set of variations on the master-and-servant relationship" (The Times). "Gentle wit, immaculately placed irony" (New Statesman). "Dazzling theatrical virtuosity" (Financial Times).