Sex, Survival and the gods at the Little Carib

Woman's Weekly                                SUNDAY 14 APRIL 2013/ ISSUE 101

IN REHEARSAL: Dr. Jorge Luis Morejon (laughing at centre), helps students hone their theatrical skills during a rehearsal for UWI student production of the adapted Cuban play Maria Antonia, which is currently beign shown at the Little Carib Theatre. PHOTO BY MAYDELAINE RODRIGUEZ-CASTILLO

By Shereen Ali

The Cuban play Maria Antonia by Eugenio Hernandez Espinosa is being performed by UWI students at the Little Carib Theatre as part of their final grade in the Production II course at the Department of Creative Festival Arts (DCFA). It is translated, adapted and directed by Dr. Jorge Morejon, a Cuban-American dance lecturer in Trinidad who is teaching theatre skills at UWI.

Last Sunday the students gave an enthusiastic performance, with colorful costuming and evocative drumming by a threesome of seasoned percussionists: Tamba Gwindi, Wayne "Lion" Osuna and Sheena Richardson. The drummers played bata drums (double headed drums shaped like an hourglass), tumbadoras (tall, narrow conga drums) and a floor tom, with miscellaneous percussion including the thunder of spring drums, the tinkle of chimes, the liquid sounds of "rainmakers" and the whispering rattle of caxixi (pronounced cashishi: baskets filled with seeds).

The play Maria Antonia, written in 1964, is the story of a tough Afro-Cuban woman who defies every-one in search of meaning. Living in a barrackyard-type culture of poverty and desperation, she both sexually uses and is used by men; she defies religion; and she longs for a better life. Love, sex and the posturing of egos abound, as every one fights to maintain their own role and space in the yard. Although jaded, Maria falls in love with a macho boxer who often betrays her. And in the background lurk the gods or orishas, observing us or pulling our strings, including a sly witchlike "Cumachela." The adapted play has elements of high tragedy, bawdy humor, creolized Yoruba religion (in Cuba known as Lukumi), the hard living on the streets, and a fair share of soap-opera like moments.

Director Jorge Morejon employs a "Theatre of Images" approach to suggest ideas to the audience rather than telling the story in a linear, explicit way. In Image Theatre, symbolic images are used to explore abstract concepts like relationships and emotions. It's evident in opening sequence of the play when a funeral ritual unfolds behind a draped mound on the ground - which is unveiled to be two female bodies, one a corpse of the lead character Maria and the other a mysterious otherwordly figure. Both then arise. We wonder: are they supposed to be dead or alive? Or are they both spirits now? Are they two beings, or different aspects of the same woman? This ambiguity challenges viewers to create their own meaning. After this scene, the rest of the play unfolds as flashback.

How challenging was it to translate a play originally conceived for another culture and language (Cuban 1960's society, written in Spanish) into  a Trinidad 2013 culture, in English?

Director Morejon says one challenge was the cast's inexperience. " Most of the cast at first didn't understand the script. It was only when we worked on staging it, they started to get it," he admits.

'Love, sex and the posturing

of egos abounds,

as everyone fights

to maintain their own

role and space in the yard.'

He also observes that many students did not yet have a culture of disciplined hard work to achieve goals: so some would come late, or miss rehearsals and dead-lines, or be self-indulgent. He helped them by encouraging them to learn with a problem-solving approach:" ...because theatre is problem solving. There is never an ideal situation. Most theatre happens in very chaotic situations. You don't have a theatre sometimes; or the theatre is not prepared; there may be problems with money to build sets and costumes."

Another challenge was the Trinidad audience: "You can go to see a serious play here, and Trinis are laughing as if it is a comedy, when it is not a comedy but a drama. They see humor where others may see tragedy. Based on that, I tried to balance (the play) so that we could control the humour."

Yet another challenge was the language. Morejon translated the play from Spanish to English literally from a 1989 tape. He then found the written play in a Miami library, and corroborated his oral translation with the print version. Finally, the UWI students suggested idiomatic Trini ways for expressing several Spanish expressions.

Morejon says the play was a valuable learning experience for the students. There were roles for all 25 people in the class, many of whom had never acted before. They learned elements of dance, Cuban culture, ritual chanting and acting on different levels. Music and set design were adapted too, and ocasions for learning.

"I really root the play in the marginal aspect of the Caribbean," says Morejon. "So it could be Jamaica, it could be Trinidad, it could be Cuba. But if we go to those marginal places, people behave in the same way. It is the culture of survival, no matter what."

April 12, 13, 14: Maria Antonia, play by Eugenio Hernadez Espinosa, on at 8 pm on 12 & 13, and at 6 pm on April 14. Little Carib Theatre, White and Roberts Street, Woodbrook. Tickets: $100; discounts for students with ID. Tickets & info: 663-2222 or email mariaantoniauwi@gmail.com

Cuban exile Jorge Morejón in his ‘magic moment’

                                         NEWSDAY SECTION B Sunday April 14, 2013, Page 3

GALLERY

 Freedom through the Arts

Cuban exile Jorge Morejón

in his ‘magic moment’

Dr. JORGE LUIS MOREJON

 (at right), gives guidance to one of the

performers in the UWI student production

Maria Antonia, currently being performed

at the Little Carib theatre in Woodbrook.

           

Dr. Jorge Luis Morejon

Director, lecturer, singer, dancer,

actor and theatre arts teacher

teaches theatre courses at the

Universty of the West Indies.

   PHOTOS BY MAYDELAINE

   RODRIGUEZ-CASTILLO

Actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, director: Jorge Luis Morejón is a theatre professional with two decades of experience. The idea of the total actor – like an acrobat who can do anything – is his ideal. And now, he can add “academic” to the list: he has gained his PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California. The adventurous Cuban-American decided to come to Trinidad two years ago because “after living in Canada for two years, and then in California, I did not want to be in a cold country. I was overwhelmed by American culture … and wanted to go south - further south than Miami.” Trinidad’s warm green hills and a job opportunity at UWI made up his mind.

The 48-year-old thespian is in Trinidad to teach theatre courses at the University of the West and is currently directing the UWI student production Maria Antonia on at The Little Carib theatre in Woodbrook this weekend. He took time off to reflect on his journey thus far.

“I grew up in Cuba and am a product of the system,” he says. “I was born in 1963. The Revolution was in 1959. My father was one off the rebels – at a young age, 24 – so I got firsthand impressions of what the Revolution was like. So on one hand, I was being educated by the school system, which was state-run: you got one version of everything. Then I would get home, and my father and mother would say: ‘No, no, no, no, no. That’s not the way it was. Let me tell you how it was. You cannot say anything to anyone, because we will be in trouble. But we don’t want you to grow up blindfolded.’ I grew up in that duality, which is the duality of almost every Cuban. They don’t allow themselves to be honest because they are afraid – they don’t know who you are, they don’t know how it will affect them.

“So I rejected any version that was not the official version. I was a very good student: I sucked it all up. When it was time for me to go to secondary school, the government was already closing all urban schools, and moving students to boarding schools in the countryside. So from ages 12 to 16, I was in a boarding school in the country. I had to work four hours a day planting. And then I would go in the afternoon for academic classes. It was good because I was in touch with nature, doing something very tangible – growing things – instead of being a parasite, which you are in most education systems, because you don’t know where things come from.

“What was bad was the lack of choices. If I wanted to do something else, I couldn’t. Everyone is funnelled according to the expectations and needs of the country. So for instance, in one year, if the country needed teachers, you would be a teacher. The individual has very little say in what he or she is going to do with her future. There are open spots in the universities depending on what the country needs and on your grades, and your political affiliation. Because I was in a school for students focused on science, there was no artistic education.”

Morejón remembers going to his cousin’s family for summer holidays, and realising they skipped lunch time entirely because there was little to eat. After three days of being hungry, he returned home. His father asked him what happened. “Dad, I was hungry all the time because they don’t eat.” His father replied, “I am glad that happened to you. Because you are a Communist with a full belly. It’s very easy to be a Communist that way. But I want you to know that most people in this country live like them. And the reason you don’t live like them is because I risk my freedom everyday.”

When Morejón graduated from school at age 16, that was the year of the Mariel boatlift.

He says during the Mariel boatlift time, when the Cuban government allowed Cubans to leave freely, they also emptied the jails, the asylums and collected all the vagrants. They also gathered up Jehovah Witnesses, and homosexuals, and anyone else thought to be ideologically disenfranchised by the government, says Morejón. Then when family members would come to Cuba in rented boats to pick up a relative, they would be told they also had to take some of these people. This is when the family decided to leave.

“Right before Mariel, Cubans who had left in the first wave of the Revolution, in the 60s, were allowed to come back and visit,” he remembers. “There was a huge social shifting. For 20 years we were told all the stories about capitalism and the Cubans who left, who were called ‘worms’ – a term Castro coined. Popular wisdom now re-christened them ‘butterflies.’ These butterflies would bring jewelry, clothing, stuff for their families; gum, candies, spices, little things, you know? Things we had not seen for 20 years. Because the country had become centralised and everything came from the government.

“My aunt was a butterfly. She came via Jamaica because there was no direct flight. My aunt had raised my Mom.

Morejón’s family – or half of it, comprising Morejón and his father – managed to leave Cuba in 1984. Their aunt had worked furiously behind the scenes to wangle visas for them – “through Honduras, through Panama, Costa Rica – there’s this market for visas that Cubans have been victims of,” says Morejón. His aunt eventually got a visa through the Dominican Republic. And Cuba let them go because the family were considered useless outcasts. But they had to leave their mother and their younger brother behind.

They flew to the Dominican Republic via Jamaica. In the process, they had to leave all savings behind – that was the law. They couldn’t even afford to pay for the airline ticket, because they had no dollars. Like all other departing Cubans, they had to leave the country penniless, and ask relatives to pay for their tickets. Morejón stayed in the Dominican Republic for one year, then was able to go to Miami ahead of his parents, to help support them.

“Leaving my mother and my brother in Cuba was difficult, because we did not know if we were going to see them again. But I remember that during those four to five years in Cuba (before leaving), I also had made some new, real friends. When I came to the Dominican Republic, I felt free. I felt free. But I felt like I had left my friends in a pit, and they were extending their arms to me, asking for help to get out, and I couldn’t help them. I remember feeling very guilty about that.”

Eight months later, his mother and brother were able to leave Cuba and join the family in the Dominican Republic. Then the family had to negotiate approvals to enter the US, a process which took a further four years. The entire family eventually reunited in Miami, their new beginning.

What does Morejón consider as his nationality, or his homeplace, now?

“Miami is the closest to home now. But I move from place to place, as if I am looking for some magic spot that feels like home. I think the arts often attracts those who feel displaced not only in a physical sense, but also for varied traumatic reasons, or because they feel like outcasts. In the making of that “magic moment” in art, you inhabit a creative space to which you can relate, without depending on a physical frame.”

LINK: http://www.newsday.co.tt/features/0,176286.html

'Maria Antonia' a world of mythical Afro-Cuban culture

 

 

 

 

Story Updated: Mar 31, 2013


LEAD ROLE: Syntyche Bishop in the title role, Maria Antonia.

The Department of Creative & Festival Arts (DCFA) of The University of the West Indies (UWI) St Augustine will from April 4 invite lovers of the theatre and the public in general to enter a dark and exotic world; a place where shadowy dangerous characters live; an island within an island from which one will never be able to leave. This is the world of Maria Antonia, a play being staged at the Little Carib Theatre from April 4 to 7 and again from the 12 to 14. The weekday and Saturday shows are at 8 p.m. while the Sunday shows are at 6 p.m.

As part of the requirements for the BA in Theatre Arts, Production II students of the DCFA are brought together as a company to perform in and produce a full-length play. Marvin George, part-time lecturer and co-lecturer for the course Production II and Assistant Director for the production explained that they are working under the direction of Cuban dance lecturer, Dr Jorge Morejón who has translated the play and adapted it to suit the students.

"We are very fortunate to have Dr Jorge Morejón who is a Cuban-American dance lecturer at our department working on the production as both translator and director. Under his guidance Maria Antonia, the 1967 Cuban classic written by Eugenio Hernandez Espinosa will truly be brought to life," George said.

Maria Antonia is the tragic story of an Afro-Cuban woman who defies the men, women, and traditions of her community in search of who she is and in pursuit of the meaning of her life. Through her trysts with men, her defiance of religion, and her thirst for change, Antonia presents the struggles of a post-revolutionary Cuba - one where women are forced to re-evaluate their roles in society. It employs Afro-Cuban culture — for example Santeria, a syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin; and rumba dance —as part of its aesthetic. The play, therefore, presents itself as an opportunity, not simply for the teaching and honing of necessary skills in theatre, but for students to be exposed to Cuban culture and familiarise themselves with the history of the Caribbean region.

Tafar Lewis and Syntyche Bishop will share the title role of Maria Antonia, with a supporting cast that includes Robert Noel, Kareem Durity, Ketisha Williams, Daniella Johnson, Dernelle Smith, Merlisia McIntosh, Khadein Benn, Lequacia De Suze, Jarell Akini Alder, Adam Pascall, Lalonde Jay Ochoa, Marvin Dowridge, Ion-Iee Farmer, Marcus Waldron, Shanice James, Simeon Chris Moodoo, Kirsten Shade, Candace Sturge Dunbar, Gabrielle Jade Le Gendre, Alana Ash and Ruzanne Gustave.

Morejón's artistic versatility has been nourished by two decades of theatre, opera, dance and performance-art experiences. He has participated in over 40 productions with Prometeo Theatre, Telemundo, Creation Ballet, Ballet Theatre of Miami, The Greater Miami Opera, Brazarte and his own company Thelos Theatre. Most notably, he has appeared in The Maids and Sleepless City. In Toronto Canada he performed Mirrored Spaces in 2008.

In California he performed in Divide Light: A New Opera, at the Montalvo Arts Center, The Ten PM Dream and The Elephant's Graveyard with Sideshow Physical Theatre at The Sacramento Theater Company, and The Winter's Tale and Hinterland with UC Davis Theatre and Dance Department at the Mondavi Center. He has a PhD in Performance Studies, with a designated emphasis in Practice as Research, from the University of California, Davis. Currently, he is a lecturer at The University of the West Indies, Department of Creative and Festival Arts, Trinidad and Tobago.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/sunday-mix/_Maria_Antonia__a_world_of_mythical_Afro-Cuban_culture_-200821221.html?m=y&smobile=y

http://repeatingislands.com/2013/04/03/maria-antonia-a-world-of-mythical-afro-cuban-culture/
http://www.news.gov.tt/index.php?news=12533

http://sta.uwi.edu/news/releases/release.asp?id=1062

UWI stages Cuban play

 

 

Dr. Jorge Morejón, director of Maria Antonia.

Published: Sunday, March 31, 2013
By Desiree Seebaran

Female sexuality—and how it’s examined in art and media—is undergoing a kind of rediscovery. The controversial HBO hit series Girls is part of the new wave. Public outcry and discussion on major news networks about banning rape culture and slut shaming is another part.


And the final-year students of the University of the West Indies (UWI) St Augustine’s Theatre Arts programme have also picked up on the trend. Their 2013 final year production is an oldie, but explores the much debated and intensely modern theme of a woman’s insi

stence on choice—in expressing her sexuality and spirituality and redefining her gender roles.

The class will present the Cuban play Maria Antonia at the Little Carib Theatre from April 4-7 and 12-14. Shows begin at 8 pm nightly, with Sunday shows starting at 6 pm.

“Maria Antonia takes place in a marginal neighborhood in Havana, Atares,” said Dr Jorge Morejón, the play’s director. “The students been able to establish parallels between the two cultures. The reality of Maria Antonia in the 1960s is not much different from the reality of today’s Cuba or Trinidad. Marginality is a culture in and of itself no matter where or in which timeframe it develops.”

A Cuban-American dance lecturer at UWI, St Augustine, Morejon is working with the students as both director and translator of the Cuban text, written in the 1960s by Eugenio Hernandez Espinosa. The class wanted to stretch themselves in Caribbean theatre, and choosing a play originally written in Spanish and Yoruba dialects seemed a good way to do that.

The cast is headed by Syntyche Bishop and Tafar Lewis, who share the role of Maria Antonia. Lewis is a veteran of the Secondary Schools Drama Festival and for three years has been a part of the cast of Seedrink, a local sketch comedy show on Gayelle. Bishop has made strong showings over the years at the Music Festival as part of the singing group

Suite Chorale and solo at various other singing competitions, so audiences can look forward to fierce and nuanced presentations of the black female lead. The feminist themes of the play have as much relevance today as they did when the play was first written, Morejón said. “Although women now have more opportunities to make intelligent choices about their future, their chances continue to be limited compared to those men have. Maria Antonia would have felt as trapped today as she feels in the world of the play. Poverty has its own cycle, which is often perpetuated by outer forces, such as the conditions of society, and inner ones such as lack of self-esteem, sense of powerlessness and hopelessness. These conditions continue to affect women when it comes to playing a more relevant role in today’s society,” he said.

• Tickets cost $100, with special discounts for tertiary and secondary school students. For more information, call 663-2222, e-mail mariaantoniauwi@gmail.com or follow the cast on Twitter @MariaAntoniaUWI