Product Review

Plays for Today contains three outstanding plays by three of the Caribbean's greatest playwrights, brought together for the first time in one volume. Ti-Jean and his Brothers is an uplifting St Lucian folk-tale. It tells the story of a poor family who dwell on the edge of a magical forest haunted by the devil's spirits. An Echo in the Bone is set during a traditional Nine-Night Ceremony held to honour the spirit of the dead. Shattering the sequential time in a series of dreamlike episodes, the play takes us back to the time of plantations and slavery - and the savage murder of the white estate owner. Who killed Mr Charles? The answers lie deep in the racial memory, they 'echo in the bone'. And Man Better Man is set in the giddy atmosphere of carnival. It is a rumbustuous, colourful comedy musical about stickfighters. With dance and song the battling troubadours and the calypsonian weave a tale of bravery, superstition and fraudulence.