Specialty CollectionGenre: BLACK NEWS SHOW
Description: TV SHOW, BLACK JOURNAL, WITH HOST LOU HOUSE, COVERAGE OF ISSUES CONCERNING BLACK AUDIENCE Initial Broadcast Date: February 29, 1972 30 minutes – Color Black Journal goes to Trinidad for an interview with poet-author Derek Walcott and for a performance of excerpts from his play “Ti-Jean and His Brothers” presented by the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Walcott is best known to American audiences for the Obie Award-winning play “Dream on Monkey Mountain,” which has been performed, among others, by the Negro Ensemble Company and on NBC. “Ti-Jean and His Brothers” concerns a young black boy’s struggle with “the white man, the Devil.” The Devil has challenged Ti-Jean and his two brothers, Mi-Jean and Cros-Jean, to make him feel human – “make him fell anger, rage and human weakness.” Anyone who fails will be eaten. Ti-Jean is the only on to outwit the Devil, who often assumes the disguise of a white planter or an old man of the forest. Traditional West Indian sounds comprise the musical score by the author and Andre Tanker. In his discussion with Black Journal, Walcott talks about folklore heroes common to the “cultural arc from the southern Mississippi basin down to Trinidad: the character Ti-Jean as an embodiment of the current generation of young people in Trinidad, and the ways in which he incorporates into the Workshop and into his plays the inherent qualities of the society and the land. He is seeking thereby to “develop something which is authentic, not imitative, and true to where we come from.” Walcott’s other plays include “Sea at Dauphin,” “Ione” and “Drums and Colors.” His collection of poems, published in “The Gulf,” led Chad Walsh of Book World to write: “Derek Walcott is already one of the half-dozen most important poets now writing in English. He may prove to be the best.” And while reviewing “Dream on Monkey Mountain,” critic John Lahr wrote: “The extraordinary vigor and surprise in Walcott’s language is almost too musical and sensual for our technological sensibilities. It is full of fresh air and raw wounds … Walcott’s theatre are a search for the authentic voice in his culture.” “Black Journal” is a production of NET Division, Educational Broadcasting Corporation Executive producer: Tony Brown
Keywords: INTEGRATION
