5.Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967)
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Sir Derek Alton Walcott (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017)
St Lucian Poet and playwright. (Nobel
Laureate in 1992). He was born in
Castries, capital of small Caribbean island, St.Lucia, the West Indies,
formerly under British Empire, but gained Independence in 1979
.
He is a mulatto from maternal as well
as paternal side (His mixed racial background of African and European descent
is reflected in the poem ‘a far cry from Africa’). He and his twin brother, Roderick, were the sons of
Warwick and Alix Walcott. Warwick Walcott, a painter, poet, and civil servant,
died when the twins were one year old. The boys and their elder sister were
raised by their mother, a teacher who also supported her family by working as a
seamstress. In this middle-class Protestant family, literature and artistry
were emphasized.
Like his father,
Walcott wanted to become a painter. While he painted his whole life, Walcott's
primary focus became words, in English, instead of images while a teenager.
Attending St. Mary's College on St. Lucia, Walcott became a poet. Before
entering the university, he self-published his first book of poetry at the age
of eighteen, entitled 25 Poems. He borrowed the money to publish it from his
mother, and made the money back by selling it himself.
In 1949,Walcott entered the University
of the west indies on Trinidad, from which he educated in 1953 with a B.A. Even
before graduation, Walcott began a teaching career, which he has conducted to
pursue on the secondary and university levels. While as a student, Walcott also
began writing plays. His first was Henri Christope(1951). In both his poetry
and plays, Walcott also deals with the racial complexities of the West Indian islands and his own racial heritage.
His two grandfathers were white, while both of his grandmothers were black and
descendants of slaves.
Walcott’s first successful play was The
sea at Dauphin (1954). This contributed in part to Walcott obtaining a
Rockfeller Fellowship to study play writing and diecting in New York City from
1957 to 1958. upon his return home to Trinidad, in 1959, Walcott founded the
Trinidad Theater workshop, which provided a forum for his plays. For the
workshop, Walcott wrote his best known play, Dream on
MonekeyMountain(1967).Other significant titles of his include The Joker of Seville(1974)
and O Babylon!(1976)
While Walcott continued to write plays
, Over the years he became better known for his poetry. His breakthrough
collection was 1962’s In a green Night: poems, 1948-1960, Walcott published his
poetic masterpiece, Omerus, a 325 page epic poem which gives a Caribbean twist
to Homer’ Iliad and Odyssey. In 1992, Walcott won the Nobel Prize in literature
for his poetry, one of many honors he has received over his career.
Beginning in the early 1980’s, Walcott
split his time between teaching literature and creative writing at Bostan area
universities and in Trinidad. Though the 1990’s Walcott continued to teach and
write (including 1997’s collection of poetry The Bounty and the Capeman: The Musical with Paul
Simon). He also Reestablished his work with the Trinidad Theater Workshop after
a decade-long hiatus. Married three times, Walcott has a son and two daughters.
Poems:
Ø
1948: 25 Poems
Ø
1949: Epitaph for the Young: Xll Cantos
Ø
1951: Poems
Ø
1962: In a Green Night: Poems 1948—60
Ø
1964: Selected Poems
Ø
1965: The Castaway and Other Poems
Ø
1969: The Gulf and Other Poems
Ø
1973: Another Life
Ø
1976: Sea Grapes
Ø
1979: The Star-Apple Kingdom
Ø
1981: Selected Poetry
Ø
1981: The Fortunate Traveller
Ø
1983: The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott
and the Art of Romare Bearden
Ø
1984: Midsummer
Ø
1986: Collected Poems, 1948–1984, featuring
"Love After Love"
Ø
1987: The Arkansas Testament
Ø
1990: Omeros- Homeric epic poem based on Iliad, in terza rima, used Trojan war to
depict the Carribbean Fisherman’s fight.
Ø
1997: The Bounty
Ø
2000: Tiepolo's Hound, includes Walcott's
watercolors
Ø
2004: The Prodigal
Ø
2007: Selected Poems (edited, selected, and
with an introduction by Edward Baugh)
Ø
2010: White Egrets (won T.S.Eliot prize, 2011)
Ø
2014: The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948–2013
Ø
2016: Morning, Paramin
Plays:
He published more than twenty plays, the majority of which have been
produced by the Trinidad Theatre
Workshop.
Ø
1950: Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven
Scenes
Ø
1952: Harry Dernier: A Play for Radio
Production
Ø
1953: Wine of the Country
Ø
1954: The Sea at Dauphin: A Play in One Act
Ø
1957: Ione
Ø
1958: Drums and Colours: An Epic Drama
Ø
1958: Ti-Jean and His Brothers
Ø
1966: Malcochon: or, Six in the Rain
Ø
1967: Dream on
Monkey Mountain: Story of revolt against the colonialism and search for identity. Makak
(the monkey) is the protagonist of the play, Moustique (mosquito) is the friend
of Makak. Tigre(tiger) and Souris(rat) are thieves. Corporal is a mulatto
officer. Berthilia is the donkey. Basil symbolizes death in it. Won Obie Award
in 1971
Ø
1970: In a Fine Castle
Ø
1974: The Joker of Seville
Ø
1974: The Charlatan
Ø
1976: O Babylon!
Ø
1977: Remembrance
Ø
1978: Pantomime
Ø
1980: The Joker of Seville and O Babylon!: Two
Plays
Ø
1982: The Isle Is Full of Noises
Ø
1984: The Haitian Earth
Ø
1986: Three Plays: The Last Carnival, Beef, No
Chicken, and A Branch of the Blue Nile
Ø
1991: Steel
Ø
1993: Odyssey: A Stage Version
Ø
1997: The Capeman (book and lyrics, both in
collaboration with Paul Simon)
Ø
2002: Walker and The Ghost Dance
Ø
2011: Moon-Child
Ø
2014: O Starry Starry Night
Essays
In his 1970 essay "What the Twilight Says: An Overture",
discussing art and theatre in his native region (from Dream on Monkey Mountain
and Other Plays)
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Context/Background:
Derek Walcott has
written numerous plays for the Trinidad Theater Workshop, including Dream on
Monkey Mountain. It is Walcott's best known and most performed play. Dream on
Monkey Mountain was first performed on August 12, 1967, at the Central
Library Theatre in Toronto, Canada. It was first published in 1970 with a
collection of short plays entitled Dream
on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays. It
was adapted, produced and broadcasted for NBC (National Broadcasting Company in
America) in 1970. In 1971, the play was produced off-Broadway by the Negro
Ensemble Company and won an Obie Award that year for “Best Foreign
Play.” It was staged in various parts of the United States and Europe, and it
was presented as part of the 1972 Olympics cultural program.
The Dream on
Monkey Mountain (1967) belongs to the twentieth-century genre called dream
plays, connected with works by playwrights such as Strindberg as well as by
Synge and Soyinka.
It
is a lyrical epic drama in 2 acts in 6 scenes with a prologue and epilogue;
prose, verse, and songs, with some English and
French patois. In addition to its dreamlike plot and its emphasis on
poetic language, beautiful lyricism and the rhythms of the West Indian dialect
known as patois. The play is also designed to be produced in a highly
stylized manner. It is episodic in nature, like ''Don Quixote.'' Dream on
Monkey Mountain is a complex allegory which, at its heart, concerns racial
identity. The play is set in a Jail on an unknown
West Indian island, in 1960s.
Derek Walcott has
described Dream on Monkey Mountain as a “dream”
that “exists as much in the given minds of its principal characters as in that
of its writer.” This accurate description of the illogical
progression of action must be taken into account when confronting this strange
play. A surrealistic fable, the play does not adhere to the tenets of a
realistic narrative.
Walcott has
suggested that the play should be “treated as a
physical poem with all the subconscious and deliberate borrowings of poetry.”
The play itself
is a moonstruck dream. Makak, the central character of the play, lives
alone on Monkey Mountain. He has not seen his own image in thirty years and
ends up in jail after drunkenly destroying a café. Much of the play consists of
his dream in which he discovers his selfworth as a black man.
Critics are
divided over many aspects of Dream on Monkey Mountain, including the
effectiveness of its poetic language. In a review of the Negro Ensemble
production in The New Yorker, the journalist Edith Oliver called the play "a masterpiece" and "a poem in dramatic
form or a drama in poetry", noting that "poetry is rare in modern
theater." Reviewing a 1970 production of the play in Los
Angeles, W. I. Scobie of National Review wrote, "In Walcott's dense,
poetic text and in the visual images onstage there is a brilliantly successful
marriage of classical tradition and African mimetic-dance elements, two strains
that are bound as one into the author's British colonial childhood. And in the
myth of Makak, an ultimately universal figure, there is achieved some
resolution of the conflict between black roots and white culture. This is a
superb play."
Many critics have found startling
similarity in structure and imagery between Walcott’s “Dream on Monkey
Mountain” and Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding (1932). In both the plays,
there are uses of the moon as a stage prop and there are other similarities in
the language of the play. Though Lorca was Spanish and was killed in 1936.
There are other critics who find
similarities between this play and Eugene O Neil’s Emperor Jones (1920).
The
playwright has compared his play’s style to the ritualistic nature of Nō(Noh)
and Japanese Kabuki theater (blend of drama, dance, and music), but
the origins of Dream on Monkey Mountain also reside in the folk customs,
dances, and chants native to the Caribbean islands. The play was inspired by
places and people known to the author since his childhood spent in the
Caribbean.
There
are also references to the history of the Gospel, to texts by Georg Büchner and
August Strindberg, Miguel de Cervantes or the early theatre of Federico García
Lorca, while the main character recalls Peer Gynt (1867) by Henrik Ibsen or The
Emperor Jones (1920) by Eugene O’Neill.
Walcott’s
play illuminated the publication of Éloge de la
créolité (1989), a manifesto written almost 20 years later by three
Martinican authors, Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Raphäel Confiant, and
which greatly contributed to the international dissemination of the concept of Créole
and creolization
Walcott
himself wrote a prologue for this edition of the plays and named it “What the
Twilight Says: an Overture”, where he explains his own doubts and
concerns being a postcolonial playwright indulging in the indigenous forms of
theatre. He discusses the problems for an artist of a region with little in the
way of truly indigenous forms, and with little national or nationalist
identity.
Short Summary:
Prologue
On a Caribbean Island, the morning after a
full moon, a common unnamed man rampages through the marketplace in a rage.
Taken in custody for drunken misdemeanor and questioning, the man gets trapped
in nightmares and hallucinations. Corporal Lestrade, a mulatto official,
brings in Makak and questions him very methodically. Two other black prisoners
already in cells, Tigre and Souris, try to undermine the corporal as he does
his duty. The corporal grows frustrated and compares them to animals. Makak
does not remember who he is or what he has done and can only say that his name
is Makak and he lives in the Monkey Mountain. The protagonist foregoes his
legal name (which he remembers to be Felix Hobain in the end of the play) for
the derogatory and implicitly racial epithet “Makak, or “Monkey.” There is
a change in scene, and Tigre and Souris don judge’s robes and the corporal
defends Makak. The corporal presents the facts of the case to the judges. He
reveals that Makak claims to have had a dream in which he was told he was a
descendant of African kings. After telling them he has not looked at his
reflection for thirty years, Makak relates a dream in which a white woman came
to him. Parts of his life are slowly disclosed.
Part I, Scene i
In scene I, Makak is found by his
companion Moustique in his hut, where he claims of having seen a white woman
who calls him by his real name and urges him to come home. Moustique finds some
ominous and unaccounted for things like a spider with an egg stack and a white
mask. Makak asks Moustique to follow him to Africa, which he does without
understanding.
Scene ii
In the second scene, in his
hallucinations, Makak becomes a saviour of his people, the man who will revive
their culture, return them to the time before colonial degradation lead them
out of the cave where they see only shadows, and bring them into the light
where they will see the truth. He links himself to his ancestry, proclaiming
himself “the direct descendant of African kings.” And he will save his
race in part because he is “a healer of leprosy”; he can cure the disease that
turns its victim white with decay and causes him/her to disintegrate bit by
bit. The people he seeks to lead have, like Makak, lost their identity-their
names, their link with a tradition. He believes that he has become a prophet
and a healer and therefore, walks amongst the common people healing and tending
the sick.
Scene iii
In the third scene, we are back at the
courthouse, where the corporal Lestrade is again presiding over the trial. Many
men and women come to testify about the various miracles promised by Makak. The
scene changes back to Makak’s hallucinations of his role as a savior. In this
dream, his one companion, Moustique, wants to exploit his power, impersonating
a prophet himself, ignoring Basil, the coffin-maker who warns him he will die
and enraging the people of the island. When confronted by Lestrade and the Inspector,
Moustique defiantly admits that his identity. The crowd turns against him,
beats him up and condemns his life. In his dying breath, he reconciles with
Makak and bids him to go back to Monkey Mountain.
Part II, Scene i
In the second part of the play Scene I
opens in the jail cell. In this scene, Makak, Tigre and Souris confront
Lestrade for allowing the crowd to kill Moustique. Lestrade defends himself by
rationalizing concepts like rights and laws, but denies the convicts any.
Makak offers to bribe Lestrade with money he has hidden. Tigre and Souris
hear it and try to provoke Makak in killing Lestrade and breaking from the
prison. Makak stabs Lestrade in a frenzy shouting that he is a lion and that he
wants blood. He urges Tigre and Souris to drink the blood to defy the racial
bias against them which calls them apes with law. Then they start for Monkey
Mountain or Africa, they are not sure. Lestrade rises clutching a towel to his
wound and resolves to “hunt the lion” and exits with a rifle amidst drumming
and chanting.
Scene ii
In the second scene, Makak with his two
felon followers is back in the forest. The felons believe there are money and a
new life in Monkey Mountain. But Makak still seeks a way back to Africa. The
felons resolve to lose themselves in Makak’s madness to survive and later
exploit him. They start rhapsodizing about Africa to please Makak. They start
talking about how God is like a big white man who frightens them. They also
talk about ways of going home and how they don’t know how to reach home. Tigre
tries to ask Makak about his supposedly hidden money and how it might help them
go home. Makak rants about him being the King of Africa and in a mock ceremony,
the felons crown him. The corporal catches them but apparently loses his
reason. He rants about how he is back to his roots in the forest of Monkey
Mountain, not in Africa. He announces that he loved Africa of his mind, but
also the African half of his heritage, and apologizes to Makak calling him the
old father. Souris believes them but Tigre tries to threaten them with a gun.
Basil the coffin maker distracts him, while Lestrade stabs him with a spear.
They march out putting Makak in front of their procession.
Scene iii
In the third scene, there is a full
indigenous ritual in which Lestrade convicts Moustique for abandoning their
dream. The tribes people judge the politicians and world leaders and convicts
them death sentences. Makak is punished for his false dream and the apparition
of a white woman from his dream is beheaded to cure him of his madness. He
finally announces that he is free and takes off his ritual robes.
Epilogue
In the Epilogue, things are apparently
back to normal and all of them, dead and alive are back in the prison cells.
Makak remembers his name – Felix Hobain and is bailed out by a now alive
Moustique. Lestrade continues his verbal fight with Tigre and Souris and sets
Makak free on account of this being his first offence. Makak decides that he
will return home to Monkey Mountain.
Characters:
MAKAK or FELIX HOBAIN (in
French patois for "Ape", Makak=MONKEY) - He
is an old (sixty to sixty five), black , poor, ugly, charcoal cutter/burner,
of African descent, has lived alone in a hut on Monkey Mountain his whole life.
He is the central character in the play , the one who has the dream on monkey
mountain. He believes that he is ugly and repulsive, which is why he lives
alone in a hut on monkey mountain. Makak
brings down his load of coal from the mountain to sell in the market day. The
dream he dreams one night, forces him off the mountain and on a journey toward
Africa. How he will get from a small Caribbean island to Africa does not seem
to trouble him in the least. With his only friend and business partner, Moustique,
unwillingly accompaning him, Makak becomes a sort of faith healer. When
Moustique is killed in a marketplace riot, Makak has been imprisoned on
Saturday night (July 25th) for his own safety, after getting drunk
and smashing things in the local café. He spends Saturday night and Sunday
morning in jail.
At the beginning
of the play, Makak is in jail, spends the night in jail, where he has the
dream that forms the bulk of Dream on monkey mountain. In dream, he has a
vision of an apparition (a white woman), who tells him that he is descended
from African Kings and urges him to return to Africa to reclaim his
heritage.Makak begins his journey. He finds that he has healing powers when he
cures a sick man’s fever. Though Moustique wants to exploit this gift for
commercial purposes, Makak is only concerned with the larger goal.
In jail, he is unhappy
about the way the mulatto warder Corporal Lestrade approves of ‘white man's
law’, Makak despises himself for being black and longs to lead his people back
to Africa. After stabbing the jailer, he escaped with the help of fellow
prisoners TIGRE and SOURIS. In scene 3,
in his dreams, he will become a fearless warrior (a tribal king). Even
Lestrade will join his exodus, while various hangers-on pretend to lend Makak
his support while trying to undermine and rob him. Amazingly, he receives a
floral tribute from the Ku Klux Klan.
Makak
and his dream is have been betrayed and corrupted , first by Moustique( for
Money), then by Tigre (for money and power), and finally by Lestrade (for black
power). Finally his dream ends when he beheads the white apparition that led
him there in the first place. At the end of the play, the setting returns to
reality, Waking from his drunken dream, he finds he has overcome his obsession
with whiteness and calls himself by his real name, Felix Hobain. He is released
from jail. Reconciled to life on his Caribbean Island, Makak gained a better sense of himself. Along with
Moustique, he goes to Monkey Mountain, his home, and looks forward to a new
life.
CARPORAL LESTRADE (the straddler) -a mulatto (a person of mixed white and black
ancestry), enforces white laws. Corporal Lestrade runs the jail and is
responsible for the arrest of Makak. At the beginning of the play, he
identifies himself with the white authority figures. He follows the rule of the
law to the letter and is contemptuous of the three black men. At the beginning
of the Makak’s dream, Lestrade remains like this. In the scene in which
Moustique impersonates Makak in the
marketplace, Lestrade emphasizes his beliefs on law, and law enforcement to
market inspector Pamphilion. Though Lestrade is stabbed by Makak during the
prison escape initiated by Tigre, he later joins Makak’s journey after finding
the three on monkey mountain. Lestrade stabs and kills Tigre when he tries to
kill them. Lestrade plays an even bigger
role when the three are in Africa. It is he who insists that Makak kill the
apparition that started him on this journey. At the end of the play, when the
setting is again in reality, Lestrade is somewhat kinder than he was at the
beginning of the play and lets Makak go free.
CAIPHAS J.PAMPHILION- Pamphilion is a
law officer who is under the wing of Corporal Lestrade during Makak’s dream. He
listens to Lestrade’s theories and says very little.
TIGRE (TIGER)- a felon, a fellow prisoner in jail when Makak
is brought there. Like his apparent partner Souris, He is a man of African
descent who has been arrested as thief. He is rather vulgar and, In Makak’s
dream, convinces Souris that they should take advantage of the old man. Makak
tries to pay off the corporal so that he will be set free, but the corporal
accuses him of bribery. Tigre wants to steal any money Makak has hidden on
monkey mountain; and to that end convinces Makak that the three should escape
together. Makak listens him, and after leaving the prison the thee make their
way to monkey mountain. Though Makak makes him general (supreme commander), He
is really concerned with obtaining Makak’s money. When the corporal appears on
the mountain and ends up joining them, Tigre pulls a gun on the rest. He is
later killed by the corporal, in part because of his short-sighted greed. He
does not understand the journey Makak and others are on. At the end of the
play, when the setting turns to reality, Tigre is in jail, only concerned with
himself again.
SOURIS (RAT) - a felon, a
fellow prisoner in jail when makak is brought there. He is a man of African
descent who has been arrested as a thief. Souris and Tigre seed to be partners
of some sort. In reality, Souris agrees with Tigre about Makak’s insanity. Bit
in Makak’s dream, Souris is more concerned with getting his fair share of food
from the corporal than with Makak. He goes along with Tigre’s plan and joins
Makak and Tigre’s Jailbreak. He changes sides when the three are on monkey
mountain together. Though Tigre wants Souris to help him to find Makak’s money,
Souris believes in Makak’s vision. He does not stand with Tigre, when he pulls
the gun, much to Tigre’s chagrin. He follows Makak to Africa. At the end of the
play, when reality returns, Souris is still kind to the old man, telling him to
‘’go with god’’.
MOUSTIQUE (MOSQUITO) - friend and business partner of MAKAK, He is a side
kick in the play. He is a small black man with a physical deformity in his
twisted foot, shaped like the letter ‘S’. Often he is compared to Satan, since “Satan has been described as limping, a symbol of
impotence. To some writers and he is frequently black in colour’’.
Makak rescued him from the gutter about four years earlier. Moustique feels
Makak is the only one who believes in him. Moustique sells the coal that Makak
burns. They pair recently purchased a donkey, Berthilia, together for this
business. In Makak’s dream, Moustique plays a complicated role and dies twice. Moustique doesn’t believe Makak’s apparition was real,
and only reluctantly goes on journey. When Moustiue comes upon a sick man and
his family, he convinces them to let Makak try to heal the ill one in exchange
for bread. It works, and Moustique immediately wants to exploit it for
commercial purposed. He goes so far as to imitate Makak in the marketplace for
money. But, he is caught in the deception and is killed, Though Makak tries to
save him. Later, When Makak is a king, he is one of the prisoners brought
before him. He tries to tell Makak that he should not trust his followers, but
Makak does not believe in him. He is killed again. At the end of the play, when
reality returns, he shows up at the jail and begs for Makak’s freedom, though Makak
has already been released. The pair return to Monkey mountain, their bond
seemingly stranger.
JOSEPHUS -Josephus is the sick man who is healed
by Makak. He suffers from a fever (due to snake bite) without sweat, until
Makak saves his life.
BASIL- A carpenter,
coffin maker, dressed like Baron Samedi, (A symbol of death ).
Basil is a black man (or perhaps apparition) who appears when death is imminent
for someone in the scene. Wearing a dark long coat and hat, with half of his
face painted white. Basil also plays a constant role in Makak's journey after
he reaches Monkey Mountain. He compels Corporal Lestrade to confess his sins,
resulting in Lestrade's personal epiphany. When the scene shifts to Africa,
Basil reads the list of the accused.
WIFE OF JOSEPHUS: she gives food to
Makak and Moustique.
APPARITION or WHITE
WOMAN: appears to Makak in dream. Described as moon, muse, white woman
or goddess. Makak beheads it at the end of the play.
MARKET WOMAN - transfigured
into Makak's wives during his dream.
BERTHILIA -a donkey bought by Makak and Moustique
for their charcoal business.
A DANCER, ALSO NARRATOR,
LITTLE BEARERS.,
SISTERS OF THE REVELATION.,
WARRIORS, DEMONS.
A SINGER,
A MALE CHORUS,
TWO DRUMMERS
Plot/Narrative Structure
|
Section |
Summary |
|
PART ONE |
|
|
Epigraph |
A para from Jean-Paul Sartre’s preface to Franz Fanon’s "The Wretched of the Earth (1961), about a tired man, as a result of insult, his self becomes dissociated and heads for madness. |
|
Prologue (in reality, opens in jail) |
Chorus sings, dancer dances, drummer beats drums. The play opens in an unnamed West Indian prison where Makak, (an Old man and Charcoal burner) is arrested for disturbing the peace and claiming divine visions. Corporal Lestrade mocks and interrogates him. Tigre and Souris, the felons, acts as judges. Makak requests to release. |
|
Scene 1 (dream, On mountain) |
Before the arrest, Makak is found by his companion Moustique in his hut. Makak recounts his vision of a white goddess who tells him of his African origin. Moustique prepares coffee, forces Makak to get ready for market to sell coal. Moustique saw a spider beside a white egg sack and a white mask. Makak on Berthilia (donkey), along with Moustique dismounts mountain, sets on journey to Africa. |
|
Scene 2 (dream, On the road) |
Journey to Africa, Makak becomes healer/prophet. Makak and Moustique come across a group of women robed in white praying; and peasants carrying Josephus (a sick man bitten by snake) and Makak heals the sick man. The crowd gives food and money, but Makak insists this power is not for profit. They move towards market. |
|
Scene 3 (dream, at public market) |
News of Makak’s healing powers reached the market. Corporal Lestrade and Market Inspector are waiting for the arrival of Makak. Moustique tries to get profit by pretending as Makak. As he is afraid of a Spider, Basil identifies him as Moustique, not Makak. Moustique is mistaken for Makak and killed by the mob. Makak is arrested. |
|
PART TWO |
|
|
Interlude |
A para from Jean Paul Satre's preface to the Franz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth (1961)", about two worlds- Black and White (native vs Coloniser), |
|
Scene 4 (dream, at jail) |
Still in dream, shifts back to jail where he was convinced by Tigre to stab Lestrade inorder to escape from jail. Lestrade rises and follows them. |
|
Scene 5 (dream, in forest) |
Makak along with Tigre and Souris reaches a forest. Makak in a mock ceremony, crowned as the King of Africa by the felon. Makak makes Tigre his general. But Tigre was killed by Corporal by a spear. They move on to Africa. |
|
Scene 6 (Dream within dream, in Africa) |
apotheosis scene. Makak is now king in Africa, long soliloquy about blackness. Makak holds a court trial. Basil reads the list of white figures Plato, Ptolemy, Florence Nightingale, Al Johnson, Abraham Linclon, Shakespeare and convicts them death sentences. He kills the white apparision and Moustique. Makak’s reclaims his African heritage. |
|
Epilogue (in reality, back to jail) |
Makak wakes up in the prison cell. The dream journey is over. The dead and alive are back in the prison cells. He recalls his true name, Felix Hobain, symbolizing rebirth (new identity). Makak is released. |
Note: Except prologue and epilogue, the entire play is a
dream. The scene number 6 is a dream within the dream.
Opening line:
Mooma,
Mooma
Your son
in de jail a’ready
Your son
in de jail a’ready
Take a
towel and band your belly (Chorus)
Closing Line:
I am going home, I am going
home,
I am going home, I am going
home,
I am going home, I am going
home,
To me Father’s kingdom (Chorus)
Part/ Scene wise- Summary
PART ONE
Prologue
Epigraph:
Thus in certain psychoses the hallucinated person, tired of always being
insulted by his demon, one fine day starts hearing the voice of an angel who
pays him compliments; but the jeers don't stop for all that; only, from then
on, they alternate with congratulations.
This is a
defence, but it is also the end of the story. The self is disassociated, and
the patient heads for madness.
Source: Jean-Paul
Sartre’s preface to Franz Fanon’s "The Wretched of the Earth(1961).
Dream on
Monkey Mountain opens in a small jail on the morning after
a full moon, in an unnamed West Indian
island. A drum is placed in the middle of the stage. A spotlight falls
on the white disc of the drum until glows like the moon. A dancer comes
and sits astride the drum. The moon becomes the Sun. A figure in formal clothes
and stylized makeup like Barom Samedi (a figure often
associated with death and resurrection in Haitian Vodou) comes and stands behind the dancer. As the chorus sings a lament, the
Figure and dancer wave their arms in spidery motion to the music. The
figure rouches the disc of the moon. They move towards two cages, one on either
side of the stage. As the lament continues, light illuminates the cages and there
are two black men inside, Tigre and Souris.
The chorus sings a song about a mother
whose son is in jail, (about Makak).
Conteur (= story
teller):
Mooma,
Mooma
Your son
in de jail a’ready
Your son
in de jail a’ready
Take a
towel and band your belly (contour)
Corporal Lestrade, a mulatto official and an agent of
the oppressive system of the white colonial rule, in Sunday uniform, brings in Makak, a Negro with jute sack. Makak has just been arrested on Saturday night
for being drunk and smashing a Alcindor café on
Saturday evening (July 25th) while claiming he was the
King of Africa. He spends Saturday night and Sunday morning in jail. Lestrade says
that he is “drunk and disorderly! A old man
like that! He has drunk and he mash up Felician Alcindor cafe” (Corporal, 215)”.
Two other
black prisoners (felons) already in a cell, Tigre and
Souris, (Makak is in other cell) try to undermine the
corporal as he does his duty. The corporal grows frustrated and compares them
to “animals,
beasts, savages, cannibals and niggers, stop turning this place to a stinking
zoo” (Corporal, 216). Sourics asks Corporal, why he is calling
the place as zoo. Is it just because he captured a mountain gorilla? Corporal
says, “In the beginning was the ape and the
ape has no name, so God call him man. Now there were various tribes of the ape,
it has gorilla, baboon, orang-outan, chimpanzee, the blue arsed monkey and the
marmoset, ….. so don’t interrupt, Please let me examine the Lion of Judah. What
is your name?” (Corporal, 216-217) The corporal asks Makak for basic information such as his name
in full, occupation, status, ambition, domicile, age and last but not least race.
Makak replies that he forgets his name, and he live on monkey mountain. When asked for
race, he says “I am tired.” (Makak, 219)
and his denominational affiliation is Catholicism (He is "Catholique”). He says that he only wants to go home. In fact he does not remember his basic identity and real name. Corporal pities him for he is Catholic and prepares to
implement Roman Law.
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