21671: (Craig) Article RE: RAM musical in the UK (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>



'My lift to rehearsal made a hasty U-turn as armed mobs closed in'
Brett Bailey went to Haiti to work on his play about the fall of a tyrant.
He never expected to get caught up in the real thing ...

Brett Bailey
Monday March 8, 2004
The Guardian

A month ago, when the threat of war was just a rumour, I arrived in Haiti
for a two-week stint to find a cast for the show I am writing and designing,
Vodou Nation. Until September last year, when I made my first trip here to
get a feel for the country, I had little idea of Haiti, aside from the
stereotypes: poverty, tyranny, vodou. I started visiting because Jan Ryan,
an English producer in love with the "vodou-rock" music of the
Port-au-Prince band RAM, had decided that we would make a dynamic
partnership in developing a stage show.

During the past months I have read a good deal about the island's culture,
trying to make sense of this convoluted nation. I decided to tell an
allegorical story of the rise and fall of a dictator (since Haiti has had
its fair share of those), beginning with Christopher Columbus's arrival on
the beach here in 1492, and ending more or less now, but with an image of
transformation and hope.

Out of 60 hopefuls, mostly dancers, who turned up for the auditions, I
selected seven to perform alongside the eight musicians of RAM. During the
workshops - conducted with the aid of an interpreter, my Creole being
limited to a few pleasantries - we worked on the dances and songs of the
various vodou deities, doing improvisation exercises to free the mind and
body. But as the shadow of civil war began to fall across the country, the
contrast between the rehearsal room and the streets became startling. Angry
red graffiti shouted from the walls. Time and again my lift to rehearsals
made hasty U-turns as armed mobs moved towards us. Everywhere roads were
cordoned off by concrete blocks, vehicle carcasses and rubble.

During the second week of my stay, all hell broke loose in the northern
towns of Gonaives, Saint Marc and Cap Haitien, as various rebel factions
rose up and slaughtered the stalwarts of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Tourists and Peace Corps workers left my hotel and were replaced by
reporters and photographers. We gathered around the bar of the grand old
Oloffson Hotel, on a hillside about a mile from the city centre, watching
CNN footage of towns falling. Gunshots peppered the night sky.

I decided to extend my ticket by five days so as to visit more vodou temples
and ghetto artists who fashion saintly icons out of junk, and to attend
carnival in the sleepy town of Jacmel. Everywhere I went I aimed my digital
camera at the crazy painted buses and the bright signage that adorns
buildings and shops. I bought icons, dolls and sculptures to serve as models
for the show's set and costumes.

I was supposed to return to Britain on February 25. But by that time, Haiti
had erupted into violence. Aristide's slum-boy thugs, the Chimer, were
manning roadblocks all over the city, robbing people at gunpoint. The
airport was a bun-fight with people desperate to leave, bribes being offered
to get to the front of the queue, American women weeping in frustration.
Possessing a postdated ticket, I was sent from pillar to post, and in the
end made my way back to the Oloffson while my aeroplane soared overhead. I'm
still here.

During the US occupation of Haiti (1915-1935), the Oloffson Hotel served as
a military hospital. My bedroom was the old surgery, decked out in green
tiles and with a hole in the centre of the floor where the blood drained
out. The room is named the Graham Greene Suite. The author stayed here while
writing his novel The Comedians, set in this hotel during the bloody reign
of Papa Doc and his Chimer, the Tonton Macoutes.

I never thought when I arrived here that I would witness drama with such
relevance to the show I am creating. I have loved the romance of writing a
play about this country in this suite, while a world gone haywire booms
around me. The energy has been electrifying.

Last Saturday afternoon I joined the press on a tour of the smoking city.
Down at the harbour warehouses, rampant looting had been going on all day.
The wall of the compound had been broken and people were scurrying across
the road with whatever they could carry: appliances, boxes, white sacks of
grain or flour. Some men brandishing rifles and handguns gestured at us to
go away. The air was bitter with the smoke of burning rubber and plastic.
The body of a man, shot dead earlier, lay partly covered with cardboard. All
Saturday night the city was apocalyptic with explosions and the baying of
thousands of dogs. My mind was blank, I couldn't write. I felt numb.

Sunday, news broke that Aristide had left the country. The outraged Chimer
were at large on the streets and terror chewed at the hotel. Where To go if
they scaled the wall? Reporters stayed indoors, wide-eyed. Midday we watched
helicopters landing at the palace and calm began to descend, though gunfire
continued to crackle and black smoke billowed from the city square.

Late Sunday night we heard the heavy thrum of US cargo planes overhead. I
accompanied journalists to the airport Monday morning where about 150 US
Marines had taken control. They were here to restore the rule of law, they
told us, until a UN team takes over. Later I witnessed the blazing arrival
of Chamblain and Phillipe and their soldiers in 4x4 vehicles in the city
centre. Jubilant people thronged the streets singing and dancing, throwing
posters of Aristide on bonfires while white doves flocked overhead.

Sitting with a local writer in the Oloffson on Friday, I asked, where are
the heavily armed rebel forces that overran the northern half of the country
two weeks ago? "They are here, keeping a low profile, waiting for an
opportunity to make a move," he replied. And Guy Phillipe, their young
commander - is he a local hero? "He is like a frying pan when there is a
fire," said my friend. "You grab it because it is the only thing available
to beat out the flames, but you don't want to display it on the
mantelpiece."

My performers were arriving for their first English lesson - to enable them
to get by in England during their three-month tour beginning in June. Their
smiling, eager faces brightened my spirits. In a country of so much pain and
heaviness, what is needed more than anything is acknowledgement, investment
and opportunity for growth. My conviction that Vodou Nation should be a
celebration of the country's endurance and prolific creativity, and that it
should end on a positive note, is stronger than ever.

. Vodou Nation opens at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, on June 1.
Details: 0113-213 7700.