The Guyanese play For Better For Worse by Leon Saul returned after a very long time to performance at the National Cultural Centre two weeks ago. It was produced and directed on this occasion by Max Massiah with what was generally a new cast.
This adventure thriller is not without historical importance to the Guyanese stage. For Better For Worse has its origins in a significant era in the rise of local drama at the beginning of the 1980s. It started life as a radio soap opera at a time when local radio drama serials had become popular, following in the footsteps of Francis Farrier’s The Tides of Susanburg. There had also been a few other radios dramas of one-act length and the still legendary reading by James Sidney of Mittelholzer’s suspenseful novel My Bones and My Flute.
Moreover, Leon Saul who was then an actor at the Theatre Guild became part of a movement that shifted from the Guild to build the professional theatre at the Cultural Centre. Ron Robinson and Gem Madhoo led that charge with The Link Show and a number of