Laura Tanna
I promised you more on London and you shall have it. Theatre there is superb, and as soon as I read that Tom Stoppard's latest play, Rock 'n' Roll, would be premiering at the Royal Court Theatre in June, we immediately booked tickets through the Internet because I knew anything Stoppard did would be sold out as soon as it opened.
His Rosencrantz and Guilden-stern Are Dead, building a hilarious yet richly complex play on two minor spear carriers in one of Shakespeare's plays, was such a tour de force of wit and knowledge that I, and most of the adult English-speaking world, have been fans of Stoppard's ever since.
Dedicated to Czechoslovakian writer and politician Vaclav Havel, the inspiring leader of Eastern Europe's famous 'Velvet Revolution', and first President of the Czech Republic, the cover blurb on Faber and Faber's published text of Stoppard's newest play describes it most succinctly: "Rock 'n' Roll spans the years from 1968 to 1990 from the double perspective of Prague, where a rock 'n' roll band comes to symbolise resistance to the Communist regime, and of Cambridge where the verities of love and death are shaping the lives of three generations in the family of a Marxist philosopher."
Rarely in Jamaica do we experience political drama on the theatrical stage - perhaps we live so closely to the real thing, writers are hard put to surpass what we experience daily - but Stoppard's brilliant juxtaposition of phrases of song lyrics projected on a screen with fragments of rock 'n' roll music, fleetingly introducing or ending scenes, jolts us into a recognition of how revolutionary that music was when it first appeared in the '50s and '60s. What is now background music in shopping malls once had huge significance in countries where it was banned, where the very freedom it represented did not exist.
There's hope
Jamaicans have long understood the power of music. Indeed, Bob Marley's One Love leads the readers' poll for top song to evoke a foreign land in the September Conde Nast Traveler magazine, with the acknowledgement that, "It's a powerful evocation of Jamaica's hopes for peace in the face of systemic poverty and sudden violence."
Though Rock 'n' Roll was due to close at the Duke of York Theatre in London on September 24, look for it whenever or wherever you're travelling, as it is a fascinating study of politics, persecution and protest in a compelling presentation.
On a lighter note, we enjoyed the revival of Michael Frayn's 1976 classic comedy, Donkeys' Year, a farce set during a reunion of Oxbridge graduates reliving their sexual and emotional high jinx, which made for some good belly laughs. Needless to say, one of the alumni is a politician.
Incidentally, in London there is an organisation that obtains discount theatre tickets and special seats for the disabled and deaf. Should you or anyone you know need this service, when in the United Kingdom, call 020-7619-6166 between 2:30 and 5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.
And should you be looking for a restaurant a little out of the ordinary, in Soho not that far from the theatre district, we dined at Bar Shu, 28 Frith Street, London, W1D 5LF Tel: 020-7287-8822, between Shaftesbury Avenue and Romilly Street. It's a truly authentic Chinese restaurant, which means the service may be a bit abrupt, specialising in unusual dishes, various organs one might not normally find on a menu, I'm told, but even the conventional dishes we ordered were superb, and most very spicy! Reservations are recommended.
