Event

BITTER CASSAVA

Winner of

 The Best Village (Trinidad and Tobago) Prize for Playwriting-1979

The National Drama Festival (Trinidad and Tobago) Prize for Playwriting-1984

 

Centre for Creative and Festival Arts, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, will bring to life the award winning play “Bitter Cassava” to the stage for two weekends. The theatrical production will be hosted from March 28^th to 30^th and April 4^th to 6th 2008, at the Learning Resource Centre (LRC), The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

Written in 1979 by Lester Efebo Wilkinson, Bitter Cassava is a well crafted full length play with music and dance. It was first produced in November 1979 for the Folk Theatre Festival component of the Prime Minister’s Best Village Trophy Competition. History was made in 1984, as Bitter Cassava was the opening play for the Drama Festival. It was the first time that a Best Village play was presented as part of the Festival fare. The play won several awards that year including awards for playwriting, acting and choreography and went on to appear, in August of 1984, at the International Amateur Theatre Festival held in Los Angles, USA, in honor of the Olympics. 

Louis McWilliams, Director of the production and Lecturer at The University of the West Indies, boasts that he has admired Efebo Wilkinson’s work since 1980. He states that the play Bitter Cassava has potent messages in the plot, one of them being a very popular adage “what you sow is what you reap”.  According to McWilliams “the play highlights many aspects of life, such as the notions of revenge, love, superstition, placing particular emphasis on family life and how often children suffer from adult indiscretion.”

The public is invited to this event.