Theatre, as Walcott knew, would be instrumental in demystifying Caribbean โAbsenceโ and โVoidโ and generating an alternative version of dominant reality. By a deliberate unseating of the Western texts, filled with banal stereotypes and their representational biases, and by triggering โre-actionโ to the scripts of the colonizers in profoundly paradoxical ways, Walcottโs plays affirm the Caribbean identity. This study seeks to demonstrate how his plays open an alter/โnativeโ universe in terms of aesthetics, dramaturgy and the performative, and reclaims โNew Worldโ identity in terms of negotiation rather than negationโundermining the claim of โsolidโ, โauthenticโ culture. Placing the arts at the forefront of nation-building, Walcott situated his plays at a crucial juncture between the passing of the Empire and the newly-born Federation in his archipelago.
Nirjhar Sarkar is a Professor in the Department of English at Raiganj University in India. He has published research essays in 'Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal' and 'Postcolonial Text' (Miami University Press) as well as contributed to the volume 'Border and Bordering: Politics, Poetics, and Precariousness' (ibidem Press, 2021).