- CONTRIBUTED
Chupucabra, the Latin bloodsucker, is an example of the vivid make-up used in the production.
Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
THE PROBLEM with staging a production about HIV/AIDS is the tendency to treat it is as an attempt to educate the public. This often means putting in information under whose weight the production tends to creak. Chupucabra, presented last weekend, was one of those treatments conceived imaginatively enough to rise above this weight.
The production was presented last weekend at the Phillip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts (PSCCA), University of the West Indies, as a part of the University Dramatic Arts Society's (UDAS) major production for 2005. The society presented two one-act plays: Paloma Mohammed's Chupucabra and Victor Edwards' Games. Both plays were directed by Brian Heap.
Games and Chupucabra mark the second production coming out of the PSCCA since the start of the 2004/5 academic year which looks at the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Last semester, the University Players staged Godfrey Sealy's One of Our Sons.
Though both plays deal with the same issue, they were radically different and it is a particular shame that the productions were on only for the single weekend. Games involves role- playing as a group of high school students learns to understand the danger of not taking sexuality seriously. Unfortunately, like many productions that attempt to deal with the issue, the influx of AIDS related detail drags it under on occasion. It is, however, marked by good performances by the ensemble cast and provides good helpings of drama and humour.
The second piece, Paloma Mohammed's Chupucabra turned out to be fabulously invented and was a visually stunning piece of theatre. Both productions benefit from Heap's ability to create an interesting set built on symbolism. The simple set features dead leaves and stumps. The leaves are either strung together or clustered around the stumps. Together, they present the spectre of death and decay. This set is even more suitable to Chupucabra, however, as it deals with the supernatural. Both productions also use light and sound well, but again Chupucabra wins out.
Mohammed's strongest weapon is the inventiveness of the production, which engages various bloodsuckers who meet one night to discuss their fate - and incidentally the fate of mankind on whom they thrive.
Though these creatures hail from around the world, they speak to a Caribbean perspective, as it is the place where all the influences have come to reside. Present are the likes of Africa's Obayifo (Teneile Warren), China's Chiang Shih (Tashawn Tonge), India's Vetala (Peter Parkinson) and the Caribbean's Socuyant (Nia Thompson), Logaroo (Carlon Worrell) and Ol' Higue (Paulette Smith), among others.
Costume and make-up, comprising some skilled body art painting by The Body Designers, bring these creatures artfully to life. Furthermore, Warren, Clifford Warmington (Jaracaca), Tonge and Parkinson give very good performances, having delved beautifully into the nature of their characters.
So, as the spectre of HIV/AIDS continues to hover as a daunting figure above the world, dangling menacingly close to the Third World, it is particularly important that the arts be employed to carry the message. Though the disease cares not for tolling bells and who would answer them, the numbers have been seen to increase drastically among the poor and the uneducated. They are easier prey.
The message is however, easier to carry when a little imagination and a lot of skill are used to grease its passage.
