LETTERS FOR EMANCIPENDENCE
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Inspired by the overwhelming positive reaction to "Augus Mawnin", the LTM Pantomime Company continues to bring Jamaican history to life with "Letters for Emancipendence"
The programme is a mixture of song, dance and speech inspired by and taken from words of our seven national heroes. Enhanced by an exhibition of artifacts courtesy of the Institute of Jamaica patrons got a fuller picture of the men and one woman who gave their lives for this Jamaica, Land We Love.
Letters for Emancipendence starts with a monologue by Madda Nanny who explains the struggles and hardships faced by the Maroons and her own reasons for fighting the Redcoats. Followed by a dramatised extract of Fred W. Kennedy's "Daddy Sharpe", where the slaves worry that the Freedom Proclamation is being kept from them. George William Gordon's life and death are portrayed as a statement delivered to the court which finds him gulity of sedition and treason and a reading of the letter he wrote his wife before he was hanged.
Drawing on the recent controversy over the Bogle statue which was damaged by a person of unsound mind, the Morant Bay rebellion is told in dub poetry style by Poet an indigent young man living in the Morant Bay square. In response to passersby remarking that the statue was too black and should be bleached, Poet remarks "Is that why Bogle give him life... and now we have a new kind of strife."
Marcus Garvey's words come to pass in a schoolroom where a class of rowdy children become inspired and transformed by the power of Garvey's words. The 1938 workers strike which culminated with the arrest of Alexander Bustamante is accompanied by the singing of "We will follow Bustamante" and captues the struggle to get workers rights brought to the fore. Norman Washington Manley joins a community meeting in the last sketch and delivers a speech which details his belief in the rights of the people and the importance of politicians performing their duties with integrity.
The cast sends the audience bouncing out to the tunes "Plan Wi Plan" and "Nah Gie Up" written by Barbara Gloudon and music by Grub Cooper.
Performers (as presented 2010) |
ACT
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