Benedict Nightingale, The Times
London, 14 October 2023 – 11 November 2023 – The Orange Tree follows Mustapha Matura’s Play Mas in 2015 with the first major UK revival of Meetings: an atmospheric, entertaining and poignant play set to capture the sights, sounds and smells of the Caribbean.
“As nimble as it is comic” New York Times on Meetings
Mustapha Matura won the George Devine and John Whiting awards in 1971 for his first full-length stage play, AS TIME GOES BY, which was staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh and at the Royal Court, London. He won the Evening Standard’s Most Promising Playwright Award in 1974 for PLAY MAS which opened at the Royal Court and subsequently transferred to the West End.
‘Playboy of the West Indies’ (based on J M Synge’s PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD) opened at the Oxford Playhouse in 1984 and subsequently toured the UK finishing at the Tricycle Theatre in London. It has also enjoyed huge success in the United States, most notably at The Court Theatre, Chicago; Arena Stage, Washington; New Jersey and Yale Rep. The Court Theatre Chicago’s production was nominated for four Jefferson Awards. There was an extremely successful revival of the play at the Lincoln Center, New York in 1993. Mustapha also wrote the television adaptation, screened on BBC2 in 1985. The play was recently revived at the Tricycle Theatre and the Nottingham Playhouse.
Tricycle Theatre, London, 1994
Tricycle Theatre, London, 1994
Lincoln Center, New York, 1993
Lincoln Center, New York, 1993
Lincoln Center, New York, 1993
Birmingham Rep, UK, 2022
Birmingham Rep, UK, 2022
Birmingham Rep, UK, 2022
Tisch NYU, New York, 2015
Tisch NYU, New York, 2015
‘Trinidad Sisters’ (based on Chekhov’s THREE SISTERS) was first staged by the Tricycle Theatre Company at the Donmar Warehouse in February 1988 and opened in the US at the Arena Stage, Washington in March 1992. A radio version of TRINIDAD SISTERS was transmitted on the BBC World Service on 1 April 2001. A reworked version of the play, reverting to the original title Three Sisters opened at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in February 2006 with succesful 10 week tour.
‘The Coup’ was commissioned and presented by the Royal National Theatre in 1991 playing in repertoire at the Cottesloe Theatre for many months and to much critical acclaim. “Mustapha once said that his constant aim was “to examine the effects of colonialism, political and psychological, on the colonisers and the colonised”. The Coup, which deals with a fictional revolution in Matura’s native Trinidad and Tobago, has suddenly acquired a new and chilling relevance.”
Read the 2020 article by Michael Billington as he revisited The Coup with a modern eye.