The Inspector, an original play written and directed by Simeon Chris Moodoo and performed by students at Naparima College, won eight awards at the 2016 National Secondary Schools Drama Festival and topped the festival on points.
Its author Moodoo teaches at Point Fortin West Secondary School and is a consultant with Naparima College on The Inspector. He’s an actor as well as playwright.
The Inspector will be representing T&T at the Caribbean Secondary Schools Drama Festival, which is planned for Antigua later this year.
The awards for the November 2016 local competition were distributed January 17.
The awards included the Zeno Constance Award for Most Original Script, the Victor Edwards Award for Directing, the James Lee Wah Award for Outstanding Production, the Mark D Moment Ltd Award for Stage Management, two Outstanding Actor Awards, a Supporting Actor Award, and certificates for Music and Best Ensemble Performance.
Moodoo was overjoyed to have won the Victor Edwards Award for Directing and a Zeno Constance Award for Most Original Script.
The teacher was inspired to write the play after the 2015 jailbreak in Port-of-Spain and the Vindra Naipaul-Coolman trial of the accused murderers. He had put it aside, but finished it for the festival because he couldn’t find a play with only roles for boys in it. Moodoo said he wanted to explore why a man who had broken out of prison would turn himself in, as happened in 2015.
The two main characters, the Inspector and Monster, meet on the San Fernando Wharf as a manhunt is continuing for the last escaped prisoner. Although Monster is disguised, the Inspector recognises him, but does not arrest him immediately. Through the use of storytelling and flashbacks, the Inspector finds out how Monster came to be called, and act like, a monster.
Moodoo said that working with the students he felt a mixture of frustration and awe at their growth. The two main actors, Daniel Baptiste and Justin Lee, who played the Inspector and Monster, respectively, are Sixth Form students who came second and third in the Performing Arts Unit Two Cape Exam in the Caribbean.
“Working with those two boys in particular was interesting and rewarding in the sense that they’re two different types of actors: one was more naturally talented and the other one was more skilled in that once he worked on it, he got it, and it was good seeing the two of them, with their two different strengths, work together, fuelling off each others’ energies.”
Most of the other actors were Form One students who had never seen a stage before.
Moodoo said, “I promised the Form One students an extra ten per cent in their final exams if they participated in Drama Festival, because only a very few people went on to do performing arts at a CXC or Cape level, and so I wanted to give them a love of theatre early.”
He said what made the process enjoyable overall was that everyone contributed to the creative process. “The boys were very co-operative and I asked them to create a lot and I edited and moulded everything.
“With the musicians, I also gave them full licence to create what they wanted and just told them what would and wouldn’t work. It wasn’t just me telling them what to do, but we tried different things on stage and eventually came up with the final product. The highlight of the process for me was the creation of a rock version of the National Anthem which ends the play, because the musicians just came together and created it spontaneously.”
Moodoo said he was glad to see the students’ reactions when they won, especially Baptiste and Lee, who had gotten to the semifinals in previous performances. Moodoo pursued Theatre Arts at CXC and a Theatre Arts Degree at UWI, St Augustine. He acted in Willie Chen’s Freedom Road in 2013, 3Canal’s More Love in 2014, and Ayinde’s Chalkboard’s Doll’s House and Iere Theatre’s Sundar—A Love Story in 2015. He has written the plays Under the Mango Trees and The Inspector, and is working on another play.
The Inspector will go on to represent T&T in the Caribbean Secondary Schools Drama Festival, as well as a school tour. Following this, Moodoo said, he wants to rewrite and add to the script and take it out to the public.
“The focus of the play is to call out corruption. I think more people need to see it, as the content is important, especially in our current socio-political climate.”
