The pantomime is an important and popular tradition in the Caribbean theatre. The production for the 2012-13 season, popularly known simply as ‘pantomime’ is Schoolahs by Barbara Gloudon, which has been running since December 26, 2012 at The Little Theatre in Kingston. It exhibits significant characteristics that reflect current trends in the theatre in the Caribbean and shifts in the pantomime itself that have been taking place during the past five years. But it also sustains other characteristics of a long-standing and deep-rooted tradition.
Schoolahs is the second pantomime of that name to be scripted by Gloudon and presented in this annual theatre production. The first in 1989 was a satire on the growing and in many ways worrying trends, personalities and behaviour patterns that had been developing in a sub-culture of teenagers in secondary schools. The word ‘schoolahs’ is Jamaican slang for schoolchildren which was new to the language in the 1980s, a creolised version of ‘schoolers’ and a rather linguistically complete expression that captures and characterises that young generation, their entire social being and idiosyncracies, along with a newly developed social phenomenon that was (is) the country’s school-age population.
The drama saw the humorous side of this social issue, which was normal for pantomime since it is traditionally a popular comedy, but through laughter commented on many aspects of it, particularly the folly of it, since pantomime is a satirical tradition. Twenty years later, Gloudon returns to the