The was originally published on ArtsHub (UK) as “Blood & Gifts” at London’s National Theatre The saying goes that those who ignore history are bound to repeat it. And it would seem that 150 years of failed Western attempts at gaining the upper hand in Afghanistan was not enough to dissuade British, Russian or American and …
Continue reading Review: Blood and Gifts (2010) at the National Theatre | ArtsHub UK
Originally written for and published in Caribbean Beat magazine in 2007 On March 25, 1807, parliament in London passed a law formally abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire. The United States followed suit by banning the importation of slaves from January 1, 1808. It took many more years to end slavery altogether. Freedom for …
Originally written for and published in the Caribbean Review of Books (CRB), November 2006. There is a sketch next to Trinidadian Dominique Le Gendre’s Bird of Night programme note which captures graphically her own complex identity: individual, peer, family, national, collective, Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, Martinique, and Trinidad. As is perhaps the case with every Caribbean artist, the …
Continue reading Bird of Night (2006) takes flight | Caribbean Review of Books
Originally written for and published in Caribbean Beat magazine in 2003-04 “Psssst! Red gyal! Spanish!” After “family”, those are the greetings I most often get from our always-friendly Trini male population. You may accuse them of being boldfaced, but you can’t say they don’t have a strong grasp of Trini ethnography. Brown skin and curly hair, …
When going to a play called Iron (presented in early 2003 at the Royal Court, London), one hardly knows what to expect. Iron: it lends itself to phrases like ‘ruling with an iron fist’, iron bars, iron will, even ironing one’s clothes. All of these are useful as one mulls over exactly what takes place …
Caroline Taylor 