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ANGUS REID urges us to understand the persecution of Jason Arday from a political and historical perspective, and to see the victim in human terms
Theatre: Masterfully mordant
Set in Trinidad during Carnival, Mustapha Matura’s brilliant satire on colonialism gets a long overdue revival, says MAYER WAKEFIELD
Play Mas
Orange Tree Theatre
Richmond-upon-Thames
4/5
Re-releases of the classics Gypsy Rhumba and Buena Vista Social Club, and a stunning album by Palestinian artist Faris Ishaq
Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl
JOHN GREEN welcomes a valuable and incisive analysis of a world become hyperpolitical but without the mass movement institutions to represent it
THIS superb revival of Mustapha Matura’s Play Mas leaves you wondering why it has taken over 40 years for it to find its way back on to a British stage.
Paulette Randall’s simmering production certainly makes it worth the wait.
Matura’s finely crafted two-acter is a deeply felt work that delivers a historical and social documentation of Trinidad’s turbulent pre and postcolonial history. The action of both acts is played out during Carnival, the major event of the island’s calendar, when many of its population “‘play mas” — masquerade — in the streets of Port of Spain.
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