5. Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967)- for TSPSC JL/DL

 

5.Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967)

Author:  Dereck Walcott

First performed: Aug 12,1967; at the Central Library Theatre in Toronto, Canada

Published: 1970

Genre: Drama in 2 acts in 6 scenes with a prologue and epilogue; prose, verse, and songs, with some English and French patois . ‘’Dream on Monkey Mountain’’ is a  lyrical epic by the Trinidadian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, is an eclectic work, a layered narrative laden with historical, folkloric and literary allusions that, as the title suggests, maintains the tenuous logic and adventurous imagination of dreams. It is  is episodic in nature. Like ''Don Quixote,''

Setting: Jail on St Lucia, 1960s, in an unknown West Indian island.

Characters: 8male, 2female, extras, chorus, and drummers

MAKAK (in French, Makak=MONKEY)         -He  is an old(sixty years old), black , poor, ugly, charcoal cutter/burner, of African descent, has lived alone 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 from the mountain to sell in the market day. The dream he dreams one nightforces 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 accompaniing him, Makak becomes a sort of faith healer.  When Moustique is killed in a marketplace riot, Makak has been imprisoned on Saturday night for his own safety, after getting drunk and smashing things in the local market.He spends Saturday night and Sunday morning in jail.

At the beginning of he play,  Makak is thrown in jail for destroying  a local cafe while drunk. He spends the night in jail, which is 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 in jailer, he escaped with the help of fellow prisoners TIGRE and SOURIS. In scene3,  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 himselfand wants to go home to Monkey Mountainand looks forward to a new life.

FELIX HOBAIN                   -See Makak

CARPORAL LESTRADE( the straddler)         -a mulatto( a person of mixed white and black ancestry, especially with a white and a black parent). Corporal Lestrade runs the jail and is responsible for the arrest of Makak. Lestrade is a mulatto, and at the beginning of the play 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 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, 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 b the corporal, in part because of his short-sighted greed. He does not understan 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 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 he play, when reality returns, Souris is still kid 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 pronounced physical deformity in his twisted foot.  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  does nt 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 without sweat until Makak saves his life.

BASIL- A carpenter, coffin maker (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 coat and hat, he is described by some as a cabinetmaker. 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: one of the 2 woman characters in the play, she gives food to Makak and Moustique.

WHITE WOMAN:  another woman character in the play

A SINGER, A MALE CHORUS, TWO  DRUMMERS

SUMMARY-1 ( study guide Amazon)

Introduction:

Though St. Lucia native Derek Walcott is primarily recognized as a Nobel Prize-winning poet, he has also 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. After at least one production in the United States, the play made its New York City debut on March 14, 1971, at St. Mark's Playhouse. This production garnered Walcott an Obie Award. Regularly performed since its inception, Dream on Monkey Mountain is a complex allegory which, at its heart, concerns racial identity.

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. 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."

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. The playwright has compared his play’s style to the ritualistic nature of Japanese Kabuki theater, but the origins of Dream on Monkey Mountain also reside in the folk customs, dances, and chants native to the Caribbean islands.

About author

Derek Walcott ( Nobel Laureate in 1992) was born on January 23, 1930, 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 Monekey Mountain(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.

Prologue

In prologue of the play the conteur and the chorus express their concerns for the miserable plight of Makak who has already in jail. Dream on Monkey Mountain opens in a small jail on an unnamed West Indian island.  There are two prison cells on either side of the stage as in the jail. Corporal Lestrade, a mulatto official and an agent of the oppressive system of the white colonial rule, brings in Makak, an older black man. Makak has just been arrested on Saturday night for being drunk and smashing a local café on July25thwhile 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”(215)”.

Two other black prisoners 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”(216). The corporal asks Makak for basic informatio such as his name, status, occupation, ambition, domicile, age and race. Makak replies that he forgets his name, he belongs to a tired race and his denominational affiliation is Catholicism (He is "Catholique”) and he lives on monkey mountain. He says that he only wants to go home.  In fact he does not remember his basic identity and  real name.

Next is a trial, where Tigre and Souris robethemselves as judges and the corporal now don Counsel’s garments and defends Makak. Lestrade is proud of his power:“ I can both accuse and defend this man”(220). The corporal presents the facts of the case to the judges. Makak at that time remains silent. When Makak lifts up his head, Lestrade jerks it back wildly because Makak is a Black native.  He reveals that Makak claims to have had a dream in which he was told he was a descendant of African Kings. Makak was inciting people when he was arrested.

Corporal: “My lords, as you can see, this is a being without a mind, a will, a name, a tribe of its own. I shall ask the prisoner to turn out his hands…….. I will spare you the sound of that voice, which have come from a cave of darkness, dripping with horror. These hands are the hands of Esau, the fingers are like roots, the arteries as hard as twine, and the palms are seamed with coal. But the animal , you observe, is tamed and obedient.”(222).

Lestrade calls Makak a tamed and obedient animal. He orders Makak to do some acts which Makak performs timidly. The corporal, however, is successful to establish the fat that the accused is capable if obeying orders, reflexes and understanding justice. He, therefore, loudly declares  the charge against Makak in detail but Makak admits that he is an innocent old man and he wants to go home.

Makak: “I am an old man. Send me home, corporal. I suffer from madness. I does see things. Spirits does talk  to me. All I have is dreams and they don’t trouble your soul”(225)

In his first long speech he discloses his degrading and isolated condition. He is sixty years old; he has lived all his life like a wild beast in hiding without  wife and child; people forget him like the mist on monkey mountain. Makak asks to bereleased because he is old. He pleads judges to leave him with his dream: “ Sirs, I does catch fits. I fall in frenzy every full moon night.  I does be possessed, and after that, I am not responsible, I responsible only to god who spoke to me in the form of a woman on the monkey mountain. I am God’s Warrior.”(226)

After telling them he was not looked at his reflection for thirty years.

“is thirty years now I have look no mirror,

Not a pool of cold water, when I must drink,

I stir my hands first, to break up my image

 I will tell you my dream”(226)

Makak now describes his vision of a white woman who informs him that he is a descendant of the African warrior kings and he should retreat back to Africa. He has loved the apparition because,” she is part of him, his deeper self, his Jungian anima” She knows everything about him and calls him by his real name. He claims to see her at that moment in the prison, but no one else does. Makak believes she gives him strength. Lestrade thinks this vision as an insane one: “ Is this rage for whiteness that does drive niggers mad”(228)

 

SCENE 1

The play shifts back to the time before Makak was arrested, though it is part of his dream. In Makak’s hut on monkey mountain, he lies on the floor. He is found by his business partner and friend, Moustique, a small black man with a deformed foot ( a little man with a limp). Moustique rouses him so they can go the market and sell their coal. Makak does not want to go.

Makak:                I going mad, Moustique

Moustique:        going mad? Go mad tomorrow, today is market day. We have three bags at three and                                      six  a bag, making ten shillings and six pence for the week and you  going mad? (232)

He relates the experience he had that night before. A white woman appeared to him, singing. She knew all about him and wanted to come home with him. When they returned to his hut, she told Makak that he should not live there anymore, believing he  was ugly, because he comes from a royal lineage.

Moustique grows frustrated by Makak’s insistence that his experience was real. He asks where the woman is now, but Makak does not know.

Makak’s strange behavior is explained by Moustique as the result either of a fit brought on by the moon, or of his encounter with the white apparition. The white woman is described as “ the moon, muse, the white goddess, a dancer”.

 After Makak leaves to get the coal so they can go to the market, Moustique is shaken when he unexpectedly encounters a mother spider and an egg sack.

He kills it, but both men believe this is a sign of Moustique’s impending death. Moustique finds a white mask under a bench. Makak says that he has not seen it before. He orders Moustique to ready things for their journey to Africa. Moustique is now convinced Makak is crazy, but follow him down the mountain.

Mounted on a donkey, with a bamboo spear in his hand and Moustique at his side, Makak starts down the hill to set out on his quest.

SCENE 2

In scene-2, Makak descends from monkey mountain and acts like a Jesus-like healer and Moustique as a Judas-like exploiter of Makak’s spiritual strength. Moustique comes upon the family of a sick man,Josephus( snake bitten man??). Sisters pray around him hoping to make him well. Moustique joins them in prayers, while asking them from bread. He learns that the sick man has a fever and his body will not break into sweat. The sick man is basically given up for dead, and Basil , A local coffin-maker, lurks nearby. Basil is a death figure dawn from Haitian Mythology.  Moustique convinces them to let Makak help the sick man in exchange for bread.

Makak has everyone kneel around the sick one. He has a woman place a hot coal in his hand, “a soul in my hand”. As it sizzles, Makak prays over them.

He prays: “Like the cedars of Lebanon,

Like the plantations of Zion,

The hands of god plant me

on monkey mountain,

He calleth to the humble

And from the height

I see you all as trees

Like a twisted forest

Like trees without names a forest without roots”(248)

Nothing happens at first, which Moustique and blame on those around the sick man. Still the sick man’s wife gives them food for their effort. Just as they are about to leave, the sick man begins to sweat and heal. Moustique seizes the opportunity and collect food and money from the relatives of the healed man. After collecting the gifts from those present, Mostique teases Basil and obtains his coat and hat. When Moustique and Makak finally depart, Moustique wants to exploit Makak’s gift for healing for profit. Makak will only take as much as they need.

When Moustique is Concerned with collecting money, Makak clearly states his own view point: “ You don’t undestand, Moustique. This power I have, is not profit” (254)

SCENE 3

At a public market, people gather in the market for arrival of Makak and they discuus about various rumors regarding Makak’s healing miracles(spiritual powers). In the meantime, Lestrade’s recollection begins and it merges with Makak’s.  The corporal and the market inspector Caiphas J.Pamphilion are on duty at Quarte Chemin Crossroads and they discuss how they will keep order when Makak makes his rumored appearance.  Lestrade harshly comments: “the crippled, crippled. It’s the crippled who believe in miracles. It’s the slaves who believe in freedom” (262)

He says that the Black natives are paralyzed with darkness of ignorance. In fact Lestrade denies the Black aspect of his mulatto identity. In Lestrade’s recollection A man claiming he is Makak appears; it is, however, Moustique, appears in he market as healer in the disguise of Makak. Moustique plays to the crowd,asking for cash for his trip to Africa. While promising to help them cure themselves.

Moustique:

Qui. It is Makak     ….………………………………….……

Let the enemies of Africa make way. Let the Abyssinian lion leap again.

For Makak walk in frenzy down monkey mountain, and god send his message in lightening handwriting.

That the sword Of sunlight be in his right hand and the moon his shield.” (265)

He ultimately fails. As he drops the bowl in fear of  a spider when it falls on his hand. The corporal loudly mocks him: “ A spider? A man who will bring you deliverance is afraid of spider?”(268). He becomes upset. It is removed by Basil, who recognizes that he is not Makak but Moustique.

 Basil, the coffin Maker ultimately exposes Moustique’s disguise: “ You cannot run at enough, eh? Moustique! That is not Makak! His name is Moustique!”(269).

Moustique under duress, confesses the truth: “You know who I am? You want to know who I am? Makak! Makak! Or the Moustique , is not the same nigger?………. All I have is this (shows the mask) black fces, White masks!”(270-71). andinsults the crowd , they beat them for a few moments, before the corporal tells them to disperse.

This truth is also applicable to the condition of Lestrade because he is a mulatto as both of them are black natives. Makak, however, arrives after they leave and gazes into Moutique’s dying eyes; what he sees is only emptiness and black nothingness. Moustique tells him to go back to monkey mountain before dying.

Interlude:

In the interlude of the second part of the play, the playwright uses Jean Paul Satre’s introduction to Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth to highlight the schizophrenic psyche of a colonized native:

“The two worlds: that makes two bewitching; they dance all night and at dawn they crowd into the churches to hear mass; each day split widens. Our enemy betrays his brothers and becomes our accomplice; his brothers dos the same thing. The status of ‘Native’ is a nervous condition introduced and maintained by the settler among colonized people with their consent.”(277)

 The two worlds of Black and White. Africa and Europe not only fight in the psyche of Makak but this war is  running in the minds of all the West Indians or the Caribbeans. They find themselves in the endless confusion of their of their African origin and European legacy- whether they should be go back to African origin or to permanently stick to the white colonizing influences.

SCENE 4

At the beginning of the part two of the play, still in Makak’s dream, the action shifts back to jail.

The corporal Lestrade is engaged in defending white justice: “I am an istrument of the law, suris. I got the white man work to do” (279). Lestrade’s attitude echoes the attitude of the white European colonizers towards the West Indians.

It is the same night that Makak was arrested and the corporal is feeding the prisoners, Souris and Tigre, pretend to be on the side of Makak to take possession of his hidden money, ask Lestrade to release the old man, but he will not. Makak offers money to the corporal for his freedom. The corporal will not be bribed, and is disturbed by Makak. After the corporal leaves, Tigre convinces Souris that they might be able to escape from prison and steal Makak’s money. To the end , they ask him about his dream and Africa. Finally they overpower Lestrade: Tigre convinces Makak that he must kill the corporal-- like the lion he claims to be--- so they can escape together. Makak reveals that he has a knife. Tigre calls the corporal in, Makak stabs him, and they escape. The corporal is not dead and goes after them.

SCENE 5

In the forest, Makak directs Souris and Tigre to rest while he makes a fire. Tigre is impatient, wanting to eat but also anxious to get to monkey mountain. Souris is afraid, wondering if there really is any money. As Makak lays out his plans, Souris begins to believe in his words. Tigre grows frightened and impatient. Makak makes him his general. While cooking food Souris has obtained, He and Tigre discuss how they are convinced that Makak is totally crazy.( Tigre wants hidden money of Makak, but  Souris changes his mind and supports Makak)

While they hear someone coming, the three men hide in the bushes. The corporal appears, following their trial and talking in incomprehensible terms.  Basil comes out of the bushes and tells corporal he must repent.  Tigre and Souris emerge from the bushes. Tigre encourages the corporal to confess his sins as well.

Here the corporal eventually changed and played an ‘another part’. He became aware of his Blackness and joins Makak’s Back-to-Africa Movement. The critic Bruce King in his book Dereck walcott: a Caribbean Life rightly comments: “ Walcott said that Dream on Monkey Mountain was about the West Indian search for identity and what colonialism does to the spirit. The first half of the play is white, but when Lestrade becomes an ape, the play becomes Black, and the same sins are repeated, the cycle of violence begins again”(275)

Under pressure, the corporal admits his Black identity, love of Africa and his African origin. and asks Makak’s forgiveness. The corporal becomes an Advocate of the Black race’s law and confesses his fragmented consciousness:

Corporal: ‘’Too late have I loved thee, Africa of my mind….. I received thee because I hated half of myself, my eclipse. But now in that heart of the forest at the foot of Monkey mountain… I kiss your foot. Monkey mountain… I return to this, my  mother. Naked, trying very hard not to weep in the dust. I was what I am, but now I am my self…. I sing the glories of Makak! The glories of my race! ….. o god, I have become what I mocked. I always was. Makak! Makak! Forgive me, old father”(299-300)

Makak appears and declares that the corporal is one of them. Tigre and Souris wants to take physical revenge on the corporal, but Makak will not let them. When Tigre wants to shoot the corporal , Souris intervenes for he is now firmly on Makak’s side. Makak tries to convince Tigre to join them, but Tigre remains ready to kill. The corporal ends up driving a spear through Tigre with help of Basil, killing him. Those who remain move on.

SCENE 6

The apotheosis scene follows; it is a dream within a dream. Transported to Africa, Makak is now a royal figure, perhaps in Africa, still followed by the corporal and Souris. 

Makak speaks himself about his “color of Black” in a soliloquy:”I was a king among shadows, Either the shadows were real; and I was no king, or it is my own kingliness that created these shadows. Either way, I am lonely, lost, and old man again. We are wrapped in black air, we are black, ourselves shadows in the firelight of he white man’s mind. Soon, soon it will be morning. Praise god and the dream will raise like vapor.”(304)

Corrporal rejects his colonial uniform and wears African robes. Makak set up a court to pass the judgement on the “enemies of Africa” who have dominated over Blacks. Basil reads a list of the accused-- figures from history and contemporary society such as Plato, Ptolemy, Florence Nightingale -- whom he mentions are all white and their common crime is “whiteness”. The enemies are condemned to death because they have contributed to the repression of the Blacks.  Basil again mentions  a catalogue of tributes offered to Makak from the white world. He  lists many letters from those wanting their favor, including the Ku Klux Klan, and an apology from South Africa. But Makak shakes head and and all the tribes reject those tributes. None present are appeased(satisfied).

Even the dead Moustique, now a prisoner, is brought in,He is being executed for betraying Makak’s dream. Moustique asks Makak for Mercy, pointing out that these men might betray him as well. He is taken away. Finally, The apparition of the white woman who made Makak aware of his African origin  is brought in. The corporal insists Makak must kill her. 

Corporal: “she is the wife of the devil,the white witch. She is the mirror of the moon that this ape look into ind himself unbearable. She is all that pure, all that he cannot reach. You see her statues in white stone, and you turn your face way, mixed with abhorrence and lust, with destruction and desire. She is lime, snow, marble, moonlight, lilies, cloud, foam and bleaching cream,the mother of civilization and co-founder of blackness. I too have longed for her. She is the color of the law,religion, paper, art and if you want peace, if you want to discover the beautiful depth of your blackness, nigger,chop off her head! When you do this, you will kill Venus, the Virgin, the sleeping beauty. She is the white light that paralyzed your mind, that led you into this confusion. It is you who created her, so kill her! Kill her! The law has spoken”(319)

Makak wants to do this alone, and after much prodding, the others finally leave. Declaring his freedom, he kills her.  By beheading the apparition, Makak kills the European side of his heritage. Before performing the act of beheading he removes his African robe. Thus the twin”Bewitching” of Europe and Africa are rejected at the same time. In fact neither the European nor the African side of Makak’s self is given the chance to dominate over him.

EPILOGUE

The play returns to reality and the jail. It is in the next morning. Makak  awakens from the dream and is still in the jail. He now discovers his essential self  and remembers his true identity, Felix Hobain, and does not remember exactly why he is there. Some of his dream returns to his consciousness.

Makak: ‘’Lord, I have been washed from shore to shore, as a tree in the ocean. The branches of my fingers, the roots of my feet, could grip nothing, but now, god, thy have found ground. Let me be swallowed up in mist again, and let me be forgotten, so that when the mist open, men can look up, at some small clearing with a hut, with a small signal of smoke, and say, ‘Makak lives there. Makak lives where he has always lived, in the dream of the his people’….. come Moustique, we going home.”(326)

The corporal sets the old man free. Just as he is about to leave, Moustique comes, hoping to free his friend. They go home on monkey mountain. Home for Makak is, therefore, monkey mountain of the Caribbean landscape. In the play walcott rejects the idea of racial or cultural superiority through Makak’s repudiation of African origin and European legacy.  The Caribbean culture is the creoliztion of different cultures.

Dream on the monkey mountain is a very complex play and some ambiguities within play lead the critics to interpret the play in diverse ways. In spite of its essential dream-sequences and ambiguities the offers us an unforgettable character named Makak who regains his Caribbean identity through taking revenge upon the enemies of black people and beheading the apparition of the white apparition. Makak rejects his obsessions with his African origin and his European legacy in beheading scene. In fact Makak asserts in reverse the hybrid origin or multicultural aspect of Caribbean identity, He does not admit superiority of any one particular influence, culture or race; rather embraces the hybrid or mixed culture of his society

 

Themes

Identity/Search for Self

At the heart of Dream on Monkey Mountain is a search for and acceptance of one's identity. When Makak is questioned at the beginning of the play, he cannot tell Corporal Lestrade his real name or much about himself. To the question "What is your race?" Makak replies, "I am tired." Makak tells the corporal, Tigre, and Souris that he has not even seen his reflection in thirty years. During his night in jail, Makak has a dream, inspired by an apparition who came to him the night before. The white woman who appeared to him told him that he was a king of Africa and must go there. In his dream, Makak goes on this journey of self-discovery. He heals a sick man thought to be on his deathbed, and his reputation grows. Though Makak is jailed in his dream, he stabs his jailer, Corporal and leaves with fellow inmates. The corporal, and one of the escapees, Souris, join Makak’s journey. When Makak wakes up in reality the next day, he knows his name and has a better scene of himself. He has more hope for his future.

Several of the minor characters has identity  issues as well. They include the corporal, a mulatto who, at the begining of the play, only identifies with the white, ruling side of the heritage he speaks in disparaging tones to the black inmates.  In Makak’s dream, the corporal starts out the same way, but has a revelation of his own. He embraces ‘’ tribal law’’ over  ‘’roman law’’ and falls in with Makak’s journey. At the end of the play, when reality returns, the corporal still disparaging towards the men of colour, but also lets Makak go free.

Death and Rebirth:

Throughout the dream on the monkey mountain, there is also a complicated undercurrent of death and, in some cases, rebirth. The significant of event of Makak’s  journey is healing of Josephus, a man suffering from fever and near death. Though Makak is initially believes that he has failed to heal the man, Joephus begins to sweat and lives. It is not the first time that Makak has saved some one. He befriended Moustique when when he was a drunk in the gutter and  made him his business partner. During the play, Moustique dies twice. The first time, he is caught impersonating the now-famous healer Makak in the market place and is killed by angry onlookers. He is alive again when Makak is a king in Africa. He appears as a prisoner and tries to tell Makak that the men around him will betray him. Makak allows him to be killed a second time. Yet at the end of the play, in reality, Moustique comes to get Makak out of jail. Though Makak is already free, Moustique escorts his newly reborn friend home. Earlier in the play, the corporal is assumed dead after Makak stabs him to get out of prison, but he lives and ends up joining Makak’s journey in the woods on monkey mountain. In each of these incidents, death had a physical symbol with the character of Basil. Each time death is imminent, Basil is present. The idea of death and rebirth are linked to Makak and the others’ search for identity. To understand who they re, they must directly face death in some form and emerge all the stronger. Those who do, survive.

Race and racism:

Another theme in dream on monkey mountain directly linked to the search for identity is race and racism. Makak’s identity crisis is related to his status as a man of African descent. Makak means monkey, and old man believes he is not worth looking at. The belief is reinforced by racist attitudes expressed by corporal Lestrade, a mulatto himself. Lestrade equates his black male inmates with animals in a zoo. Lestrade identifies only with white, authoritative side of his heritage. It is only in Makak’s dream that Lestrade embraces the African side of his background and joins Makak’s journey. At the end of the play, Makak has come to terms with his race because of his dream, but Lestrade has not.

Setting

Dream on Monkey Mountain is an allegory set on an unspecified island in the West Indies at an unspecified time, assumed to be contemporary with the time the play was written. The play's action takes place in several locations, both real and imagined. The most real place is the jail run by Corporal Lestrade, where the play begins and ends. In Makak's dream, the action goes from his hut on Monkey Mountain to a country road where Makak heals the sick man and then to the public marketplace before returning to the jail cell. After Makak, Tigre, and Souris escape, they spend time in the forest before going to a most unreal setting of apotheosis, where Makak is king. All of these settings underscore Makak's journey from a real existence that is harsh, through self-awareness, and back to a reality that he feels better about and in which he functions as a better person.

Symbolism:

Dream on the monkey mountain is replete with complex symbolism, from characters’ names to entire subplots. Emphasizing how much of the text is Makak’s dream, many words and actions have multiple symbolic meanings. For example, each of the four main characters of African descent - Makak, Moustique, Souris, and Tigre- are the names of animals. They are monkey, mosquito, rat, and tiger, respectively. These names reveal something of each character’s personality and perception of themselves, but also play off the corporal’s racist remarks about running a zoo. Lestrade’s name reflects his background, black and white. He literally straddles these cultures. Characters are also symbolic in and of themselves. The prime example is Basil, whose appearance symbolizes a forthcoming death of another character. Nearly every thing  that happens in Makak’s dream has symbolic meaning. When Makak heals Josephus, he man with a fever, it symbolizes the beginning of his awareness of his worth as a human being. When he is a king in  Africa, Makak has to kill the white woman who appeared to him as an apparition. She began his journey, and what she symbolizes must be killed to end it.

Walcott employs language of poetry, songs, musical instruments, enactment of tribal rituals, masks, smoke and loud cries to make it distinctly Caribbean play.

Language and Dialouge:

 Walcott uses language and dialogue to underscore diversity in dream on monkey mountain. The west Indian island on which the play is set has several kinds of cultures with different languages. The character of African descent speak English for the most part, but it is often dialect with some local ‘’patois’’ words and phrases, spoken by Makak especially, as well as Souris, Moustiue and Tigre. Even their names fall under this category. When the corporal is I his authoritative mode, he speaks in a clipped, proper English. Throwing in the occasional Latin phrase. During this epiphany in the forest,  corporal’s language changes for the moment and becomes more like the other characters. Though the corporal returns to the authoritative tone, the language he then uses is in praise of Makak an that part of the corporal’s heritage,, instead of against  it. Much of the corporal’s dialogue is a satiric take on the language of British colonialism. Language defines who characters are and serves as a marker for how they change. Characters speak to one another which blemishes out that they are not familiar with correct or proper speech patterns.

A DREAM- THE WHOLE  SETTING

This play is a dream, one that exists not even so much in the given minds of its principal characters as in that of its writer, and as such, it is illogical, derivative, and contradictory.

DREAM WITHIN THE DREAM

— THE SOURCE OF DISILLUSIONMENT

— THE SOURCE OF NEW WISDOM AND ACCOMMODATION WITH   PRESENT

— RECOGNIZE NOT ROMANTICIZE

BASIC MOTIFS

DIASPORA OF CARIBBEAN NEGROS

 DENIAL OF SELF, SPACE AND POWER

 

Dramatic Devices

Dream on Monkey Mountain has about it a theatricality that not only forcefully depicts the outward experience of Makak but leads the audience into his interior life as well. This double entry depends in large part on the melding of reality and dream, which is attained through the rich language, the intentionally chaotic plot, the spare but original production techniques, the provision for spectacle, and the abundant symbols, both visual and linguistic.

The dialogue makes effective use of the West Indian dialect and idiom. It also satirizes the bureaucratic language of colonialism. At some points it borrows familiar lines and blends them into the characters’ speech, as when Moustique begs and recites the Lord’s prayer intermittently:And give us this day our daily bread . . . and is that self I want to talk to you about, friend. Whether you could spare a little bread . . . and lead us not into temptation . . . because we are not thieves, stranger . . . but deliver us from evil . . . and we two trespassers but forgive us brother . . . for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory . . . for our stomach sake, stranger.

Like the language, the plot unfolds the play’s action through mixing Western culture and the daily activities of West Indian life. For example, when Makak, riding a donkey and carrying a bamboo spear, and Moustique descend the mountain as they start their quest, the image of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza comes to mind.

Because the production techniques have been freed from the constrictions of realism, the stage becomes as fluid as the landscape of a dream. Action moves from the jail to mountain to marketplace to forest, accompanied by the dimming and raising of lights and the lifting and lowering of suggestive scenic pieces. Although the play might be performed with economy by doubling actors’ roles and all but eliminating scenery, it could also take a spectacular turn, especially by accentuating its use of dance, costume, and music. Allegorical in its thematic structure, the play incorporates a wealth of symbols. Some are visual, as in the case of the black and white mask; others emerge from the action, as in the scene where the corporal mocks the British colonial attitude; and some arise from the diversity of the language, which employs the new English of the West Indians.

Historical context

In 1967 as today, Trinidad was a culturally diverse island in the West Indies, with a heritage that includes slavery, colonizers, and island natives. There were many racial and ethnic groups: African, East Indian, and white, with Spanish, British, and French influences. Though English was the official language, many were spoken on the island including Creole, Hindi, Urdu, and Spanish. Each culture had its own religion as well. Catholicism, Protestantism, Hindu, and Muslim faiths were practiced on Trinidad. The groups often thought of them selves as distinct, which created problems, social and otherwise, especially during the formation of political parties and unions.

Trinidad (unified with Tobago since colonial days in the nineteenth century) had attained independent commonwealth status in 1962. The country was administered by Great Britain as part of its Commonwealth of Nations, which meant Tobago was ruled by a governor-general appointed by that country's leaders. A locally elected bicameral legislature was controlled by the People’s National Movement (PNM), which had been in power since 1956. PNM held a monopoly on power as the first to form a party-based cabinet government.

In 1967, Trinidad’s economy was not particularly strong on any front. Two years previously, legislation had been passed that limited the right to strike, making it harder to form nationwide unions. The government tried to stabilize the situation, but high unemployment reigned. This situation created social unrest that would come to a head in 1970 when curfews were imposed. Many black Trinidadians believed there was racial discrimination in employment.Influenced by and linked to the militant Black Power movement in the united states, demonstrations on the grass-roots level, especially among the young, were presented in an effort to affect change. The demonstrators were critical of the government and accused it of corruption. One particularly radical group was the National Joint Action Congress, related to the University of the West Indies. The congress believed that white and colored businessmen, both local and foreign, owned most of the nation’s businesses. It wanted to form a government that would control the whole economy, all the land, and the sugar industry. This government would not be a democracy, but would take power by force.

Another part of the economy that was problematic, though on the rise, was farming. Agriculture was supported by the government’s five-year developing plan, in place from 1962-1967. Trinidad supported farming initiatives so the country would not have to import as much food. A significant amount of funding went to the state lands program, which rented government lands at low price to small farmers. This action did improve the situation in the short term, but did nothing to address difference between rural and urban areas they were often single-lane dirt trails, which limited access to these areas. Trinidad’s future would be bright in the short term for another reason. Oil deposits had been discovered in the early twentieth century, and onshore oil drilling had been practiced ever since. By the mid 1960’s, oil drilling occurred both on and off shore. Because of the worldwide oil crisis in the 197’s, Trinidad’s oil businesses- which included refining and distributing-would boom. Though life in Trinidad improved greatly as social programs were created with the government’s new funds, the boom drained people away from agriculture. The boom was also short-lived. By the 1980’s, Trinidad’s economy was slumping again.

Literary Heritage & History

Like many countries in the West Indies, Trinidad has a long tradition of folklore with identifiable stock characters. Some of these legends have their roots in animist traditions from West Africa and were brought over by those enslaved. Patois folklore was derived primarily from the slaves of French speakers and has a variety of characters. They include the Soucouyant (evil old hag), Papa Bois (the father of the woods), and Mamadlo, the mother of the water whose form is a snake with human features. Jumbies are anything that could be construed as a bogey-man. Some stories focus on La Diablesse, a female devil in disguise who attracts men and lures them into the forest where they come to harm. Anase tales feature a universal trickster who lives by his wits, though is also greedy and selfish. He is not usually admired because of these characteristics, though stories involving him often try to explain why things are the way they are.

Critical review

Since its earliest performances, critics have been divided over Dream on Monkey Mountain. While most found much to praise, especially its poetic nature, some believed it to be bogged down by that very poetry. The complex play also compelled critics to offer their own widely divergent interpretations. Critics of the original New York production in 1971 exemplify this diversity.

Edith Oliver of The New Yorker saw the play as pure, successful poetry. She wrote, "Dream on Monkey Mountain is a poem in dramatic form or a drama in poetry, and poetry is rare in the modern theater. Every line of it plays; there are no verbal decorations. A word, too, must be said for the absolute trust that Mr. Walcott engenders in his audience, convincing us there is a sound psychological basis for every action and emotion."

The New York Times' Clive Barnes shared Oliver's high opinion. Barnes claimed that this “beautiful bewildering play by a poet” is a “richly flavored phantasmagoria.” Even when interpreting  Walcott’s intentions, Barnes came to the poetic aspects of dream on monkey mountain. He wrote, “I think that Mr. Walcott is counseling is a twentieth century black identity rather than an attempt to impose a reversal to a preslave black identity. But much of the play’s interest  is in its spectacle and poetry.”

Another New York  Times critic, Clayton Riley, generally concurred with Barnes, though he believed the play to be too wordy. Riley argued, “ the play is rich and complex; the author’s use of fable interwoven with a stark elaboration of historical evidence of oppression illuminates his work, lends it and arresting weight and texture. Walcott’s characters are drawn with bold, sometimes extravagant strokes and, prodded by the author, they have an inclination to talk a bit too much.” Riley’s interpretation also differed from Barnes.’ Riley believed that “ the thesis, as proposed in Dream on Monkey Mountain is hat the West cannot- nor should it- exist forever, given its deplorable record of racist exploitation and butchery throughout the world.”

Barnes and Riley’s colleague at the New York Times, Walter Kerr, Thought the poetic tendencies of the play were problematic. He wrote, “ It would be easy to misread [the play], in spite of Micheal A. Schultz’ admirably composed production.. because the author has a strong bent towards poetic digression. He is long over some scenes that the thread of essential meaning is lost altogether; forward movement is clogged by a waterfall of words.”

After the initial productions, dream on monkey mountain continued to be presented throughout the world, including regional productions in the United States. Critics’ issues with the play remained the same. In 1979, Joseph McLellan of the Washington Post Reviewed a local production. He found it “a kind of play often written by poets…. it is too long, loosely organized and specialized in interest for commercial success in the country, but striking in its use of language, fresh and original in its ideas and symbolism.” McLellan’s interpretation focused on the dream aspect of the title. He rote, “ in a colonial society, one way to compensate for lack of power is to dream. But dreams are also a source of power and a shaping force in its use, if enough people share the dream. This is the central statement of dream on monkey mountain.’’

Fifteen years later, Dream on monkey mountain continued to be produced regionally in the united states. Of a Boston production at playwright’s theatre, Kevin Kelly of  The Boston Globe wrote, ”Deliberately paradoxical, complex to the point of confusion, dream on monkey mountain is so intellectually commanding- and emotionally loaded- that you’re constantly being challenged.’’ In the same review, Kelly compared the play to the Bible and walcott to shakespeare. Like Most critics, he saw Walcott’s poetic touch. He wrote, Derek Walcott’s dream on monkey mountain is  great piece of work, a mesmerizing, multilayered riff that plays like a black version of the Bible with hardly any specific reference to Christian Literature,but, rather, in its myth-making reach, allusive reference to all literature. It’s dense, demanding play, clearly the work of a poet posing inside the proscenium( the same posture applies to Shakespeare)

 

Compare & Contrast Dream on Monkey Mountain by Derek Walcott

1967: Trinidad and Tobago has been an independent country since 1962, though it is administered by Great Britain.

Today: Trinidad and Tobago has been an independent republic within the British Commonwealth for over twenty years.

 

1967: Trinidad's economy is unstable, with high unemployment, especially among the young. It soon leads to unrest, strikes, and protests on the island.

Today: Though Trinidad's economy is again unstable, unemployment and inflation are slightly lower and prone to fluctuation. There is more hope, however, because the oil boom of the 1970s proved that a solid economy was possible.

 

1967: The PNM (People's National Movement) is firmly in power in Trinidad, and though accused of corruption, there are few challengers.

Today: Corruption scandals and challenges by the NAR (National Alliance for Reconstruction), NDP (National Development Party), and Movement for Unity and Progress have limited the power of the PNM in national politics.

 

1967: the black power movement is prominent in the united states and gaining support in Trinidad.

Today: Though such  a radical, widespread movement does not exist in the same form, many still fight against racism in both countries
Quiz

1. Who pretends to be Makak?    (from Act 1 Scene 3)        Moustique.

2. To whom does Moustique apologize?  (from Epilogue)                 The Corporal.

3. Who shouts for Makak to stop the fighting?(from Act 2 Scene 2 Part 2)   Souris.

4. When the Corporal asks Souris and Tigre how Makak has behaved, what is their response?(Epilogue)He is delirious.

5. What does the person pretending to be Makak do with the water?(Act 1 Scene 3) Sprinkles the crowd.

6. Who comments that the sun is rising?  (from Epilogue)                 Souris.

7. Who calls for Moustique to be taken away?(from Act 2 Scene 3)               The Chorus.

8. Moustique says he might be worried if Basil was a what?(from Act 1 Scene 2)      Spider.

9. Who cries out that he has "killed and tasted blood"?(from Act 2 Scene 1)              Makak.

10. Why does Makak say he is lost in Act 2?(from Act 2 Scene 2 Part 2)        It is unclear.

11. What does the family in the market discuss?   (from Act 1 Scene 3)        Makak's miracles.

12. What does Souris make and put on Makak's head?(from Act 2 Scene 2 Part 1) A crown of thorns.

13. Where does Moustique say Makak belongs?   (from Epilogue)                 At home.

14. Who stabs the Corporal?(from Act 2 Scene 1) Makak.

15. By torturing Makak, who do Tigre and Souris suggest the Corporal is actually torturing?(Act 2 Scene 1)       His grandfather.

16. From whom does the Corporal beg forgiveness in Act 2?(from Act 2 Scene 2 Part 1)        Makak.

17. Makak says that he and Tigre are what "in the mind of white men"?(Act 2 Scene2 Part 2)Black shadows.

18. Who is brought out after Moustique is taken away?     (from Act 2 Scene 3)        The Woman in White.

19. Who does Makak try to bribe by saying he has money?(from Act 2 Scene 1)        The Corporal.

20. Who bullies Makak into begging for food?(from Act 2 Scene 1)               The Corporal.

21. Who claims that Makak, unlike white men, is not helpless in the face of illness?(Act 1 Scene 2)Moustique.

22. Who makes a crude comment about Makak dreaming of white women?(from Epilogue)               Tigre.

23. What does Moustique say he will give the Peasants in exchange of bread?(Act 1 Scene 2)The power of healing.

24. Who takes Basil's hat?(from Act 1 Scene 2)      Moustique.

25. Who acts as the prosecutor in the mock trial?(from Act 1 Scene 3)         The Corporal.

 

 

 

Dream On Monkey Mountain    -by DEREK WALCOTT

I

But I see what it is, you are not from these parts, you don't know what our twilights can do. Shall I tell you? Waiting for Godot

When dusk heightens, like amber on a stage set, those ramshackle hoardings of wood and rusting iron which circle our cities, a theatrical sorrow rises with it, for the glare, like the aura from an old-fashioned brass lamp is like a childhood signal to come home. Light in our cities keeps its pastoral rhythm, and the last home-going traffic seems to rush through darkness that comes from suburban swamp or forest in a noiseless rain. In true cities another life begins: neons stutter to their hysterical pitch, bars, restaurants and cinemas blaze with artifice, and Mammon takes over the switchboard, manipulator of cities; but here the light makes our strongest buildings tremble, its colour hints of rust, more stain than air. To set out for rehearsals in that quivering quarter-hour is to engage conclusions, not beginnings, for one walks past the gilded hallucinations of poverty with a corrupt resignation touched by details, as if the destitute, in their orange-tinted backyards, under their dusty trees, or climbing to their favelas, were all natural scene-designers and poverty were not a condition but an art. Deprivation is made lyrical, and twilight, with the patience of alchemy, almost transmutes despair into virtue. In the tropics nothing is lovelier than the allotments of the poor, no theatre is as vivid, voluble and cheap.

Years ago, watching them, and suffering as you watched, you proffered silently the charity of a language which they could not speak, until your suffering, like the language, felt superior, estranged. The dusk was a raucous chaos of curses, gossip and laughter; everything performed in public, but the voice of the inner language was reflective and mannered, as far above its subjects as that sun which would never set until its twilight became a metaphor for the withdrawal of Empire and the beginning of our doubt.

Colonials, we began with this malarial enervation: that nothing could ever be built among these rotting shacks, barefooted backyards and moulting shingles; that being poor, we already had the theatre of our lives. So the self-inflicted role of martyr came naturally, the melodramatic belief that one was message-bearer for the millennium, that the inflamed ego was enacting their will. In that simple schizophrenic boyhood one could lead two lives: the interior life of poetry, the outward life of action and dialect. Yet the writers of my generation were natural assimilators. We knew the literature of Empires, Greek, Roman, British, through their essential classics; and both the patois of the street and the language of the classroom hid the elation of discovery. If there was nothing, there was everything to be made. With this prodigious ambition one began.

If, twenty years later, that vision has not been built, so that at every dusk one ignites a city in the mind above the same sad fences where the poor revolve, the theatre still an architectural fantasy, if there is still nothing around us, darkness still preserves the awe of self-enactment as the sect gathers for its self-extinguishing, self-discovering rites. In that aboriginal darkness the first principles are still sacred, the grammar and movement of the body, the shock of the domesticated voice startling itself in a scream. Centuries of servitude have to be shucked; but there is no history, only the history of emotion. Pubescent ignorance comes into the light, a shy girl, eager to charm, and one's instinct is savage: to violate that ingenuousness, to degrade, to strip her of those values learnt from films and books because she too moves in her own hallucination: that of a fine and separate star, while her counterpart, the actor, sits watching, but he sits next to another hallucination, a doppelganger released from his environment and his race. Their simplicity is really ambition. Their gaze is filmed with hope of departure. The noblest are those who are trapped, who have accepted the twilight.

If I see these as heroes it is because they have kept the sacred urge of actors everywhere: to record the anguish of the race. To do this, they must return through a darkness whose terminus is amnesia. The darkness which yawns before them is terrifying. It is the journey back from man to ape. Every actor should make this journey to articulate his origins, but for these who have been called not men but mimics, the darkness must be total, and the cave should not contain a single man-made, mnemonic object. Its noises should be elemental, the roar of rain, ocean, wind, and fire. Their first sound should be like the last, the cry. The voice must grovel in search of itself, until gesture and sound fuse and the blaze of their flesh astonishes them. The children of slaves must sear their memory with a torch. The actor must break up his body and feed it as ruminatively as ancestral story-tellers fed twigs to the fire. Those who look from their darkness into the tribal fire must be bold enough to cross it.

The cult of nakedness in underground theatre, of tribal rock, of poverty, of rite, is not only nostalgia for innocence, but the enactment of remorse for the genocides of civilization, a search for the wellspring of tragic joy in ritual, a confession of aboriginal calamity, for their wars, their concentration camps, their millions of displaced souls have degraded and shucked the body as food for the machines. These self-soiling, penitential cults, the Theatre of the Absurd, the Theatre of Cruelty, the Poor Theatre, the Holy Theatre, the pseudo-barbarous revivals of primitive tragedy are not threats to civilization but acts of absolution, gropings for the outline of pure tragedy, rituals of washing in the first darkness. Their howls and flagellations are cries to that lost God which they have pronounced dead, for the God who is offered to slaves must be served dead, or He may change His chosen people.

The colonial begins with this knowledge, but it has taken one twenty years to accept it. When one began twenty years ago it was in the faith that one was creating not merely a play, but a theatre, and not merely a theatre, but its environment. Then the twilight most resembled dawn, then how simple it all seemed! We would walk, like new Adams, in a nourishing ignorance which would name plants and people with a child's belief that the world is its own age. We had no more than children need, and perhaps one has remained childish, because fragments of that promise still surprise us. Then, even the old rules were exciting! Imitation was pure belief. We, the actors and poets, would strut like new Adams in a nakedness where sets, costumes, dimmers, all the "dirty devices" of the theatre were unnecessary or inaccessible. Poverty seemed a gift to the imagination, necessity was truly a virtue, so we set our plays in the open, in natural, unphased light, and our subject was bare, "unaccommodated man." Today one writes this with more exhaustion than pride, for that innocence has been corrupted and society has taken the old direction. In these new nations art is a luxury, and the theatre the most superfluous of amenities.

Every state sees its image in those forms which have the mass appeal of sport, seasonal and amateurish. Stamped on that image is the old colonial grimace of the laughing nigger, steelbandsman, carnival masker, calypsonian and limbo dancer. These popular artists are trapped in the State's concept of the folk form, for they preserve the colonial demeanour and threaten nothing. The folk arts have become the symbol of a carefree, accommodating culture, an adjunct to tourism, since the State is impatient with anything which it cannot trade.

This is not what a generation envisaged twenty years ago, when a handful of childish visionaries foresaw a Republic devoted to the industry of art, for in those days we had nothing else. The theatre was about us, in the streets, at lampfall in the kitchen doorway, but nothing was solemnised into cultural significance. We recognised illiteracy for what it was, a defect, not the attribute it is now considered to be by revolutionaries. Language was earned, there was no self-contempt, no vision of revenge. Thus, for the young poet and actor, there was no other motivation but knowledge. The folk knew their deprivations and there were no frauds to sanctify them. If the old gods were dying in the mouths of the old, they died of their own volition. Today they are artificially resurrected by the anthropologist's tape-recorder and in the folk archives of departments of culture.

To believe in its folk forms the State would have to hallow not only its mythology but rebelieve in dead gods, not as converts either, but as makers. But no one in the New World whose one God is advertised as dead can believe in innumerable gods of another life. Those gods would have to be an anthropomorphic variety of his will. Our poets and actors would have not only to describe possession but to enact it, otherwise we would have not art but blasphemy and blasphemy which has no fear is decoration. So now we are entering the "African" phase with our pathetic African carvings, poems and costumes, and our art objects are not sacred vessels placed on altars but goods placed on shelves for the tourist. The romantic darkness which they celebrate is thus another treachery, this time perpetrated by the intellectual. The result is not one's own thing but another minstrel show. When we produced Soyinka's masterpiece The Road, one truth, like the murderous headlamps of his mammy-wagons, transfixed us, and this was that our frenzy goes by another name, that it is this naming, ironically enough, which weakens our effort at being African. We tried, in the words of his Professor, to "hold the god captive," but for us, Afro-Christians, the naming of the god estranged him. Ogun was an exotic for us, not a force. We could pretend to enter his power but he would never possess us, for our invocations were not prayer but devices. The actor's approach could not be catatonic but rational; expository, not receptive. However, Ogun is not a contemplative but a vengeful force, a power to be purely obeyed. Like the Professor, only worse, we had lost both gods, and only blasphemy was left.

Since art is informed by something beyond its power, all we could successfully enact was a dance of doubt. The African revival is escape to another dignity, but one understands the glamour of its simplifications. Listen, one kind of writer, generally the entertainer, says: "I will write in the language of the people however gross or incomprehensible"; another says: "Nobody else go' understand this, you hear, so le' me write English"; while the third is dedicated to purifying the language of the tribe, and it is he who is jumped on by both sides for pretentiousness or playing white. He is the mulatto of style. The traitor. The assimilator. Yes. But one did not say to his Muse, "What kind of language is this that you've given me?" as no liberator asks history, "What kind of people is that that I'm meant to ennoble?", but one went about his father's business. Both fathers'. If the language was contemptible, so was the people. After one had survived the adolescence of prejudice there was nothing to justify. Once the New World black had tried to prove that he was as good as his master, when he should have proven not his equality but his difference. It was this distance that could command attention without pleading for respect. My generation had looked at life with black skins and blue eyes, but only our own painful, strenuous looking, the learning of looking, could find meaning in the life around us, only our own strenuous hearing, the hearing of our hearing, could make sense of the sounds we made. And without comparisons. Without any startling access of "self-respect." Yet, most of our literature loitered in the pathos of sociology, self-pitying and patronised. Our writers whined in the voices of twilight, "Look at this people! They may be degraded, but they are as good as you are. Look at what you have done to them." And their poems remained laments, their novels propaganda tracts, as if one general apology on behalf of the past would supplant imagination, would spare them the necessity of great art. Pastoralists of the African revival should know that what is needed is not new names for old things, or old names for old things, but the faith of using the old names anew, so that mongrel as I am, something prickles in me when I see the word Ashanti as with the word Warwickshire, both separately intimating my grandfathers' roots, both baptising this neither proud nor ashamed bastard, this hybrid, this West Indian. The power of the dew still shakes off of our dialects, which is what Césaire sings:

Storm, I would say. River, I would command. Hurricane, I would say. I would utter "leaf." Tree. I would be drenched in all the rains, soaked in all the dews.

II

Et c'est l'heure, O Poète, de décliner ton nom, ta naissance, et ta race ... St-John Perse: Exil

Yes. But we were all strangers here. The claim which we put forward now as Africans is not our inheritance, but a bequest, like that of other races, a bill for the condition of our arrival as slaves. Our own ancestors shared that complicity, and there is no one left on whom we can exact revenge. That is the laceration of our shame. Nor is the land automatically ours because we were made to work it. We have no more proprietorship as a race than have the indentured workers from Asia except the claim is wholly made. By all the races as one race, because the soil was stranger under our own feet than under those of our captors. Before us they knew the names of the forests and the changes of the sea, and theirs were the names we used. We began again, with the vigour of a curiosity that gave the old names life, that charged an old language, from the depth of suffering, with awe. To the writers of my generation, then, the word, and the ritual of the word in print, contained this awe, but the rage for revenge is hard to exorcise.

At nineteen, an elate, exuberant poet madly in love with English, but in the dialect-loud dusk of water-buckets and fish-sellers, conscious of the naked, voluble poverty around me, I felt a fear of that darkness which had swallowed up all fathers. Full of precocious rage, I was drawn, like a child's mind to fire, to the Manichean conflicts of Haiti's history. The parallels were there in my own island, but not the heroes: a black French island somnolent in its Catholicism and black magic, blind faith and blinder over-breeding, a society which triangulated itself mediaevally into land-baron, serf and cleric, with a vapid, high-brown bourgeoisie. The fire's shadows, magnified into myth, were those of the black Jacobins of Haiti.

They were Jacobean too because they flared from a mind drenched in Elizabethan literature out of the same darkness as Webster's Flamineo, from a flickering world of mutilation and heresy. They were moved by the muse of witchcraft, their self-disgust foreshadowed ours, that wrestling contradiction of being white in mind and black in body, as if the flesh were coal from which the spirit like tormented smoke writhed to escape. I repeat the raging metaphysics of a bewildered boy in this rhetoric. I can relive, without his understanding, a passion which I have betrayed. But they seemed to him, then, those slavekings, Dessalines and Christophe, men who had structured their own despair. Their tragic bulk was massive as a citadel at twilight. They were our only noble ruins. He believed then that the moral of tragedy could only be Christian, that their fate was the debt exacted by the sin of pride, that they were punished by a white God as masters punished servants for presumption. He saw history as hierarchy and to him these heroes, despite their meteoric passages, were damned to the old darkness because they had challenged an ordered universe. He was in awe of their blasphemy, he rounded off their fate with the proper penitence, while during this discipleship which he served as devotedly as any embittered acolyte, the young Frantz Fanon and the already ripe and bitter Césaire were manufacturing the home-made bombs of their prose poems, their drafts for revolution, in the French-creole island of Martinique. They were blacker. They were poorer. Their anguish was tragic and I began to feel deprived of blackness and poverty. I had my own divisions too, but it was only later, when their prophecies became politics, that I was confronted with choice. My bitterness matched theirs but it concealed envy; my compassion was not less, but both were full of self-contempt and contained a yearning. Those first heroes of the Haitian Revolution, to me, their tragedy lay in their blackness. Yet one had more passion then, passion for reconciliation as well as change. It is no use repeating that this was not the way the world went, that the acolyte would have to defrock himself of that servitude. Now, one may see such heroes as squalid fascists who chained their own people, but they had size, mania, the fire of great heretics.

Evergreen Review, 1990:

Although Derek Walcott fills Dream on Monkey Mountain with more than enough ghosts and symbols, an uninvited one hangs over it’s every word. A protest play layered beneath references to myth and culture, It’s usage of interracial sexual violence as a vehicle for heroic triumph chains it to the psychodrama’s that poisoned African American theater in the late 60’s/early 70’s. Though more “literary” than Amiri Baraka’s and Ed Bullins’ blood-revenge epics, his usage of aesthetics(to swaddle his mythic killer in the clothing of black victim hood) makes the word seem perverse. Both slack and deeply pretentious, Mountain is an immense failure, reverberating all the more given his status as a brilliant poet.

The scouting report on Walcott’s plays is that, while well written, they suffer because of his refusal to create a character other than himself. Structurally, Mountain does nothing to dispel that notion. Walcott’s strength as a poet is, to paraphrase Conrad, “making you see” his version of the Caribbean, his grasp of his environment, his understanding of its history in relation to the world; and his vast, deeply learned command of the English language in doing so. In the theater, that style has done him few favors, as even his best plays (Henry Christophe ) have been plagued by his inability to let go of his persona.

In Mountain, the political aspects of his persona are a great deal of what he’s selling. Starting with the 36-page preface, assured, yet full of bombast, a sideswipe to Tennessee Williams, Walcott attempts to distinguish his story by making his hero/killer a cerebral, sophisticated figure. Unlike the horror core intellectuals of Baraka’s the slave, or the gruesome predators that populate Bullins’ screeds; Makak, the central character, is a trickster, a learned assured man smarted than both the black and the white people on the West Indian Island. Through the fill in the blank narrative populated so many black nationalist plays(Black man in jail? Check! Black man has no faults or weakness? Check. Symbolic Uncle Tom figure? Check! Black man triumphs over oppression? Check. White woman gets fucked up in the process? Check.) Walcott references Don Quixote, The underground man, and several Greek and African gods. Also, in another veiled cheap shot to Williams, Mountain is a dream play; but here the dreams (of Makak’s liberation from oppression) are bloody, cocksure, and triumphant, having nothing to do with the interior agonies of character or the subconscious.

What Mountain is most known for is it’s most symbolic act of all (if one wants to call it that): when Makak achieves his full freedom from racial oppression by…chopping off the head of his jailers white wife. Defenders such as Walcott’s biographer Bruce King will say Makak isn’t murdering a living woman but a mythic image; as at the end of the play, Makak transforms into a magical African trickster god and the jailers wife, who he titles “an apparition”, a moon goddess of white beauty (described here by the Jailer himself).

CORPORAL:

She is the wife of the Devil, that white witch. She is the mirror of the moon that this ape look into and find himself unbearable. She is all that is pure, all that he cannot reach…She is lime, snow, marble, moonlight, lilies, cloud, fame and bleaching cream, the mother of civilization and the co-founder of blackness…It is you that created her, so kill her! Kill her! The law has spoken!

The problem with that theory, ( outside of the obvious obscenity of the act) is that Walcott’s deigning of transformation is central to the murder, on the account that it is divorcing her from being a human being. Worse than that, in his reduction, she just doesn’t become one woman, but a “spirit” with the potential to be every woman that ever existed. The horror shown here, no matter the mytho-poetic form that encapsulates it, is one of the darkest moments in African American arts in letters.

Contrary to Walcott’s opinion, Mountain is part of African American arts and letters, if only to serve as an example of his warped view of it. For though Walcott has decried any commonality of experience with African American writers; in his plays he carries their banner in the most rote, cliched terms. Never does he hold his makeshift flag more than he does in Mountain, where his characters sing like black nationalists, throw pity parties like black nationalists, plot revenge like black nationalists, and in the end win like black nationalists, like Makak’s ( Jesus Christ, the symbolism of the name) final monologue to his two felon friends.

MAKAK:

"God bless you both. Lord, I have washed from shore to shore, as a tree in the ocean. The branches of my fingers the roots of my feet, could grip nothing, but now, god they have found ground….other men will come, other prophets will come, and they will be stoned, and mocked, and betrayed, but now this old hermit is going back home, back to the beginning, the green beginning of this world"

An interesting question, full of thorny subtext’s for the playwright and academia, needs to be asked: Just what did Makak/ Walcott win? Riding a wave of white guilt, Mountain had a 48 show run on Broadway, but outside of what people call “the literary canon”, has it lasted? Walcott has raged about the standards of African American literature and political correctness, but how can you see this and so many of his other plays( The Last Carnival, Viva Detroit, soft core versions of Mountain. The Capeman, a vile defense of a cold blooded killer) as examples of the term at it’s most generic? Most pointedly, if African American culture is the haven for anti-intellectualism Walcott says it is, then why didn’t the said culture come to see this bloody, brutal play by the thousands?

 

The questions regarding the culture that Dream On Monkey Mountain inadvertently ask take precedence to it’s sheer cruelty, it’s distance from humanity, creation, reason, or any of the characteristics one considers when they think of art. For although he attempts to distinguish himself from protest drama, his plays shows a tangled, brutal brotherhood with the genre and it’s history. Though in different ways-Baraka and Bullins, by cursing the African American history of the past, Walcott, by cursing the history altogether-they have divorced themselves from the standards and rituals black people have used to survive in America; resulting in works of art that have existed from a violent, ahistorical swamp. This, not racism, reverse racism, or low standards, is the reason Black Nationalist theater has failed as an idea, the reason Walcott is a failure as a playwright, and the reason that Mountain is one of the greatest obscenities the “canon” has flung upon the general public.

On a Caribbean island, the morning after a full moon, Felix Hobain tears through the market in a drunken rage. Taken away to sober up in jail, all that night he is gripped by hallucinations: the impoverished hermit believes he has become a healer, walking from village to village, tending to the sick, waiting for a sign from God. In this dream, his one companion, Moustique, wants to exploit his power. Moustique decides to impersonate a prophet himself, ignoring a coffin-maker who warns him he will die and enraging the people of the island. Hobain, half-awake in his desolate jail cell, terrorized by the specter of his friend's corruption, clings to his visionary quest. He will try to transform himself; to heal Moustique, his jailer, and his jail-mates; and to be a leader for his people. Dream on Monkey Mountain was awarded the 1971 Obie Award for a Distinguished Foreign Play when it was first presented in New York, and Edith Oliver, writing in The New Yorker, called it "a masterpiece."

Three of Derek's Walcott's most popular short plays are also included in this volume: Ti-Jean and His Brothers; Malcochon, or The Six in the Rain; and The Sea at Dauphin. In an expansive introductory essay, "What the Twilight Says," the playwright explains his founding of the seminal dramatic company where these works were first performed, the Trinidad Theatre Workshop.

First published in 1970, Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays is an essential part of Walcott's vast and important body of work.

THEATER REVIEW; An Old Man Fights for His Kingly Tribal Dream    -By BRUCE WEBER

''Written in 1967 as a commission by the Royal Shakespeare Company but first performed that year in Trinidad and then in Los Angeles in 1970, it is at times poetic, at others glib, at times thunderously portentous, at others blithely offhand. The story focuses on an old man known as Makak, who is in jail in a British West Indian colony and who undertakes a trip -- either in his mind or on the magic carpet of literature -- back to Africa, where he may once have been a tribal king.

The play, which is being presented at the Harlem School of the Arts through Oct. 26, is episodic in nature. Like ''Don Quixote,'' it brings its unbalanced hero through both dangerous and comic encounters with those who believe in his quest, those who must be convinced (when Makak holds burning coals in his hands and cures a mortally ill young husband, that does the trick for a whole village) and those who threaten it. And Mr. Walcott has employed both mythic and hallucinatory elements in positing Makak as visionary and lunatic, messiah and pathetic old man. Over all, it is difficult to parse, for audiences as well as directors and performers, a likely reason it is rarely produced even while being considered by some to be Mr. Walcott's masterpiece.

All of which makes ''Dream on Monkey Mountain'' natural fare for that giant-killer of a company, the Classical Theater of Harlem. Led by an artistic director, Alfred Preisser, who directed ''Monkey Mountain'' and who seems to operate on the principle of ''Why shouldn't we?,'' this is a troupe that makes a habit of locating the most challenging works in the canon and knocking them off as if with a slingshot. (Next up: ''Mother Courage.'')

If the company has a signature in performance, it is an electricity that pulses through each and every production, the kind of palpable sizzle that comes from glee and gall. With occasional exceptions in starring roles -- in this case André De Shields as Makak and Kim Sullivan as his Sancho-like sidekick, Moustique -- the actors the company employs are generally at the beginning of their careers, but the lack of experience is never stifling. And in ''Dream on Monkey Mountain,'' each and every member of the ensemble, which is full of athletic, stirringly attractive men and women, is equipped with nerve and energy.

Further, Mr. Preisser and his choreographer, Bruce Heath, have employed the propulsive rhythms of Africa and the Caribbean, accompanied by two live percussionists, not just in the ensemble dances but in moving the actors around the stage. A handsome set evokes an outlying bamboo forest and an eerie, dominating moon. And striking costumes -- from Makak's tatters to the colorful shawls and skirts of village women to the thorough swathing in white of the mysterious woman who inspires Makak to make his pilgrimage -- add to the production's equatorial sensuousness, which reaches its apex in the second act when actors lying on their backs with their bare legs waving sinuously and slowly in the air are used to depict the ponderous lazy sway of jungle flora.

Mr. De Shields, best known to audiences from Broadway musicals (most recently ''The Full Monty''), gives a performance fraught with tenseness and distress; his Makak is on high sensory alert, as though each cell of his skin were on fire and his eyes and ears were receiving signals they'd never received before. It's exhausting to watch him, but it's also tough to turn away; you find yourself looking for him even as he wanders off when others take center stage. And Mr. Sullivan is a fine complement to him, edgy and raffish, an entertaining mortal escort for his divinely inspired friend. But the ensemble is the real attraction here, and their collective performance is sexy, jazzy and bristling.

The effect is that the play seems to exploit the company's innate qualities, not so much the other way around. So although ''Dream on Monkey Mountain'' is hardly written to be an easy evening in the theater, with the Classical Theater of Harlem draped all over it, it's as entertaining as it is ambitiously literary.

You claim that with the camera of your eye, you have taken a photograph of God-and that all you could see was blackness. ---Dream On Monkey Mountain

Classical Theatre of Harlem's production of Dream On Monkey Mountain begins with sustained, thundering reverb, a startling and unsettling noise that increases in volume. Normally one's eardrums throb like that only at a Slayer concert. Then comes a woman wrapped from head to toe-in white, against a curtain of fire and a swollen, talismanic moon. Then, of course, comes a man with a top hat and a skull.

This is the portentous and surrealistic dream around which the whole action of the play centers. Makak (monkey), a poor, ugly, old charcoal burner, is in prison on “drunk and disorderly charges.” While being interrogated by Corporal Lestrade, the mulatto enforcer of white laws, he tries to tell his story to the military and his two fellow prisoners, Tigre (tiger) and Souris (rat). They will not listen, but the audience relives Makak’s dream. 

 In his dream on Monkey Mountain, Makak experiences a visitation from a white Apparition. She declares that he is the son of African kings and as such, he should return to Africa. Empowered and acting like a prophet, Makak and his friend Moustique (mosquito) set forth for the village. The doubtful Moustique at first humors his friend, but when Makak cures a villager of fever, Moustique becomes his disciple and agent and, if the price is right, his impersonator, for Makak’s growing renown precedes him. Moustique’s impersonation of Makak is exposed by Basil, the carpenter and coffin maker.

This swindle costs Moustique his life at the hands of an angry mob.  Again, we see Makak in his cell, but he escapes after wounding Corporal Lestrade. Along with Souris and Tigre, he sets off for Africa to claim his kingship but is pursued by Lestrade into the forest at the foot of Monkey Mountain. There, the Corporal experiences a revelation that leads him to accept his blackness. With his transformation, he becomes the advocate for black law and condemns all that is white. Meanwhile, Makak rethinks his back-to-Africa decision and, in a dream-within-a-dream, foresees the violence that will result from the frenzy for power and revenge. But how will he find his true identity and gain a measure of self-esteem? In this part-fable and myth play, to the accompaniment of music, dance and drums, the audience joins Makak in his struggle for freedom and manhood.

 

“The play is a dream, one that exists as much in the given minds of its principal characters as in that of its writer, and as such, it is illogical, derivative, and contradictory.”

—Derek Walcott, in “A Note on Production.”

The play represents Makak's search for home, but it is also about native man being oppressed by colonial rule and the clash of West Indian and English culture. The play ends not with a beheading, “but with a man’s reaching an accommodation with his environment. In spite of the violent, political overtones of the action, the resolution of the play is in personal, perhaps religious terms.”  Makak returns to his mountain retreat a new man because of his increased insight.

 

Planted squarely in the world of magical realism, Makak's story is more than once reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. However it is more expressionistic than magical (expressionistic as in Expressionism, as in Eugene O'Neill's Emporer Jones).

 

Derek Walcott, the 1992 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Trinidad and is the world's premiere West Indian poet and playwright. Dream On Monkey Mountain, originally commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967, is widely considered to be his most ambitious play. Its writing is a typically fierce yet elegant mixture of island patois and blank verse.

 

Classical Theatre of Harlem, fresh from last year's success with Genet's The Blacks, has again mounted a colorful and evocative production. Indeed, this Dream On Monkey Mountain is so energetic and filled with native rhythms and songs and dances that it overpowers the poetry. That's a shame since the strange delicacy of the language which is the best part of the play is drowned under the weight of drums and choreographed dances and shrieking choruses. Even Andre de Shields, a marvel as Makak, is overwhelmed at times though he manages to hold his own. He and Kim Sullivan as Moustique are the showpieces of the evening.

Brecht once said, "There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line." Makak is either a visionary or a madman something the dreamlike structure of this work never clarifies. We are thus left unsure whether Makak has stopped dreaming.

De Shields comes close to brilliance in his ability to balance his performance between madness and genius. He is a powerful and physical actor and the perfect choice for this role. Sullivan offers a grounded and at times funny counterweight to de Shields' whirlwind.

The ensemble serves as a sort of uber-athletic Greek chorus, dancing and stomping and singing. Their choreography, by Bruce Heath, seems inspired by Once on This Island or The Lion King, but is fresh and vigorous and makes excellent use of the small space. Banded by a single curtain and a screen of bamboo poles, the stage is as dreamlike as the play itself.

This is a long play and at times the decibel level is near-deafening. However, de Shields offers such a compelling and well-informed performance and director Preisser molds all the variegated elements into an almost-cohesive whole. It's all a bit like triple-chocolate fudge -- at times too much, though it would be just right in smaller dosest.

Annotation

Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967) which is considered one of Derek Walcott’s theatrical masterpieces is the model par excellencedefined as “mulatto style,” where different theatrical methods and experiences merge.

The play was inspired by places and people known to the author since his childhood spent in the Caribbean. The influence of Nō and Kabuki theatre is also recognizable in the drama. 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. The 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.