Theatre Review by Christina Manolescu</MARQUEE>
The MAI’s raked theatre space, with its well equipped sound and lighting electronics, hosts this exotic and electric performance. Costumes, designed by Erika Connor, switch between prosaic and lavish—like contrasting glimpses of Jamaican life. A quirky backdrop of shanty dwellings evoke the ‘ambiance’ of breezy open-air living. It’s a mix of modern and ancient, of prim white gloves and Sunday Bibles, hand in hand with the more emotional and intuitive pagan rites.
Blood claat’s dramatic images merge like rivers of blood, whether they be the ancestral blood-lines of a family and nation, the onset of menstrual blood, sporadic tribal blood-letting or the hazardous birth-pangs of emerging life. At heart, the story speaks of family solidarity and secret betrayal—a sort of ‘Garden of Eden’ revisited—bleeding into the wider tumult of civil strife.
There’s a ‘mythic feel’ to the drama in the ‘elemental mother figure’ who foreshadows the natural cycles of birth, growth, the drive toward independence, ‘coming of age’ and familial separation.
Dub-poet and actress, d’bi (pronounced Debbie) young, purposefully employs the authentic language of the Jamaican people. And her solo portrayal of 15-year-old Mudgu, her mother and her grandmother, encompasses an even larger society of roles, accents and guises, ranging from comic to tragic. We witness a bonded circle of characters and their interlocking relationships, forged in familial love and damaged by conflict, resentment, rebellion and betrayal.
The narrative of Blood claat is informed by a rich, dynamic and ambitious script, voiced at the speed of light, often at a breathless pace, as though running a race. As a writer who has achieved recognition and considerable acclaim, d’bi young continues to fashion her unique path. As a performing artist, she is multi-faceted, fearless and forthright; in this first of the Mudgu trilogy, she succeeds in wrenching the raw, intimate and elemental aspects of human nature (mostly secreted to the shadows) out into the light of day.
During Mudgu’s rite of passage, all three maternal archetypes seek to coalesce with their direct-line ancestor, the mythic rebel ‘goddess’ who once fled to the mountains rather than submit to slavery. Ironically, it is Mudgu’s mother who is part of a new exodus of migration. From distant Canada, she acts as legendary figure in her own right, dispensing advice, encouragement and moral example to the daughter whom she has, for the moment, left behind.
Blood claat plays at MAI Theatre space until Sunday, April 13, 2008.