Attendees at the Central Bank Auditorium were captivated by “The Queen of the Road: The Calypso Rose Musical”, which presented another instance of national theater rooted in the Carnival spirit. Thankfully, this production was better than the numerous instances of poor production quality and “uneven quality” common in Best Village drama.
This light-hearted evening of entertainment defies the hyper-produced West End or Broadway experiences of shows like Tina – The Tina Turner Musical or Get Up, Stand Up, and The Bob Marley Musical. Instead, it traces a local route that was first established in 1995 by director and playwright Rhoma Spencer’s Bassman (Shadow), and then in 2003 by Zeno Constance’s The Road Make To Walk (Lord Kitchener).
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The musical had been in the works for some time, and during Spencer’s 2022–2023 artist-in-residence period at the Queer and Trans Research Lab at the University of Toronto, it made considerable progress. As stated on the lab’s webpage, “Spencer had been working since 2019 on a jukebox musical based on the life of queer Caribbean icon and ‘undisputed Calypso Queen of the world,’ Linda McCartha Monica Sandy-Lewis, popularly known as Calypso Rose.” Within the confines of Rose’s little over forty calypsoes, the four-act jukebox musical attempts to expound on Rose’s life, professional advancement, and evolution.
Spencer claims that her favorite model for this show was the Best Village model: “I make no apology for situating (the production) in the original Trinbago Musical Theatre style – Best Village.”
She has said previously that, “The Best Village competition was called ‘illegitimate theatre,'” however, that she “continued to crave the illegitimacy, a feeling that has inspired her whole career.”
Here, the music, dance, actor, and plot all worked well together thanks to excellent staging and directing. Rose’s life narrative, from birth to adulthood, is shown in flashbacks because she was the 2017 recipient of the French Grammy, the Victoire de la Musique award.
The term “light entertainment” used above does not minimize the fact that the musical touches on significant aspects of Rose’s life and work that have lasting relevance. The rural, very religious family with several children is discussed in Act I in terms of family dynamics. To defuse the tension, Rose’s uncle and aunt in Trinidad voluntarily “adopted” her from a family of thirteen brothers and sisters.
Rose’s development is directed and notably stable throughout the musical by her lifetime relationship with her Spiritual Baptist grandmother, both physically and subsequently in spirit. With impressive confidence and skill, young actor Thara Howe plays the preteen Rose. Her outstanding stagecraft manages to upstage everyone, and perhaps she will be seen in many shows.
Act II follows Stacey Sobers’s character, Calypso Rose, as she navigates the misogynistic and frequently anticipated hypersexuality of the calypso society in the late 1960s and early 1970s when her career was just starting to take off. Calypso Rose is a young adult who works in the Original Young Brigade Tent under the leadership of Kearn Samuel.
It cost her dearly that the church, women’s organizations, and the local newspapers of the time called her the “Queen of Slackness” and “Queen of Smut,” despite her musical pushback with wickedly double-entendre calypsoes like Banana and Sweet Pudding Man (1968) and Palet (1969) – the sweetness, and the reciprocal exchange of orality.
During this time, Sparrow and other people questioned her sexuality, asking “why she doesn’t have a man.”
Rose was not a prissy, coy, or weak-willed person at this time. She made a demand because she knew what she wanted. It was worthy of respect.
As an actress, Stacey Sobers is astonishing. She is already well-known for her singing and calypsonian skills; in 2018, she was named the National Women’s Action Committee (NWAC) National Calypso Queen and an NCC Calypso Monarch finalist. She also successfully mimics Rose’s stammer and Tobago accent with her body language.
In 2004, Gordon Rohlehr penned that “Rose’s prolonged wailing mode of delivery, a possible inheritance from her Spiritual Baptist/Shouter roots, has now become the signature style of a significant number of current female soca singers.”
The performing style and tone are nearly exact replicas.
In Act II, the Sparrow-Kitchener duo that dominated Calypso at the time is essentially overthrown by Rose’s ascent to prominence with Road March and Calypso Monarch victories in the middle to late 1970s. Not only did she have to negotiate the narrow silo of a Carnival season, but she also faced rising antagonism towards her domination over a considerable number of male calypsonians, which led to jealousy and relocation to better pastures up the islands.
Her relationship with Andy Palacio, Belize, and Garifuna culture—which includes punta—is discussed. It turns out that she had a lucky link to Belize since Ivan Duran, a producer based in Belize, created her 2017 comeback album, Far From Home, which won an award.
The world, and the French in particular, welcome her as she moves toward near calypso immortality in Act IV, which is set in the 2010s and takes place thirty years after Act III. This marks the collapse of the main calypsonians who began their careers in the 1960s and 1970s.
The musical challenges the audience to realize that Rose is more than just Fire in Your Wire by showcasing her extensive body of work. A Caribbean queen, Rose is. One advantage was how simple it was to sing along to a couple of calypsoes. In order to respond with honor, audiences ought to hear the entire canon of our calypsonians. one stride at a time.
Under Michelle Henry’s direction, the musical accompaniment was superb, and the Central Bank Auditorium was transformed into a fitting calypso tent without any startling volume changes. The musical’s technical aspects were handled deftly, demonstrating progress over concerns that were noted on opening night.
The stage blocking and movement, which extended up and down and into the auditorium aisles, along with the set design, which featured projection screens to establish Rose’s homes in Trinidad and Tobago as well as the larger school area, the yard, the Original Young Brigade calypso tent, and performance stages in France and Coachella Festival, lifted the musical above the recollections of the basic folk theater of the past.
The two leads played by Rose received well-deserved applause.
To improve the quality of singing, which is essential for any musical, and to work out production problems, this play may and should be workshopped. Assuming that this is a tale that has to be discovered by everybody, local validation is safe.
Because it searches beyond itself for approval and economic development, Queen of the Road: The Calypso Rose Musical is a good illustration of the calypso musical style and quality that can eventually become commonplace in our creative industries.
