“Do Somethin Addy Man!: A Promise of Bright Future for Ira Aldridge Players,” West Indian Gazette, October, 1962
Author attribution: Abhimanyu Manchanda (1919-1985) by Claudia Jones (1915-1964)
With one B&W Photo by Ivor Dykes (1924-2016) titled “The Night Club Scene”
Located January, 2016 by Dr Henry Stead, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Department of Classical Studies and English Department, Open University, https://henrystead.wordpress.com/ in the British Library, General Reference Collection, Mic. B967.
Transcribed by Michele Valerie Ronnick, Professor, Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, February, 2016.
At the end of the second evening’s performance, I went back-stage. There I met Herbert Marshall, who had devised, designed and directed the musical “Do Domethin’ Addy Man” or the Black Alcestis. Mr. Marshall––who had studied film-making under the world-famous Eisenstien[sic], worked with Pudovkin, and Joris Ivens, directed “Plant in the Sun” starring Paul Robeson and produced “Thunder Rock” with Michael Redgrave and Alec Guinness–– asked me what I though of the play. I felt rather embarrassed. However, very modestly, I replied, “It is a mixed bag.” In fact Mr. Marshall did not seem to disagree, as he was already going over––rehearsing some scenes, though the audience had hardly left the theatre or the artists had some respite.
There was much evidence of talent in the all-negro Company, formed after one of the greatest Negro actors, Ira Aldridge. George Webb, Pearl Prescod, Horace James, Elaine Delmar, Harold Holeness, Alastair Bain and Victor Mcunu to mention a few, left no doubt in anybody’s mind at the prospects of the future. And of course the compositions of George Browne on the popular West Indian folk lore as well as dance rhythms of Twist and Ch[a] Cha provided plenty of entertainment for the evening.
The play adapted by Jack Russell deals with a West Indian family in Camden Town. Around the eternal story of a woman’s (Alcestis) sacrifice revolve the characters made famous by Euripides, Pollo the narrator who finds the story running away with him; Thanatos, the property owner, to whose nightclub the black Alcestis, Elsie, goes to whore in order to save her family; and Addison (the Addy of the title) who comes to London to write his book, only to find that everyone expects him to “do something”: drive a bus or sweep a street. These and others like Mr. Eumenides the lay preacher who converts the nightclub into a church hall are involved in a succession of comic and touching scenes culminating in a ritual dance, still practised in the West Indies, and not so different from the Bacchic rites known to Euripides.
Author attribution: Abhimanyu Manchanda (1919-1985) by Claudia Jones (1915-1964)
With one B&W Photo by Ivor Dykes (1924-2016) titled “The Night Club Scene”
Located January, 2016 by Dr Henry Stead, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Department of Classical Studies and English Department, Open University, https://henrystead.wordpress.com/ in the British Library, General Reference Collection, Mic. B967.
Transcribed by Michele Valerie Ronnick, Professor, Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, February, 2016.
At the end of the second evening’s performance, I went back-stage. There I met Herbert Marshall, who had devised, designed and directed the musical “Do Domethin’ Addy Man” or the Black Alcestis. Mr. Marshall––who had studied film-making under the world-famous Eisenstien[sic], worked with Pudovkin, and Joris Ivens, directed “Plant in the Sun” starring Paul Robeson and produced “Thunder Rock” with Michael Redgrave and Alec Guinness–– asked me what I though of the play. I felt rather embarrassed. However, very modestly, I replied, “It is a mixed bag.” In fact Mr. Marshall did not seem to disagree, as he was already going over––rehearsing some scenes, though the audience had hardly left the theatre or the artists had some respite.
There was much evidence of talent in the all-negro Company, formed after one of the greatest Negro actors, Ira Aldridge. George Webb, Pearl Prescod, Horace James, Elaine Delmar, Harold Holeness, Alastair Bain and Victor Mcunu to mention a few, left no doubt in anybody’s mind at the prospects of the future. And of course the compositions of George Browne on the popular West Indian folk lore as well as dance rhythms of Twist and Ch[a] Cha provided plenty of entertainment for the evening.
The play adapted by Jack Russell deals with a West Indian family in Camden Town. Around the eternal story of a woman’s (Alcestis) sacrifice revolve the characters made famous by Euripides, Pollo the narrator who finds the story running away with him; Thanatos, the property owner, to whose nightclub the black Alcestis, Elsie, goes to whore in order to save her family; and Addison (the Addy of the title) who comes to London to write his book, only to find that everyone expects him to “do something”: drive a bus or sweep a street. These and others like Mr. Eumenides the lay preacher who converts the nightclub into a church hall are involved in a succession of comic and touching scenes culminating in a ritual dance, still practised in the West Indies, and not so different from the Bacchic rites known to Euripides.
