It is always very interesting to study the trends and characteristics of theatre in Guyana, as indeed it is to survey the rest of the Caribbean. Against the background of a current dominance of comic drama on the contemporary stage over the whole Caribbean, there is an upsurge of searching social realism in new Guyanese plays. Then in the middle of this, it was very important to look into the meaning of a few significant choices of play entered in the recent National Drama Festival in Guyana.
How did these fit into contemporary trends? Or did they go against the current? What is the meaning of these choices? What we will now go on to try to find out is why these questions lead us to consider what are the most popular plays in Guyanese drama.
First of all, the ‘odd’ entries in the drama festival: two of them were long-standing, established Caribbean plays, both classics in the region’s drama. Derek Walcott’s Pantomime is one, belonging to the elite ‘canon’ of Caribbean drama, which also happens to be one of the most popular. It was produced several times by Walcott himself both in the West Indies and in the
