A production titled Performance 4: The Resurrection was presented by the National School of Theatre Arts and Drama at the Cultural Centre the week before last. It immediately succeeded Link Show 32 – the unprecedented midsummer edition of this annual satirical revue, a popular show with quite different audience appeal, and it certainly did not relate to the same sort of audience. But it was an important production, for reasons quite different from the significance of the Link Show and other forms of popular theatre.
Comments have already been made about the audience for theatre in Guyana. A production like Link Show 32 will draw from a cross section of that audience, while there are other popular shows which especially appeal to the popular crowd. Other types of productions might attract the attention of the middle class elite, whose point of view is that local theatre is of a deplorable standard and not worth their patronage.
One point worth repeating is that while there is very much to be deplored about local theatre, the Guyanese stage is far from bereft of talent and artistic merit. The problem is that if the critically discerning sector of the population refuses to visit the auditorium except when there is a
