Dr Maxwell in CAF

The second shot is that of Joy Ryan, Judy Verwayne and Joycelyn Sealy, in Martiniquan style dresses, dancing on the pavement outside the King’s Theatre in Glasgow, to promote the show Man Better Man — a musical play — written and directed by Errol Hill, and presented by the Trinidad Theatre Company, in the first Commonwealth Arts Festival (CAF) which also turned out to be the last.

Others in the cast were Leo Ruffino, Winston Gaye, Lennox Lake, Sydney Hill, Russel Winston, Vilma Ali, Hugh Bonterre, Kenneth Delarosa, Molly Ahye, Ronald Williams, Andrew Dupigny, Jean Sue Wing, Norbert Brown, Torrance Mohammed, Christopher Jordan, Linda Sylvester, Marina Maxwell and yours truly as the stick-fighter with the buss-head — “Pogo.”

Errol Hill in an interview with Peter Lewis in London, said, “During our tour of Britain we have been having serious discussions about how this group can keep together.” After the festival, Errol took up a two-year appointment as drama lecturer at Nigeria’s Ibadan University. I was never part of the discussion. My company, The Strolling Players, had presented King Cobo earlier that year and I had plays in my back pocket crying out to get on stage. When an actor told me about the idea, I replied, “Count me out!”

Where have all the Man Better Man actors gone? Some of us, thank God, are still standing. One is Marina Maxwell who played “Inez Briscoe” in the Festival but ten years before, had the lead female role of “Petite Belle Lily” in Mona, Jamaica. In August 1954, Errol showed Horace James and myself, a manuscript by Mitto Sampson who knew nothing about stagecraft. Somehow it metamorphosed from an ugly caterpillar to the beautiful butterfly — Man Better Man.

Now, Marina Maxwell is better known nationally and internationally among the literati as Dr Marina Ama Omowale Maxwell.

Her father, Dr Felix A Crichlow, Trinidad’s first black Afro Hindu pundit, gave her the Hindi name – “Ama” which means “servant of the light.” When Marina visited Nigeria, she was dubbed “Omowale” — “The child has returned home.”

The first Mayoress of San Fernando, Trinidad and indeed the British West Indies, was Marina’s mother — Mrs Beryl Archibald-Crichlow. Marina’s Jamaican husband has passed away and their only child, Leah now lives in Washington DC.

In Man Better Man, audiences saw Marina as an actress, dancer and singer but she is also a poet, novelist, dramatist, journalist, theatre and television producer as well as a lecturer in creative writing and communications. This multi-talented lady is the author of Chopstix in Mauby which is described as a metaphor in realism and five other books. She founded the Writers Union of Trinidad and Tobago in 1980 and also the Yard Theatre in Jamaica and influenced all Caribbean Theatre.

Dr Maxwell has produced over 100 local programmes for Trinidad and Tobago Television. She was a Commissioner for Schomburgh Centre (New York Public Library) for the preservation of Black Culture. As a journalist, she has interviewed such celebrities as Fidel Castro of Cuba and the Nobel Laureate Chinua Achebe, famous for his book Things Fall Apart. The indefatigable prolific writer has launched two new novels, The 8th Octave and the sequel The Calling. A release describes them as “A magical realism and Eco-political novel — a 2012 publication marking Rio+20. Rio Earth Summit.” Her books are available at UWI Bookstore and Blue Editions, St Vincent Street, Tunapuna.

Recently, Dr Maxwell wrote, “Let me give high praise to Freddie Kissoon who is keeping theatre alive what we have of Theatre. He and Albert La Veau, stalwart of Theatre Workshop. The crude crotch comedy is all we have and it is killing such fabulous talented actors and actresses who deserve so much more.

Roland Peterson said, “No one ever became a howling success by just howling.”