Plays

“What makes Mustapha Matura our finest dramatist of West Indian origin? A wry humour, warmth of feeling, a knack for observing human oddity and for embodying it in quirky, unpredictable dialogue, and the fundamental seriousness with which he writes of people who, like himself, have in some sense become severed from their roots. He ranges from the usually mischievous to the wickedly funny.”

Benedict Nightingale, The Times

RECENT Productions

Meetings

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

Plays

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

‘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.

Trinidad Sisters

‘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

‘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.


Video from the National Theatre Black Plays Archives.

Stage Plays Include:

1970 : BLACK PIECES (ICA) – short plays

1972 : BAKERLOO LINE (Almost Free)

1973 : NICE (Almost Free)

1974 : PLAY MAS (Royal Court) – World Premiere

1975 : BLACK SLAVES – WHITE CHAINS. (Royal Court Lunchtime)

1976 : RUM ‘N COCA COLA (Royal Court), (Brooklyn Academy), BREAD (Young Vic)

1978 : ANOTHER TUESDAY (ICA), MORE MORE (ICA)

1979 : INDEPENDENCE (Foco Novo at the Bush Theatre), WELCOME HOME JACKO (Stratford East)

1980 : A DYING BUSINESS (Riverside), NICE (Arena Stage, Washington)

1981 : ONE RULE (Riverside), PLAY MAS (Goodman, Chicago), WELCOME HOME JACKO (New York) and MEETINGS (Phoenix, New York) – for which Michelle Shay won an Obie

1982 : MEETINGS (Hampstead Theatre) – Mustapha directed this production

1983 : WELCOME HOME JACKO (Riverside)

1984 : THE PLAYBOY OF THE WEST INDIES (Tricycle Theatre) – World Premiere

1988 : TRINIDAD SISTERS (Donmar Playhouse)

1994 : SMALL WORLD (Arena Stage, Washington, DC), THE PLAYBOY OF THE WEST INDIES (Tricycle Theatre)

1996 : SMALL WORLD (Southwark Playhouse)

2005: THE PLAYBOY OF THE WEST INDIES (Nottingham Playhouse)

2006: THREE SISTERS (Nottingham Playhouse)

2015 : PLAY MAS (Orange Tree Theatre)

2018 : THREE SISTERS AFTER CHEKOV (Naparima Bowl)

2022 : THE PLAYBOY OF THE WEST INDIES – THE MUSICAL (Birmingham Rep)

2023 : MEETINGS (Orange Tree Theatre)