At the recently-concluded finals of the Archdiocesan Catholic Youth Secretariat Drama Fest, eight groups, representing Carenage, Mayaro, Arouca, Jubilee Ministries, Malabar, Laventille, Vistabella, and the Touch of Christ Community respectively, provided non-stop entertainment to the capacity audience in St Mary’s Centenary Hall with tragicomic plots, idiosyncratic characters, popular language, and recognisable settings, some of the productions visibly raising the bar for amateur set design and prop construction [refer Vistabella’s “Galvanize Alley” and Malabar’s luxury family car respectively].

However, given the expressed aim of Drama Fest, namely, “to deepen the spirituality of the Youth of the Archdiocese as they come to know Jesus as the ‘Way, Truth and Life’ through their own expression in drama, dance and music”, the final competition proved to be as illuminating as it was entertaining.

For, in striving to communicate the competition’s theme – I DARE YOU!!! Follow the WAY, Speak the TRUTH, Live the LIFE…I DARE YOU!!!! – it seems that the eight performing groups used the style of realism not only to hold the interest of the audience, but also to argue for responsible Youth Ministry.

In the context of drama, realism is an artistic style that provides candid depictions of life on stage. Originating in European theatre of the mid-nineteenth century (around 1860), its focus was the observed, material world and contemporary social issues, playwrights such as Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw and August Strindberg being its most influential early proponents.

As such, the realism of the productions that appeared at the Drama Fest finals fits into a tradition that takes its language, characters and settings from contemporary life and highlights ordinary lives as being both significant and universal.

Accordingly, in the presentations at the finals of Drama Fest, contemporary life took the form of identifiable familial relationships and social situations: for example, the grandparents with an “own way” grandchild in Mayaro’s This Time That Time; the self-centered daughter trivialising and disrespecting her mother with impunity in Arouca’s Choices: A Chance to Change; an overwrought, grieving friend in  Jubilee Ministries’ Sad Sunday; the superficial Hilton family in Malabar’s Come Follow Me; the aimless group of friends in Laventille’s Trial Judgement; the unforgiving daughter in Vistabella’s Always There; and the vulnerable teenager in The Start…the End of my Life by the Touch of Christ Community.

However, the “realism” embraced by any work of drama is determined by the concept of “reality” that informs the work. In other words, a play, like any other work of art, constitutes an attempt to represent what is perceived as real, such perception not being static but relative to its age and culture. 

Furthermore, it is the recognition of one “reality” competing against another “reality” in the “realism” of the work that engages the audience, the contention between possible realities also evoking the necessary dramatic tension.

Against that background, it would seem that in the presentations at the finals of Drama Fest, reality was represented by the material, concrete world, the dysfunctional underside to that world forming the setting for the generational clashes, teenage rebellion and family crises that the presentations examined.

As such, although the youthful protagonists in the eight presentations were shown to be dominated by the reality of contemporary lifestyles, urges and attitudes, they were also imaged as the real casualties of a world where authority is weak/absent/misguided and integrity/respectability is questionable.

By locating their characters within the swirl of those competing realities, the presentations thus seemed to suggest not only that responsible youth guidance is lacking, but parents, grandparents, and the social institutions as a whole must be held accountable. Such perspective is epitomised in the winning presentation from Malabar Youth Ministry, namely, Come Follow Me.

Vistabella youths perform on stage

Using the word “follow” as its guiding metaphor, the one-act presentation followed the implicitly dysfunctional, middle-class, Hilton family through crises emanating from their deceptive lives.

By the end of the play, after the truth has been spoken and foibles have been remorsefully acknowledged, the members of the Hilton family agree to follow the Way, having become enlightened about living life differently. Come Follow Me is thus centered on double-standards and uses the situation of the Hiltons to plead for responsible living and by extension, responsible youth guidance.

Hence, the action of Come Follow Me begins with the family in attendance at Sunday-morning Mass, father, mother and two teenaged daughters creating a striking picture of stability and wholesomeness.

This image begins to unravel as soon as Mass is finished for, as the Hilton family exits the Church, the mother becomes catty about someone with whom she had just been pleasant, and then complains about the priest’s homily although she has just complimented him about it and has used the occasion to invite him for Sunday lunch.

Consequently, by the time the family leaves the churchyard in their luxury sedan, it is clear that looks are deceiving, an insight made more poignant by the mother’s haughty attitude to the household help when the family arrives home. Soon, the father’s status as a medical doctor becomes evident as he has to leave home immediately to attend to an emergency.

In the meantime, the difference between the two daughters begins to surface: one plans to study with a friend who will visit later, while the other gets engrossed with a television show as soon as she arrives home.

Later in the play, that latter daughter will have to tearfully acknowledge her participation in a soft-porn video at school because the mother is informed by telephone that the occurrence, with names mentioned, had made the news.

When the scene shifts to the father’s medical practice, he is depicted as a quickie abortionist, his current emergency being the friend, who is to visit his home later to study with his elder daughter, the element of grace, goodness and straightforwardness in the play, and the catalyst for the family’s conversion. 

The crises of double-standards in the Hilton family were thus revealed one by one, the unmasking process underscoring the depths to which deception had permeated the fabric of the family even as it helped to convey the passage of time.

The luxury car, the Church pews, the furnished living room and dining area in the Hilton family house, the medical examination table, all contributed to the play’s highly realistic setting, and together with the costuming and the language heightened the discord between appearance and the reality of the actions of the Hiltons.

In fact, the appearance/reality divide also permeated the other presentations in the finals of Drama Fest as follows: a child’s sing-a-long game becomes therapeutic, facilitating the recall of harmful experiences by young school girls (Carenage); a young man is beaten by his “friend” (Mayaro); a bandit named “Vice” changes and then dares his wayward girlfriend to go to church with him (Arouca); a young man cannot accept the death of his friend (Jubilee Ministries); a deceased from driving under the influence thinks he is hallucinating when facing Judgement (Laventille); a mother tries to shield her daughter with the truth but is rejected and unforgiven (Vistabella); a good-looking young man is an HIV carrier (Touch of Christ Community).

 Overall then, the presentations seem to have enabled their young and youthful participants to express their feelings on issues of leisure, bullying, bereavement, peer pressure, death, parental conflict, drinking, drug-use, and pre-marital sex, issues that require responsible youth guidance and by extension, responsible Youth Ministry.

It is therefore noteworthy that a recent article entitled “Working towards more vibrant youth ministry” opens with the assertion that “one of the most persistent complaints of young people is the feeling of being misunderstood by adults” (Catholic News July 8 2007,).

Indeed, the assertion highlights the foremost reason for ensuring that discussions of the final presentations of Drama Fest are immediately included in the programme for Archdiocesan catechetical training and workshops. Such discussions will not only show the young people that their views are worthwhile and respected, but they will also facilitate a meeting of minds seeing that the young people will have to be part of the discussions.

Finally, the discussions will enable catechists to arrive at a common understanding of the catechetical dimensions of the presentations, and how they could be imparted, thus ensuring the meaningful attainment of the objective of Drama Fest.

Rose-Ann Walker, lecturer in the Department of Language and Linguistics, UWI, St Augustine, teaches Caribbean Literature and English at the Regional Seminary.