Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

At the launch of the 2008 Actor Boy Awards, held at the Trafalgar Road, New Kingston, offices of Jamaica Trade and Invest in early March, chair of the Actor Boy Award management committee, Nicole Brown, told The Sunday Gleaner that there wouldn't be a Roots Play category at the awards ceremony.

She said that the persons who organise those plays thought "they have done so much work and made such strides that they wanted to be included in the mainstream categories. They are in comedy."

Stages Production's Di Driver was nominated in the Comedy category (eventually won by Basil Dawkins' Which Way is Out?), while Orville Hall was nominated in the Actor in a Supporting Role category for his performance in Below The Waist. Munair Zacca won for his role in Art.

Declared dead

And at the 2008 Actor Boy Awards show, held at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston, last week Tuesday evening, in giving the judges' report on behalf of chief judge Hugh Martin, Tony Patel all but declared roots theatre dead.

"It seems that the era of roots plays by that name has passed," Patel said. "It lasted maybe 20 years and was ushered in by Ralph Holness." He pointed out, though, that although Holness formalised the genre, roots plays had existed before, referring to Bim and Bam.

"Roots plays are really farce," Patel pointed out. He noted that the roots play producers have made significant strides, both in the performances as well as their offstage work. "Roots productions have become more mainstream and we have dropped the name, roots productions," Patel said to applause, congratulating Stages Productions (which does the Bashment Granny series) on the work they have done.

In a 2006 Gleaner story, producer Balfour Anderson described a roots play as "one that reflects the concerns of the people at the bottom of the society. It also utilises their language, which sometimes includes expletives, as it is a part of their vernacular. It is usually of a hilarious nature and the tempo is high, lots of energy. These plays usually evoke sharp responses from the audience, to which the characters counteract. Its style is comedy or farce".

Change has come

Ironically, the change has come two years after Garfield 'Bad Boy Trevor' Reid publicly rejected the Best Roots Play award. At that Actor Boy show, held at the Little Theatre, Tom Redcam Avenue, St Andrew, Reid handed back the Actor Boy Award to co-presenter Michael Holgate, saying, "I can't talk with things in my hand.

"I accept this on behalf of all the roots theatre people," Reid said, "regardless that the awards people did not invite us.

"They did not watch Too Hot To Hangle," he continued, saying that one producer had put on a special show for the judges.

"With disrespect we decline to accept the award. Thank you," Reid ended his 'acceptance speech'.

The changes in roots theatre that the judges' report at the 2008 Actor Boy Awards noted have not happened overnight. In January 2006, The Sunday Gleaner reported that 'Roots plays tone down'. Everton Dawkins, playwright and manager of Dynamite Productions, producers of the play Passa Passa, was quoted as saying, "Just like how the culture of the music is changing now and getting more cultural, the same with the plays. The slackness ting nuh really work again."

Misnomer

However, the story continued that for some in the theatre industry, the term 'roots play' is a misnomer. Michael Nicholson, who was at the time directing Jamaica 2 Rahtid said, "There is no such thing as a roots play. I don't know what a roots play is. They are all Jamaican plays done in our Jamaican theatre. I don't know where the term 'roots play' came from."

Eugene Williams of the School of Drama at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts said mainstream media and roots theatre in some ways mirror each other.

"There are a lot of cultural nuances that are recognisable," said Williams.

He also added that 'roots' theatre is not unique to Jamaica, as America had its Chitlin Circuit, which spawned the now widely accepted Tyler Perry and his Madea character.