Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, National Theatre, London
Music from the Ebony Steel Band laces its way around this fine revival of Errol John’s play. At first, it sounds joyous but, with repetition, you hear the melancholy in it. And so it is with John’s play, a slice of life in a cramped postwar slum in Trinidad, in which the genial chit-chat, rumbling arguments and daily provocations gradually turn to something darker and more desperate.
John’s play, first staged in 1958, paints a vivid picture of life in Old Mack’s yard. Here careworn mother Sophia lives with her 12-year-old daughter Esther and new baby, taking in washing while her errant husband Charlie half-heartedly looks for work. Their sweet-natured neighbour Rosa has hooked up with handsome Ephraim, the trolley-bus driver from across the yard. But he dreams of escape. So too does Mavis, the brash woman upstairs, who brings back soldiers and sailors at all hours of the night.
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