By Michael Reckord, Contributor 
Fish
"CREATE YOUR own drama," could be the slogan of 47-year-old St Lucian actor, director, poet, author, storyteller and cultural officer, George 'Fish' Alphonse.
Alphonse was in Jamaica earlier this month to receive an award at the Caribbean Hall of Fame Awards held at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, for his contribution to Caribbean culture. He spoke to the Sunday Gleaner in an interview about the exciting, creative work he is spearheading in St Lucian theatre. Building on the work of St Lucia's most famous son, poet, playwright and Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, Alphonse said that he and a group of like-minded persons (including Kendel Hipployte and Kennedy 'Boots' Samuel) have been trying from the 70s and 80s to create their own drama and not depend on written scripts.
DIFFERENT CULTURAL FORMS
"We believe there's a lot of drama around," said Alphonse, "though people believe if you haven't got a script you can't do theatre. So we use a lot of storytelling, written short stories and poems. We create a whole production out of even one poem, using different cultural forms within the poem. We may also link four or five poems together, with similar themes, link them with music, and we create productions."
He continued: "We recently did a production called Pyebanan using a folk song. Pyebanan is a children's character who usually comes around at Christmas time to bring good cheer." Emphasising the simplicity of the production, he added: "The costume was simply banana leaves."
But the objective was important, Alphonse pointed out. "We know in many of the islands banana is in jeopardy, so we used that character to show why. We had the character talking about the problem and we added song and music for entertainment," he said.
The musical instruments, he said, were as improvised as the banana leaf costumes. They included a drum, pans, bottles and old milk tins.
THE PYEBANAN CHARACTER
"We had 15 characters, including musicians," he said. "The Pyebanan character usually walks around with his dancers. We did street performances. It was community theatre - a lot of fun, a lot of community involvement. It didn't cost one cent, yet the entertainment was very professionally done."
Asked about the origins of the community theatre concept he uses, Alphonse gave credit to the Jamaica School of Drama, where he studied from 1981 - 83. "(In) those years," he said, "we created a lot of stuff, which gave me the idea of what I could do back home, in classes like Caribbean Lab, and with people like Eugene Williams and Earl Warner."
Alphonse subsequently visited Canada and Britain for further work in theatre. He has toured with four of his own original, full-length, one-man productions. He has also directed several national productions, including St Lucia's drama presentation for CARIFESTA 5 and he has performed in the Eastern Caribbean (Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Dominica) and England.
The recipient of many national awards in the literary and performing arts, he was recently honoured at a regional storytelling festival in Barbados and on September 12 at the eighth Caribbean Hall of Fame Awards ceremony at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston.
Asked what themes he uses in his one-man shows, he replied: "Man-woman relationship, lack of respect for old folks and tradition, use of artefacts, violence, crime, and 'youth, know yourself, your culture'."
He singled out one, Mad Man Story, about a man whom society considers to be mad. "But when you see him on stage," said Alphonse, "he makes you feel you are the mad man because of the themes and concerns he brings out." Another production, Country Boy, is about the contrasting values of town and country folk.
SELF-CREATED PRODUCTIONS
Alphonse said that St. Lucian theatre producers do not focus solely on self-created productions. He works with Derek Walcott, who lives most of the year in St Lucia, he revealed, only going to Boston to teach for a term each year.
In addition, Alphonse assisted in the production of a recent staging of Sarafina, which was directed by Alwin Bully, using some members of the team he worked with in the Jamaican production by the Jamaica Junior Theatre last year.
"It was marvellous," said Alphonse, pointing out that most of the performers were young persons who had never set foot on a stage before. So, he said, "traditional theatre keeps going".
He helps to keep it alive in his job in the Department of Culture, otherwise called Cultural Development Foundation, in the Ministry of Education and Culture. He works as a special events officer, responsible for the traditional arts - storytelling, local festivals and traditional festivals. Participants, whom he trains, include farmers, housewives and students.
"Theatre is very much alive and well in St Lucia," Alphonse concluded.
