Three Errols in theatre

Errol John did not get a cent for his stage performances here. The first time I saw him on the boards, was in, Duet for Two Hands which was staged at the Maria Louise Hall in the Victoria Institute — now the National Museum. He acted as a famous concert pianist whose hands were amputated after an accident but were replaced by surgeons who stitched on hands of another person.

Throughout the full-length play, he wore enormous white gloves. The big question was, “Will he ever again be able to play the piano?” As far as I could remember in the grand finale, as he raised his hands and was about to bring them down on the keys, the curtains were drawn.

When I was in London, 1962/63, Horace James and I saw our fellow Trinidadian Errol John as “Othello” by William Shakespeare at the Old Vic. After the play, we chatted with him in the dressing room and he introduced us to the cast as his countrymen. He informed them that Horace James was at RADA and I was a British Council scholar at that prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama.

Errol John appeared in several stage plays and films including The Nun’s Story, The Sins of Rachel Cade, and he also acted with Frank Sinatra. On one of his visits to Trinidad, I had the pleasure of meeting him again at a gathering of actors and playwrights at the home of Mr Hans Hanoomansingh, now the boss man of Heritage Radio.

Errol is the only Trinidadian who is in The Penguin Dictionary of the Theatre by John Russell Taylor but he is mentioned as a West Indian. “John, Errol (b 1924) West Indian dramatist and actor. His principal work, a picturesque drama of Caribbean life called Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, won the first prize in the Observer drama competition (1956) and was subsequently produced at the Royal Court, London, 1958.”

During the Christmas holidays in 1952, I was invited to a reading of Ping Pong which was staged by White Hall Players at the Government Teachers’ Training College on St Vincent Street in January ‘53. There I met actor, playwright, poet, director Errol Hill for the first time. The cast was Clinton Browne, Winston Springer, James King, Len Manswell, Andrew Dupigny, Ewart Marcelle and yours truly as “Jigger.”

In July 1954, I met Errol Jones for the first time when Errol Hill directed Sea at Dauphin by Derek Walcott with Errol Jones, Horace James, Clinton Browne, Colin Laird, Elliot Bastien and myself as the old man “Hounakin.”

When the English actor and producer John Ainsworth came to Trinidad and was casting for Hamlet in which he played the title role, he thought of bringing in a foreign actor to play “Laertes” but he found out that Errol Hill was as good a fencer as he was. My role was “Lord” in Trinidad and Barbados, then “Bernado” and “Rosencrantz” in British Guiana in 1955.

Errol Hill was “Mio” in Winterest by Maxwell Anderson, directed by Roy Richards with Errol Jones — “Carr” and I was the gangster “Shadow”. Errol acted as ‘Dessalines’ in Derek Walcott’s Drums and Colours at the open-air theatre in the Botanical Gardens with Errol Jones as “Mano” and I played “Ram.”

At the one and only Commonwealth Arts Festival held in England in 1965, Errol Hill directed his play Man Better Man in which Errol Jones played “Diable Papa” and I acted as “Pogo.”

I am thankful to have been associated with the three Errols who have since returned to the Creator.

The preacher declared, “People can never bring you down when God is backing you up!”