For nearly a month now, as part of my ambition to explore the culture and art of dear old Guyana and dive into vacation season I started attending theatre classes after weeks of consultation and advice from dramatists.
I feel it is integral in my job as The Scene’s entertainment writer to know my work inside and out, to know my projects and assignments. It can be burdensome and lazy me always slops from time to time, but I have a real interest in drama. Always have, always will.
Under private tutorship from Manager of the Theatre Guild, the incredible and free-spirited Jennifer Thomas I have started to learn the disciplines of the theatre, the business of the art and the aspects of drama. It is not just jumping on a stage and pretending to be something else. From day one’s lesson, she made me basically erase what I thought of drama and painted different ideas and when I sit and look around it is evident that we all are dramatists and life itself is drama.
One class with Jennifer and it crushed me to leave, of course the homework I was tasked to do was done right then and there during my spare time as I waited on the weekly Drama Workshop at the Kingston playhouse.
Over the years of writing about dramatists I have come to realise that the Theatre Guild and the Theatre Guild Theatre and drama arts workshop held weekly serve as the foundation for many theatre performers in the country. These are conducted by the brilliant, somewhat mad, but definitely genius Malcolm DeFreitas whose theoretical application makes the lessons of the performing art beautiful.
I wanted more! Although unplanned I am positive that Jennifer’s lessons go perfectly with Malcolm’s or maybe it is my enthusiasm that merges the two to make sense, but their lessons are incredible and very similar. You would expect it to be different but minutely so, one would change accents without even thinking about it and train you to use tones and expressions while the other one would jump in and out of character, do role plays and have you stretching; teaching how to breathe and balance – all essential. Same lessons, similar content, a little different in style but yet… the same beauty. I cannot get enough of either.
While Jennifer’s tutoring is one-on-one, and I actually prefer it that way for the in-depth approach and personal lessons, there is a certain bond that develops with your ‘classmates’ in the general workshop. I have already met quite a few fans familiar with my work (Ha!) and friends, some I knew before and others new to theatre. A really good bonding experience is walking to the park together after classes, goofing off and gaffing. Every now and again someone would have an idea for us to hang out together somewhere; friendships are created in this atmosphere.
Trust me, it is generally interesting people you will meet, we all have to be, eh? After all, we all are dramatists, at least dramatists in the making as we learn.
But then again you never really stop learning about the art, just as how you can never stop living your life. Death is not death, we live on or transform somehow and the same can be said for a dramatist whose reputation lives on or a play that would be shelved then revived.
I missed one week, and felt dead missing the boards of the stage beneath my toes and of course missing my cosy chair in Jennifer’s office (Although the last time I went I had to switch seats, someone presumably big had carved an obvious sinkhole).
Again, it must be repeated for the politicians, the young artists, my mother (Yes, You!) and all those who believe the stage is a play toy and the arts a hobby – No! No! No! And NO! Drama is life, it is the art of living more than one life and the stage is an entire world to some, a transformable landscape of everything imaginable. Drama can unify a society when all else has failed, and you will never know until you experience the philosophical and even business-like approaches to the art.
If you are interested in drama lessons and the theatre arts then I encourage you to attend the theatre workshop at the Theatre Guild Playhouse. The annex is open on Wednesdays from 07:00 hrs to 9:00 hrs for curious minds; the Guild has never turned anyone away. If a serious interest in drama at the Guild develops then an annual fee of $5,000 is encouraged for membership. (Jairo Rodrigues)
