 Okay, I think we're about to begin. We could all sit if we wish to be seated. So welcome to the Caribbean Theatre Project. My name is Candice Thompson-Zachery and I'm the External Artistic Advisor on the project. For the last two days we've been viewing staged readings of plays that have been translated from French into English from French Caribbean playwrights. And tonight we're in for La Javelin or The She-Devil written by Daniele Francisque who's here from Martinique with us. Daniele was born in 1972 in Martinique and grew up in the suburbs of Paris after studying languages and cultural management. She turned to the arts and trained as an actor, singer and dancer. Besides her film work she also appeared on stage in over 40 theatre and dance productions in France and in the Caribbean. After returning to Martinique in 2010 she founded her own theatre company Track Exploring Movement on Stage. Tonight the stage reading will be directed by Oceana James who's also here. Oceana is a St. Croix born interdisciplinary theatre artist who is based in New York City. Her work has been shown here in the Virgin Islands and in Europe. She has most recently collaborated with Sybil Kempston and Paloma McGregor and is working on a new piece to be shown in Oslo in 2020. And now I bring to you She-Devil. That she's a nice teacher who appears a tiny room. That she shows up alone at facilities on the side of the road or on the river banks. They say her mesmerizing beauty inflames everyone's desire. They say she is a fearsome seductress who relentlessly enslaves men to her charms without mercy. Dragging them in her wake to their ultimate death somewhere at the foot of a cliff. They say that beneath the long dress she wears that outlines her voluptuous curves she conceals a hope. We'll be tied anyone who discovers it. He shall lose his soul. Red. Alone on a city sidewalk a man is wearing a costume and the half mask on his face. Ladies and gentlemen there he was a poor devil in the midst of a throng of people dancing. A man who cried with no tears, who laughed without joy, who lived without heart. But no one saw it, not even him. And no one gave a damn. Neither did he. His two shining eyes had long been sightless and his living body had long been a walking corpse that never felt the slightest pain. He didn't give a damn, I tell you. That day our man had sung dance cussed under a shower of confetti carried by the colorful, masked, costume wave of carnival which come nightfall had vomited him like a drunk onto the sidewalks of the jubilant city. So oh, I am syrupman. To try him is to taste him. To taste him is to savour him. To savour him is to miss him already. You can munch on the earth's crusts. You can taste the bulk of men, but you won't find a hotter. More beautiful, more coconut, crystal specimen than this year's sweet syrupman. Syrup, sweet as syrup, contain a single grain of salt, six feet tall, 100% original. For my father was honey and my mother was caramel. And I was born under the shade of a caramel sky between the others of an eternal hour. I am a man who delights in fighting, no need to enter into negotiation or strow down the boulevard of passion in order to crash into you here. For me puts you in evolution and soles confusion in your emotions. Look out me ladies dancers, virginal dames. My erogenous zone is a rubber with supernatural powers. Take heed when they're touching it in order to avoid an explosion or the pleasure of immodern consumption. Hey, stay, stay there. Stolen goods are mine. You'll see gluttony is a sin that tastes like candy. And I'm hungry. I'm hungry for virgin to devour and strip. Crane a little candy to clean through my taste buds. Hankering for the flesh of a hibiscus coat with syrup. Hungering for some woman's sugar to devour, digest. Defecate. Say oh, sticky sweet man to sip and swallow around in your mouth to try and witness, to taste him, to taste him, is to savour him, to savour him, is to miss him. All right, so I have a drunken fool, a hungry fool, who didn't want to be on his own one evening during carnival. He danced, gesticulated, raised high in the streets of town. And even though the mass flock had since moved on, loneliness had continued to well up inside of him. My mouth was out there looking out into the void, striding along the desertic stream, wool whistling all the well-rounded silhouettes on his path, on his search for a solitary down-and-out attention. And last but not the least, an aberration in my field, a woman is walking dressed in a flaming red, her face is covered by mass. There, there she is. I tell you, I see her. Oh! Over there, a romantic little whisper of a woman with the skin of a sapodilla tree. A mouth like a Mandarin. There, there, nostrils flared. I already inhaled a scent. Fragrance of a girl in solitude. Of a girl in need of love. Of a girl in need of love. I'm already salivating. I salivate, and I doubt. My weapons of easy seduction I deplore my desire, and pounce on the pretty girl. Practition number one. Mutualize the target. One. Identify the target without frightening the dancing. Take aim with my compulsive testosterone. Notice how she wanders, how she daydreams blissfully, unaware that I'm closing in on her. Two. Arm yourself. Polish one of my pheromone bullets to inflame her passion. That's it. Aim on there, baby. In a moment, your life will be changed forever. Planned by projectile desire and the retina of the sweet and sour dreams streaming. From your pupils, I feel that she's already mine. Seeing how her shell is cracked, how she quimmers with desire, and how hard is the flutter. There, the hunter game is excited. Clearly at bay. And as it is in a state of shock, it's time to speed things up. I blast my fake smile. Boom. I spray her with my synthetic bedroom vines. I throw her three or four mystical flashes, and immediately notice that my prey is supplied. I see that she's convulsing. There are wild kelp shivers. Boom. Here comes that fatal blow. Advance with the triumph of walking, and with the royal gesture, seize the door of this breath. It's brilliant with moans. Ladies and gentlemen, observe. However, I become a man who's heaven-seated, who has fallen from the sky with my sugar syrup honey. See how my crazy coconut sugar becomes as extinguished in its sacrificial ritual? Make her drink the rainbow. What do you think? How about a drink? Why not? Zombie syrup cocktail, a radiance to her gaze, a sliver of laughter, a shalom sound, as she says. Too easy. That's a practical lad. I race to the bar, and with my teeny agile fingers, I perform a magic trick. Avocado and a tiny drop of venom in a rainbow cocktail, a trap set for the lips of the damsel, with the never-ending smell that I say to her, and she drinks. Her lips kiss the cold glass as she drinks sexily, abundantly, slowly consuming the obi-a spell which, without the slightest hint of violence in just a moment, she drinks while I elegantly distill the divine drip of my syrup words in your air-chop. Your eyes set me on fire, baby. Heat up my veins, sweetie. My heart is facing my duty, honey. Like a fair of red in my chest. It's no joke, baby. Your fatal beauty kills me. Tonight, you'll be the queen of my curve-up, and I will be your star, you do-do honey. Ah, so mount my gardens. Come on, now don't be shy. Tonight, we're riding. Blah, blah, blah, blah. As a good lover, joker, and ladies' man, I run the show, and she laughs. She warms up, laughs, and sits, laughs without knowing that little by little, I make you laugh. Which makes the stars in her eyes shine before. But suddenly, her pupils, her precious glittery pupils, twitch within her retina. Suddenly, the flaming, the flaming of pupils, waivers, and jimmy inspires within the almond gaze of her distress. All of the sight of beauty, beauty with faded pupils, stumbles and collapses in the arms of Prince Charming. The ironing is closed. I take number three. Then walk on a mission, put through your body, those two eyes of yours slumber. I hold them for you, but there is nothing better than an empty bag that used to unload the bitterness of a last smear. Need to fall for you, fall in love with Charming. No need to open yourself, or open yourself like a flower unfurling, showing no remorse. It is I who fill away your body's alloying, and without your permission, and thus dissipate myself. The stars in your eye fade before my phenomenal drossin. So, secretly, embrace your horizontal knack. Now we can embark as a missionary to colonize your beautiful jewels. And like an infant out, profane the constellations of his skin. Till tomorrow, until dawn, and just before April, the great king will have seen his period, period. When you part the curtains of your numbed eyelids, the eye of your incubus, your neck zombie, your doorless eye, the bag of arms have longed since taken leave. I would have left without a gesture, without a caress, evaporated without so much as leaving an address. I'd be nevertheless discharged in your violated interior, the venomous trace of my poisonous cellar. Poison from a bad seed, poison like gangrene, largal lifeblood, and the nine new revolutions were so misfortune between your bitter sighs, forbidden fruit, face of night, crowned as food, with no boots or heritage. Beautifully grown among your screemed rage. So, I am the serumine, souless sniper, ravisher of women, male papaya, planter of open fruit, pounded by pelvic thrusts to stolen wounds. Mine are the lady loves, ready to be sniffed. Mine are the heady hibiscuses, ready to make me swoon. Mine are the chicks, ready to plunge you into ecstas. Sweet sugar man to deal on the street, sugar man to pimp out, sugar man to incoxicate, to try him as to, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, princess, you're not asleep. The prize attack isn't hard, neither the man is tired. Then in a single gesture she activates the music and starts dancing in a wild and friendly manner. She's a gentleman, there are words, like an emasculated macho. Like an unpunished junkie, there I tell you, like a flood-booster. A red tiger who appeared out of nowhere had just kissed me, the unarmed hunter, with a red hot pepper mouth. She sat by a gentleman like a breeze, no one in before her, not one I tell you, and ever. He approaches the macho. Audacious princess, smoldering princess. Are you provoking me or am I dreaming? Take my lips. You dance like a goddess, you know. I saw sparks fly through your black heels. What is the little name that honors you, black boy? Princess. There we are, Caroline. No, no, no, tonight I bet your name is Tululu. Princess Tululu. Oh, Lady Tululu, if you prefer a winged mystery woman, it's a tune that the Tululu's are as secretive as a hermit crab. But you, my princess, you're not like the rest of them. You deny anything. I see your whole body, every day itself, your mysterious face. A real anatomical bomb, my princess. Has anyone of you told you that? My god, a princess. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The woman's a good one. You're a crabby one. She's different as a boy. Ordinarily, at this point, the unripe ones soften, and the dry ones eat you. But this one, you know what I'm saying, goodbye? You are the queen of the savages, my word. The queen of the fears. You know, we could have calmly traded a few words and gulped down a rainbow before saying goodbye. Stay with me if you like. If you like, I'm sure the two of us could have gotten the moon. The explosion of our laughter is scattering around like confetti under the dark pedicle of the tropical night. We suddenly could have flashed out of bed of unwise, like fireflies in the skies of our desires. Don't you think? It cuts you up for mothers. When you're as charming as you are, you need to know how to be true. You're aimed with a smile by answering it when I speak to you, by laughing, reacting. For more, she won't answer. But when the door to a woman's lips are closed like that, it's not that she doesn't want to answer, or that she's not interested, but she really wants us for me to keep speaking. You're breaking my back, and you're breaking my heart. You're killing me. I'm at the edge of my grave. You know? It's like a rotting jackfruit. I'm responsible for the woman who continues to walk. Hey, hey, hey. I'm talking to you. You cut my words at least in the shape of your spine. My silver words saw me in your watered stone. And my kula-tura, loosing the cadence of your steps. Can't you even think? Looking dog eyes at me? You're so uptight. As unwavering as, and as unforgiving as a bolt of lightning tearing up the solitary night sky. As unwavering as the sadness hanging from the tip of the despairing branch-tree. Imagine this. You and me, our beads of sweat, dripping down the melted breeze. Our fever burning up the noise of our lips curled after the storm of our clouds. Let's leave now, sugar. Let's fly into paradise. Start by removing your mask so I can see your beautiful moon face. Stop keeping your tongue to yourself, honey. It makes me crazy. Come, my sugar, come to me so I can make my, my, my teeth healthy. The party is now a world away. There is no one who is thumbing upon us down among the trees. Take off your mask. Together we'll be fine. I'll adjust it. Trying to engage with this woman was as difficult a challenge as climbing the tallest mountain backwards. I walked the walk so much that I ended up walking around in circles over and over again. And during that time I chewed over my useless words until they fell apart. And at no time did the heart switch trapped in a single verbal breadcrumb. Hey, tiger. Hey, tiger queen. I've been talking to you for a while but my words evaporate like smoke from the nape of your neck. Walking by me, rolling your hips. Got a word? Not even a tiger's word. Not even a display of courtesy. Not even a swear word to the joke who's trailing you. It's disdainful. Yes. Yes, disdainful. You're a, you're a damn, a damn little female devil of a woman. You don't even want to walk around following her like this all night. Here I am, beggin' like a dog. Like a beggar. I guess I got no pride left. I may be a joke. You'll kill me. That's what it is. But I'm, but I'm inspired. And now she'll encroach you. Yeah, after dancing depravically and arousing a starry man all keeping warm. Queen Tattoo is now feeling guilty of rushing home to her prison before the stroke of midnight. But it's carnival, isn't it? There's no schedule. And anything goes. Forget about your husband at zero o'clock on the dot. He'll be my man. And I'll be your starman when tomorrow will be forgotten. Simply, practically, and secretly between two trees on a carpet of leaves. Let's do it. Before this is just a long, long night. So that's it. You know I have the balls. Go hang yourself deep inside me, the asshole of the night. As for me, I'm getting out of here you fat and bitchable woman. Having lost his sense of direction he returns and tries to go in a different direction. He comes back. Whoa, whoa, whoa, where am I? I don't recognize this room. Which way should I go? Oh, woman, I'm talking to you. What is this strange path you have led me on? He was white in the blue punctures and black skies. Surprise. The man is now standing still. They are used in the forest. What's going on? What the hell are we doing here? A second goer on the road and now we're defying. Excuse me? You talk too much. What are you talking? Get undressed now. What? Your costume? Take it off. I said take it off. I'll take off my clothes if I want to. So why do you think I brought you here? You brought me here? I don't want to. You brought me here for this? I want you. You want me out of all this silence? Everything off. I got it. You tell me all. You escape. I follow you. You flee. I talk to you. You ignore me. All of that to make my temperature rise. Hook me to the line of desire. You're on fire. You are. You didn't see that volcano hit me in the chest. Stay away. You're cool. You're not yet. No. You're not, you little thing. You want me to do a little strip to ease it. You'll be watching behind that mask. Take it off. I want to see your face. I want you first. You're driving me crazy. But growing so much fire, you're going to end up blowing it out. You're here for a reason. Then you? So quit showing off. Isn't it my body that you are? So offer yourself for my pleasure. Entirely. Wait, wait, wait. What about you? Aren't you offering me anything? You know, you're on a weird trip there. I see. You want it all. Yet you give nothing. What do you want? You're the one who's getting what you want. You're the one who's getting what you want. Are you provoking me? Are you provoking me? Look who you are. The Lord in the woods. The horny feral dog. Things can go badly, so stop provoking me. Shut up. Take off your clothes and lie down there. Look at the woman on you. A chick with balls, is that it? This new breed of a woman. Who under the pretext of equality between the sexes believe that she can do whatever she wants. And becomes the enemy of men to the point of castrating them in order to transplant their testicles between their legs. Like a war choking. But what war, huh? For what? What do you want balls between your legs since they're already well attached between ours? If you want me to lie down, start by touching yourself. What do you take me for? A garden? That's just here to be planted. Your seed? That's what you are. You're putting a damn on things and there's nothing left for me to do there. It's the same thing. He tries to go in a different direction. He returns again. What do you regret that you let me on? I can't find my way back. Show me the way. I said show me the way. What, have your ears closed up? A path. I'm asking for my way. All paths are cut. And this woman going permanently insane. Covered or uncovered, all paths are unmistakable. Oh, I'm getting that. Next, I'll pick you for a jerk. I'll be running to the left, to the right, up and down. All paths are the same and bring me back to the same spot. Is it you who dragged me here? Tell me how to get out of here. Where are you going, little man? The night was just the beginning to get away. A kidnapping, this is a kidnapping. You're kidnapping me, isn't that it? What are you doing? Help me, I'm prisoner, help me! You're the one who followed me without being forced. You're the one who poured your syrup words on my footstep. All right, all right. But now I want to get out of here and go back to there. Get back to this trail of stray dogs. Not like that. What do you mean not like that? I mean your path. The one you move across to find your way. Here she goes again. There is only one path that will take you back to the place from where you came. The place I came from, that's exactly where I'm trying to go right now. Let me pass. Not like that? Who the hell told me to follow this lunatic? Here she has gone spooning her brains on a midnight server blocked by a vertical wall of trees stretching as far as the dark side of the sky. What? No, no, no, no. What are you doing? Wasn't it you who wanted to explore my landscape? Not anymore. That's what I told you a little while ago. I don't want it anymore. You can't take back what you already said. Yes, yes, yes. But I was caught up in the heat of the moment. You understand? The Bacchanalian booze infused confetti flying festival of female flesh atmosphere. I followed you like a while ago but I was kidding around. The festival female made my tongue loose. You should weigh your words carefully before you speak. If your man's words don't have any value, you're worthless. It's no reason to disrespect me. Don't get carried away. You're not any better, you bloody bitch. You're the one who came along shaking your caboose under my nose. You're the one who got me all worked up. And you're the one who wants to unceremoniously undress me. And you're the one telling me I'm ruthless. Well, all you have to do is lie down there with your mask and I'll show you if I'm worthless or not. What? What engine? More inches. Do you calculate your value in terms of 4 inches of ticklish mouth? No, 8 inches. You're famous supernatural sensual booze? Lie down over there. I say you won't be laughing in a moment. Aren't you going to ask me to drink something first? Your rainbow poison? No need to. Don't stick your mouth straight to the source. So you can take it back to jump me like all the others. To drown your eyes among the leaves. A spedic little man. I'll break you instill your precious pearl. And you'll be off the realms by the day. Beautiful, sir. Yes, sir. I am the sir of my life. I have honor, value, and all my vigor will silence you and make you quiver. I'll hold your undisciplined majorette's body. I'll sink my teeth into your red pepper flesh and I'll tame your Spartacus like waves so that against your will I can colonize your units. Yes, sir. I am the sir of mine. I have value bigger in all my pride. The acidic poison that sets inside between your volcanic rocks will lead to bloom. The illegitimate poop of my bitterness will bloom. What is a sugar man's word? What is the value of a masked man, a frustrating man, a victimized man? What is a lying man's word? What is the value of a horror man, a raping man, a love man? What is a raping man's word? A man without faith? A man without a shore? A man without an anchor? What is a desert man's word? What is the value of a pipe dream man, a wholehearted man, a castrated man, pathetic braggart? Do you think you are a hunter when in fact real hunters look their prey in the eye and tremble alongside them for a moment? No, you are a thief. You break into women's body. You take because you have nothing to give. You're empty. Your mouth is full of words, but your eyes are desert. Just like your existence. Desert. You don't know why you're alive. You sow seeds of your own of brilliance in the bellies of women out of fear that you will appear. But you don't exist. You're nothing. You're empty. Quiet. You are not eternal romantic victims. Not your angels, not your saints, not your prostitutes. We are not sensitive who need to be rescued. Not your minks, not your masters or inferior objects. We are not just uterates of giving birth. Nor trophy, nor doll, nor private prostitutes. Who are you? I am everything but your past. You're such a woman. I'm going to smash your face. Target knocked down. Am I imagining it? My name. Say my name. But I don't know you. You know who I am. Me? I... I know you. Are you trying to tell me that? I'm sorry. My name? Daniel. He tried. A virgin name. Sylvie. My mystery name. I want my swamp name. Give me my wild woman name. I don't know any wild woman. Then? Shwap with me among the four dead and past. That's impossible. Why are you hidden behind a mask? How much is a mask woman worth? Woman's stock will lose her mask. Now turn around. Let me see your ugly wild woman face. She turns around and slowly gets her dress. Allowing her folks to be seen. Oh. Every year. Where are you creeping off, so little man? I said back off. Back off. Go away. Too late. I've already kidnapped you. I said back off. Tell me who I am. Give my name. Say it out loud. You're the one. The one whose name should never be uttered. Then you know who I am. Back off. Say my name. Never. Please protect me. Back off. I said back off. That my試 e devil turned off the lord. Is turned black against the white side. Kerabelle that's what they call me. Keraballe. It's like a caregivers to your friends. To your friends. It's like a tiger like the status. Keraballe. The girl Bloodㅎ The queen Mi. Because the two will have heard the name of him. 합니다. Meagent. HEY. Nocturnal rapture, roaring under the black moon, I dig my shepherd's talons into the wild flesh of your human desires. Black Venus, with the mysterious lips, cannibal succubus of your sleep with my jagged fangs, I gnaw the secret lifeblood of your unconscious fantasies. Jabaleth, that's what they call me. Jabaleth like adultery, like a polar keg, like millinery. Jabaleth, that's the name that I've been given. Jabaleth like lily. Carmen, Kali, like Erzuli. And if you have the audacity to follow the swing of my hips in search of liberty and promise of tenderness, if you are a man dog obsessed with the obscene desire who seeks to take down my moon to display it with your trophies on high, if you wish to push me down, discharge yourself before flipping away to make your testicles male pride for them, know that it is I who ties an invisible leash, I who call you up to a hallucinatory height like a boi-boi puppet to you yourself please. Jabaleth, that's what they call me. Jabaleth like female, like rebel, like cruel. Jabaleth, the name that I've been given. Jabaleth like wild, like implacable. Animal woman. Jabaleth, three times your lips have said my name. So here I am standing before your eyes. Asian gentlemen, he had nevertheless been forewarned. Stop chasing women as if they were prey. The Jabaleth will end up taking you away. But our mind didn't believe those stories passed out on a time when dogs still barked from their tails. He wanted to continue to defy the universal laws of veracity. Then the next thing you know, there he is caught like a game bird, captured at the darkest midnight by a formidable Jabaleth. Trapped like a victim among the poor parts of a haunted corner. I beg you, Queen Jabaleth, let me go. You summoned me and now you run away? I wasn't looking for a woman like you. Like me? A monster who laws men only to devour them. What better way than to face a monster who devours women? I know, don't play with words, Jabaleth. You really devour them. They say that they are found dead or dismembered at the bottom of a cliff, or mysteriously evaporated. The lucky ones have their brains unravelled. I've never killed anyone and that's for you, you're a monster, a real monster. It's been a long time since I appeared among men. They had relegated me to the guts of their darkest faculty. I was too desirable, but too indomitable. That's too monstrous, but today I came out of the darkness because you searched for me in the mire of your fear. So what is it that you want? I don't want anything, I just want to get out of here. No one can take their leaves without making a sacrifice of some kind. All those who failed to follow this wound had their nets broken. Damn it. Who told me to follow this demon? That's all I am. The needle of your compass gets overworked by the swinging of my hips, just by size. Never have I captured anyone with such ease in the dead of night. You hypnotize me. Yes, you hypnotize me. I wasn't myself. Oh, on the contrary, you are exactly yourself. Everyone knows who you are, snake woman. A child in chance and disarmed men. You possessed me. You blighted me. And is that why you're trembling? No, I'm trembling because it's cold. That's a lie. Fear makes your barrel members tremble. I'm not afraid of you. Do you really believe that an old witch like you is going to make me? Oh, go get so close to me. Why did you drag that damn wolf over to me? What did you really want? Get off my path. You can marry a woman. Go to the Maya. Go die in the Maya of your backward deformity. I said, animal, woman, bitch, woman, horse. You have the devil in your body. You are the devil. You can only be louse of an unholy woman like you will dirty. You woman, you nothing but a flesh and bone in the hooves amongst a heart, you with a stinking pussy who rise bent to battle to borrow them between her thighs. You deformed the world. You damn woman, disfigured men. Stop defying me with your look full of flame. Do you want to devour me as well? What are you thinking? You thinking that you aren't? Yes, ma'am. This woman is a nightmare. This guy is a real woman. You want to leave this place without me tearing out your brain? Yes, I am counting on leaving with my brain intact. Then you must give me a kiss. You already stole the kiss earlier. That should suffice. Give your mouth a supplier that looks like I can still recall. No, no, I don't want to. This time it's up to you to kiss me. I won't feel it from you. Give it to me. I don't want to. Look at me and give it to me. Stop your eyes or they're devouring me. No, sir. Kiss me. Let my lips kiss you. No. Feel your pain. No, I can't do it. I can't. Come closer. Let me make you do cheap puppets of a man's sore. Calm and let the tongue of my flames devour your process. Back an alien man's mass. Come on. Kiss my burning lips. Remove your prune costume. Come closer. Allow your distorted man's skin to be consumed. Let my fire bite down to the bone to the shell of your life. Feel closer. Come here so my lips can fetch up this suffering scar. Irresistibly, the man kisses the jug less. Suddenly suffocating, the man struggles with his mask. In a cloud of noise, voices are raised, used, and cursed from all directions. Your papa is a nice zombie. A doorless. What? How can you allow a woman to give you orders? A man is a woman who has a sleep or a rear-handing, a face, a whip or a rooster. In duology, the dominant male is the individual and the root of the animal because the other members follow whom they obey and fend for themselves. Tuff in your nuts, baggage! Ugh! You don't need a papa. I'll straight you. Eat in a woman. I'm rich but he's up here. But that's despite a woman's mind. Beware! He's up on fire. In a door through which the devil enters the world. This is a she-devil. Your mama devoled him. After a long struggle, the man manages to tear off his mask. It was a long time. In the small hours of his life, a boi-boi puppet man slips, falls over and comes to greet in a puddle of syrup and finds himself standing upside down covered by a rainbow. And it is with great sadness filled with joy that the babal man, the carnival king, discovers he is dead. He is survived by the dancing procession of tearful dolls with abandoned boobs, a string of children without papas, bastard children born by waving a tragic rod, an avalanche of feathers, stray bullets, sweet talking words, and many a destroyed pubis. After his brutal disappearance, an infinite silence roars within him. And for the first time since the flesh of an eternity, he feels the slow hatching of the doom in his heart. Ladies and gentlemen, society, congregation, company, at this nostalgic hour when the night coils in the hollow of the early morning, once upon a time, you twight three times, an infinity of time upon a time a man stood next to his dead body. Jablet lights a big fire. The man broke his mask. Mother Moon, this is clear the way for our passage. Allow us to cross. All in your direction, I cry, path, portal of passages. Clear the way of the path. Uncross the four paths. May my cry echo on high and on low in front and behind, there, there, elsewhere. Yes, may my cry echo and may what lies below appear and what is above disappear. What is dark light in shed light on what lies in the shadows? Oh, may my rain pits at the dirt reach up toward the sky, all the very secrets hatched in the light of day. Pierces fool you. Close the portal of your eyes in the darkness of your heart. Hide a light. Learn to find the sun hidden in the night. What you don't see in reality, there in life. What you believe you see isn't what you should believe. What you hear, you don't know how to comprehend it. What you think you possess in truth disposes you. What it is you swallow sets your tongue on fire. Oh, we are entangled. Cross and uncross before. Cross and uncross the eight. What is standing up will be upside down. Cross and uncross the seven. Hold and unfold. Untangle the knots. Anchor what a flow. May flower grow in the bosom of the earth. Open, close, open and close. What is closed may open. What has fallen make it up. What is extinguished burns again. Light is turned on. Illuminates the past. Trails and circles and unlooms the four paths. And I said, three, five, seven, beautiful night and sun. There are three long, calm shell calls and all past years. The stars. The man and the woman are wearing white. Zalaz. Queen Zalaz. And after which the brother and the magician ellipse at me with bone in it. All who did what put grace to your courage. The booster is dead. And now it is big news. And my path has opened up. I can retrace the steps. And go now and travel beyond Zalaz. The man makes his way along a path. Then he retraces the steps. And you? Me? Are you staying here? My kingdom is here. You mean I go back to my concrete shack? You are free. So this is goodbye? Yes. Unless you're dreaming of another tip-a-tip with La Javelin. Goodbye. The man leaves for a while. Returns again. But I'm no longer afraid. I'm no longer have a reason to flee. That's because you have found the final key for your passage. Why a woman as beautiful as you has to drag along such an ugly man? It's true that your hope must be ashamed to live next to such a pretty foot and in your pretty foot must be so angry to live with such an unsightly woman. I'm a perfectly imperfect woman. Do you walk like with an uneven gait like that? Why? Before, when the devil was a little boy, before I lived among others, I lived among those men and women who walked upright and following the footsteps of those who proceeded them along the journey. I walked alongside them for a long time on the well-traveled trails day after day, sun after sun, moon after moon, roaming across the belly of the earth's past, orchids, journeys. I lived among those who anchored their feet in the belly of the earth in order to erect their totems and cathedrals. On one still-sleepy morning, when the sun struggled to emerge from the clouds, I distanced myself. I distanced myself from the millenary path only to land in a wild place. This piece of warm dirt felt like an escape, rather than a conquest, more like an escape to an unknown side of the world. So I began to dance. Dance freely like drunken butterflies among the wildflowers. I danced for this infinite land. But the others saw me. They cried out my name to warn me of danger, shouted out against my audacious escape, ordered me to retrace my steps back to the right path, the one carved out eons ago by those who came before them. But I kept dancing. I was becoming so voluminous. They protested against my rebellion and cursed my strange dance in vain. I rode the perfume wave of this wild land to the brilliant blue of the sky. They screamed blasphemies, called me a witch, shaped their bitter insults into a ball and hurled them at me. I was supposed to cease my indecent dance and conform my steps to the appropriate binary rhythm. Then they put a curse on me to hinder the wild steps of my heaviness and to forbid me from walking upright among the others. They sabotaged me. They tried to trip me, but my dance was unstoppable. This hope is my wild path, formidable wildness for people who follow the well-traveled path. My hope and my hope make me what I am, a woman, a wild, a wild woman. Wild woman. I'm not familiar with this type of woman. I'm the daughter of an eclipse. Two separate worlds coexist within me, night and day, visible and invisible. I live at the edge of the twilight. In order to find me, you must know how to walk the tight rope on the hinge of time. In order to find me, you must know how to walk on the edge of twilight. We had a date under an unrialed sky at the crossroads of these terrifying trails. Now you see more clearly, one by one the stars are fading. It's time to leave, syrup man. Call me man. Goodbye, man. Bye. Goodbye. And then come back. He spared me. He didn't devour me or rip out my brain even though I'm a monster with women. You have every reason to seek revenge. I'm not looking for revenge against men. I'm just trying to change their course or send them to abandon their sacred totems, tear away from their narrow exterior, hide them in their undergrowth to teach them making them an island so that they may come to desire themselves in a wild, poor thing when they're here. Queen jobless. I warned you. It's like a sacred fire burning inside. I have never desired anyone this much. This fire has never felt it. I'm no longer afraid of you. A woman takes his face in her hand and kisses his ears. So don't call me jobless anymore. Call me woman. The only woman I was looking for, the little one I found. Wild women are more common than you think. But you're not like other women. And you aren't like other men. I never do have to love. Love yourself as you are. Love me and I am. Let's not eclipse each other. Let's explore both our territory without colorizing each other. Let's walk our bodies side by side without spilling each other's essence. Their bodies spew when there's darkness. Epilogue. The morning after Carnival under the blue eye of the sky washed up on the sidewalk of the city a man lies asleep. A car is in the past. The man wakes up with a start when he comes in the coffee stands up, looks up and down the deserted street. He sees the story I did. Just before daybreak the gray king bird sings perry perry when you part the curtains of your numbed eyelids eye, your incubus your night zombie your doorless eye the vagabond will have long sits taking leave. You will have left without a gesture without a caress evaporated without so much as leaving a dress not without having reanimated my once distraught heart in which now curses my regenerated essence. Javles. Thank you Savannah, Kevin and Ilana for your wonderful performance. Thank you. We're going to transition really quickly to the panel and we're going to invite Andrew Clark to moderate but we'll take a second to transition. Thank you everyone so we're going to transition to the panel and Andrew will take us away. Good evening everybody. You all sound hungry. I know we want to go home but if you're hungry you've got to respond like really robust so that we can get out of here. Good evening everybody. All right, that's better. My name is Andrew Clark I'm founder and artistic director founder and executive director of Brata Productions which is a Caribbean performing arts company so so happy to be here. Fantastic work. So so intriguing and I'm particularly drawn to this one because a lot of our work, Brata's work is in the preservation and showcasing of folk culture and so we have a folk festival that we have all these mythical characters and there's Dwayne and Lajable, Soukou, all of that Anansi and Roland Kaif all these mythical Caribbean characters so it was really interesting to see this take on Lajable or Lable as she's referred to here. Theard spoken about in the dark referred to as a witch and all these wonderful things so why bring her to light? Because she was in my mind in my body, in my fears in my questions also she was in my grandmas stories she was in her old tradition around me and I was wondering but who is she? I was very fascinated by this magical lady powerful lady and her relation to men also because she's strong she's not afraid of nobody, of no man and I was very interesting in that and in her sort of magical power she had also and also because I'm more than 14 years now and when I answer I ask young generation in Martinique do you know Lajable? They tell me no they don't know who is Lajable so I had the responsibility through this play to convey a whole tradition of Lajable to young people Fantastic, yeah that's so true our old time traditions are being forgotten especially by the younger generation with the advent of the internet and cable you know they're really lost a sense of self of their own Caribbean identity but why is this story relevant aside from the cultural lesson is it relevant in 2019 for us to hear about this Lajable woman? Because more and more we we forget all this all the story of the night my grandma was telling me a lot of story who afraid me a lot but what took place at night and we have horses with three legs and I was afraid of that but my imagination was running in my head when I was listening to that and all the story are disappearing and there is a lot of light everywhere in Martinique and really light everywhere but I think of the power of the darkness because in the darkness you can project your imagination and all that stories and all that invisible world who is very important also in our culture I figure out that I learned about life but when I in my family there is also invisible history there are spirits around us there are things that influence us and there is a dialogue between the visible world and invisible world and it was important for me through La Diables to convey all that invisible world to young generation because screens everywhere and light everywhere and a sort of how do we say rationalize the world rationalize the world oh yes but a square way you know but the world is biggest like that I think bigger than that you're so right I think of the Caribbean specifically Jamaica 50 years ago when electricity wasn't a common thing stories were always told and that's where we heard about and under like a shed where everybody gathered because there was nothing else to do there was no light and this was their way of communing so these telling of stories that's really faded and on the screens what do we see what do they show us it's not us we are not in the stories we are not on the screens so the only way for me it's really important for me to to say our young people and our people that we have a specific way to see the world to live in that world and this specific way is that also it is well rich of that it's important in our imagination in our way to be unique way to be but on the screens you see French people although we are French but we are not in their screens no theater is the way is the place to be is the place to tell our specific stories absolutely Oshana as a director being from an audience standpoint some phrases that came to mind as I am watching the performance the hunter becomes the hunted date rape drug there was a lot of that so we get so influenced by the cadence of language that we don't pay attention to the actual words but he did attempt to rape her he drugged her under the guise of Obia and his intent was to rape her his intent was to impregnate her but the language was so beautiful and so flowery that we are like oh wait did he just say what I thought he said so there was that discussion which happens during carnival time it does you know like in Brooklyn a sister got murdered because she refused advances of somebody during juvie and so those conversations need to happen even when we were talking about you know the actor Kevin is a nice guy and I was like you have to be sinister you have to be evil like bring that out because it was it's a thing and so even in that scene I was like I don't know how to explain this to a man but it's this look that all women have gotten of being violated just by a look like every woman I know can identify with that happening to them which is very very unfortunate it's a heart wrenching kind of thing that I can say to any woman that I don't know have you had that look and I bet my last penny this woman in the back would say yes yes yes and like and it's like to have to deal with that it's a heavy load that you literally cannot walk out your door without having that in the back of your brain so to bring that to the stage and to still make him vulnerable to make him charismatic to make him likeable have that element was a difficult part to do in a very quick time without getting into the rehearsals yeah and what was your process like because there are the words from the playwright and her intentions and then there is the layer of the work that the director wants to bring to to the work like your own stamp I think for me and what I did first of all was like we just talked we had conversations we spoke about Laja Bless and how she exists because she exists in the Virgin Islands as well a little bit different but she does the voice mask character played by Savannah we had that conversation about how she because she's from the Virgin Islands as well about Laja Bless in the Virgin Islands the woman who played Laja Bless Ellie is from St. Kitt's but Ellie doesn't believe that she exists in St. Kitt's and then so we had conversations we had conversations about mythology about Laja Bless about what was happening like the political stance of the author of the writer what was she saying and basically we just jumped in like you know at home they throw you in and you go out to see and you're learning how to swim and they just jump you there and you have to learn how to swim basically you know you swim or you're dead right basically so it's like it was really a quick and dirty jumping into the script but it really was important for me to find that commonality build that chemistry because I wanted it to be moving to be dynamic as opposed to sitting and because there were these very intimate physically intimate moments you have to get to know each other just on a basic level and in sitting there I'm thinking sweet man syrup man the whole time I'm thinking is this dude Jamaican because like there's so much commonality and the language may be different it's so poetic like you said so beautiful but he's such a Caribbean man and it's scary hearing him talk about the giving her the drug and impregnating her and I mean just so wonderfully said but just so wrong in watching it I don't know if anybody else had that experience I know I did having reading the play as like he's very Virgin Islander as well like you know like he's very triny he's very he is the penultimate Caribbean man but in fact my first step was to write about La Diabless and then I was wondering but what man can I put yeah in fact yes I know this type of man in Martinique the spool type of man and I was I always wonder but what are the problem of that what is the problem of that man who jump on woman like that but in fact I feel something empty empty there's something and I was I was thinking about history and on plantation where when mans were encouraged to to make babies and perhaps I was wondering if it's the type of behavior states today in the male behaviors I don't know I think yeah even in a discussion and rehearsal process with Kevin we spoke about that one line that he has that he is this empty man searching to fill his soul to fill a void I forget the exact line but like that being his truth of the whole piece that this sense of domineering and overtaking and overpowering and violating is really to fill this void that he has and it comes out and it comes out in specific lines but that one particular line I remember specifically saying okay here's your truth for the play yes and I think that that specific man who perhaps lived a slavery I think that they took all of it of all his power the only power they give him is his strength and sexual power is the only thing he gets so he stays like in that but in fact when I was writing in I was discovering that the text was talking about colonization also sort of auto colonization and mine yeah but and Latia bless also when I was I was doing research about her I saw that it was also a Christian colonial the march process to to make to afraid male after after slavery abolition to make them go in the house with one woman because if you go after a beautiful woman she will kill you don't go after her stay with your unique woman and your marriage and it was to to give them other values Christian values I think I read it I read about that I'd like to open the floor floor particular reference that she said to him about you need to trace back the path it connected with male female birth process and going back the obsession with the vagina of wanting to go back there and searching for something and that this connection so somehow that I never thought about that before but it connected here and I must say writing was just perfect just a quick note as we're going to the next speaker it's interesting that you say that it reminds me of Tony Morrison Sula and when the mom kills her son because he just wanted to go back into her vagina he just wanted to go back into her womb and she was like I couldn't have him I needed him to be a man and so she burns him alive because of that very reason same very parallel here okay I must say that the writing is brilliant and what actually surprised me there is that we as a Caribbean man as a man from Guadruba know about La Ja Bles but you turn her into a teacher and that sugar man the girl named sugar that feels like same same man that feels like he's powerful that represents Caribbean man what is your point do you mean that because she's teaching that kid a lesson because he's been turned into a kid is your point that ladies especially in Caribbean societies don't get the social recognition that they deserve is your point that up to now because of a thousand of reasons slavery and blah blah blah men still need to be educated by women in fact when I read about the La Ja Bles and also the world in France is the female of the devil in fact but in my I thought it was European and occidental of that woman and in my African view I wanted her to be not she's cruel she's beautiful but she use beauty to take that man and initiate it she's not there to kill him she's there to to give him a sort of rebirth and let's work together but don't take me don't colonize me I'm with you let's work together and it's for harmony to build a society together but we are not we don't have to fight let's be together and respect I have two questions the first one is about languages because that's an English translation a very good one by Danielle Carlotta Smith who cannot be here today but she did a great great job I think well you are aware of the musicality of the language and that's a difficult very difficult play to translate I must say a big challenge you are working with two languages in the play with Creole and French so the question I have is how does it work you know this relationship between the two languages because it's not only that there is a you know you switch from one language to another but also you recreate a language you know the French is creolized or so that the first question I have and the second one is about the play was staged in Martinique so about how did you stage it and also the reception in Martinique yes when I when I wrote that play I was in fact for me I wrote this play it's written in French there are some parts in Creole but it's in French but for me it's in Creole it's a French who is it's French Creole no it's a I don't know it's for me it's in Creole it's written in French but it's a Creole French Creole in fact we have a special way to take the language and it was my way to make it mine this is my French my way to speak French and I was inspired by the storytellers the traditional storytellers there are a way to speak and to swing the language and to return it to take possession of it and this for me is a sort of a take possession of this language who is the colonial language and the second question is about Martinique staging in Martinique yes I staged it I wanted to make a work with a Caribbean feeling so I staged a Guadalupe an actor a Martinique an actress the costume was made by a Trinidad a costume designer and I worked with the Guadalupean choreographer I wanted to be Caribbean so it's beautiful for me to be here because it was it's like a dream and I have so much thing to do to say that in fact how it was received by the audience we don't really have on stage stories about our own traditional figures like that and people came and came and came it was full and people there are a lot of people who didn't see the play because it was full in fact and we played it in Guadalupe also last year full and a lot of young people also and they are I was very happy because they are the audience I was targeting and they very receive it like a sort of pride because they see things that they know the character that they are they recognize and it's rare because it's rare yes because so we have it's a aesthetics specific aesthetics also it's okay because I see the bodies it was like that because the bodies are very important it was in carnival stage yes because you know the three colors red, black and white are three colors we use in Martinique and Carnival who you have the Mardi Gras who is the hot day where there is very seducing it's hot Carnival and then you have the day where Vaval who is the big puppet of the Carnival is burned the last day and on that day people are wearing black and white and the moment is dead and I was making it match with the moment when the men dead and rebirth in fact and the red moment is the moment when she was hot seducing him but the black moment for me is when she you see that word switch you see that she's not a prey but she is the one who predates the predator and he's the prey so quickly too that translated very well because I totally got that but also like it and that's I found the voice mask character serving as this kind of masquerading a like bad character and he like but wears red black and white also and also is the one that traverses the world of her and the world of him so there's a character and the colors and all of those things tie in so that was perfectly perfectly clear in the translation yeah yeah alright folks unfortunately I'm being given the time out signal we're at the end of yes we're going to switch over just so that we have enough time to do a little reception here so obviously we can keep talking but informally that's okay is there any a last word that we need to say out loud oh it's like a dream and I'm happy because no because it's I feel it's it's the imagination travels and it's vibrate vibration common vibration and different vibration it's very rich for me thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you to Andrew for moderating the discussion thank you so much Danieli for sharing your work with us and thank you to everyone for attending the Caribbean Theatre Project this has been a wonderful two days and I'm thinking about Brent Hayes Edwards he talks about articulating the diaspora and that's about announcing who we are articulating but also about this idea of like joining like coming together as a joint and talking about what's different about us and what's common so I just wanted to take that maybe forward into whatever we do next wherever we go wherever we land up and I don't know if Stephanie you want to say anything briefly these were two very intensive days from two in the afternoon until ten so eight hours each day we had the pleasure to make a dream come true as you said that was like a dream but a dream which came true and it was for me surprising rewarding from an artistic perspective because all the people who collaborated from the beginning the advisory board who selected the plays until now to see the actors giving flesh and blood to the text and we had the translators we had the directors so there are so many people involved and to see the result it's very inspiring very touching I knew but to hear them in another language with other bodies and it's just like a new place different perspective different interpretation and that was very inspiring for me I really want to thank you I cannot thank everybody but Nicole I want to thank you because you were really without you project wouldn't have been possible so I want to thank you deeply Frank also for welcoming us in the Martin Seagal Theatre all the translators were not here all the directors you know some of them are here I've already left all the actors also thank you very much and all the invisible all the invisible spirits were with us Mike I want to thank you because you did a great job you were here all the time we didn't see you but here you are thank you very much and May also thank you for helping a lot of and Candice of course you were absolutely absolutely great so thanks to everyone I really hope this is the first step and that this project act will give birth to production productions of the play that the play can continue to live on the American stage and abroad so I really hope that in the future we'll see the production of the play that's the goal of this project Frank do you want to add something