Ringplay Productions

My friend died last week and I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.

My first recollection of Winston Saunders goes back to 1973 during rehearsals for the Independence Celebrations. He was the writer and director of that production and I was a member of the choir. Our next encounter came when he was about to bring in people from Washington to hold a drama workshop. Knowing that I had attended Aquinas, which at that time was considered the High School of Performing Arts, he expected that I would be a part of that workshop. I was not, much to his chagrin, because I had committed to work with Shirley Hall-Bass on her summer folklore show. I remember passing him on the road and him looking through my car window offering a scolding motion because I had dared to work on something other than his workshop. We came in contact on other occasions, like when he would read a lesson at a Chamber Singers’ concert or we would attend the same cultural function. Then I went off to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

During my last year at school I met up with Kayla Edwards, who was visiting New York, and she informed me that she was opening the Institute of the Arts and she wanted me come back home and teach there. Because of some confusion, after I returned home, there was no teaching job so I planned to go back to New York and work on getting my Green Card so that I could become one of the ranks of the many struggling actors in that city.

One evening I decided to visit the Dundas Centre to see what was going on and as I entered the theatre Gail Saunders approached me and asked if she could be of assistance. I told her I was just looking around and then she sort of recognized who I was and asked, “Are you Derek’s brother?” I said yes and she said, “Oh sorry, come in.” There was a rehearsal for the play The Gin Game taking place with Patrick Rahming and Patricia Caldwell and the play was being directed by Winston. I sat in the theatre and proceeded to watch.

Now directors can be very territorial about their work and they usually only invite their closest friends or colleagues to critic what they do or to be what we call a ‘third eye’ to offer advice. I knew who Winston was and he knew who I was and that I had gone off to acting school and that was about the extent of it. About ten minutes after I sat down in the theatre he approached me with a pen and a writing pad, handed them to me and said, “Take notes.” I was a bit taken aback but I did as I was instructed. After the rehearsal he invited me to the stage to give my notes to his actors and his production team and then he asked me to join that team and be involved with the production for the remaining rehearsals and the three night run of the show.

At the cast party, at his house, Winston sat playing the piano as various cast members sang. During a break he asked me what my plans were. I told him about the Institute job falling through and he said he would see what he could do. This was Saturday night and sometime during the following Tuesday I received a call from him saying that he had spoken to Mrs. Eneas at St. Annes and Mrs. Moree at Government High who would both supply students to a workshop that I could hold at the Dundas. He also informed me that he had contacted the University Players and that I should talk to them because they were interested in me conducting a workshop for them as well. Both workshops took place that summer and during that period Winston and I talked about the future of theatre in The Bahamas, which at that time was in a sad state. I could not see where it was going or how I might make a living doing it here so my plans were to eventually go back to New York. I started rehearsals for Sizwe Banzi Is Dead with Anthony Delaney and Tex Turnquest. Winston was going to direct. The weekend before my workshops were to end I was called and offered a role in an Off-Broadway showcase production of Lorraine Hansberry’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. I completed the workshops, quit Sizwe Banzi and went back to New York to act.

On a Sunday afternoon a few weeks later, while on business in New York, Winston attended a matinee performance of my play. That evening we took in a Broadway show and went to dinner where we again discussed the possibilities of what could happen in theatre in The Bahamas. As I traveled by subway back to my apartment in Queens I thought about our conversation but I still could not see how coming home would work so I continued to work on obtaining that Green Card, thanks to a Lawyer with whom Winston had put me in touch. One Sunday morning, sometime after my play had closed, I was sitting around my apartment when my phone rang. The operator said that I had a collect call from St. Thomas. I was not making any money to accept a collect call but she said that the call was from Winston Saunders so I took it. He was attending a workshop in St. Thomas with something called the Theatre Information Exchange and one of the people responsible for this workshop was a man by the name of George White who was also the director of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Mr. White told Winston that they ran a three-month training program in Waterford, Connecticut and that there was a space open if he knew of anyone would like to join that program. Winston thought of me and he was calling to tell me about it and to inform me that they had just started so if I wanted to attend I would only miss a few days, if I left for Connecticut as soon as possible. I immediately called around to get the goods on this place, found out just how prestigious it was, packed my bags, hopped a train and headed to the National Theatre Institute.

Upon completion of that course I returned to Nassau. Winston was in the midst of trying to introduce the concept of a Repertory Season to the member groups of the Dundas. They were resistant to the idea and worried what the end result might be. I remember a major meeting that took place in the Dundas where Winston tried to explain what he wanted to happen. The groups were not impressed but the deadlock was broken when two respected members of The Nassau Players, Tony Betts and Tony Osborne spoke out in favor of the Repertory Season idea. Winston got the go ahead to implement the Season and he asked me if I would come on as the Artistic Director. I said yes and for the next seventeen years we worked as partners to take theatre in The Bahamas to places where it had never been before. It only occurred to me after I accepted that post that this was something that Winston probably had in mind from that night in the Dundas after I gave notes to his actors and production team. His dream was to make a Repertory Season happen and he saw in me someone who could help him fulfill that dream.

During those years, I spoke with Winston practically every day. I spent countless hours in his home discussing, arguing, laughing and enjoying the company of he and Gail. This was my second home and Winston became not just my theatre partner but also my closest and dearest friend. He also became a friend to my family to the point where he and my mother would have many conversations usually discussing their gardens. He was godfather to my nephew; he officiated at the wedding of my brother and was someone any one of my siblings could call upon for advice.

The Saunders’ home became the source of a lot of material for laughter. It was the home of ‘Pa Ben’ and ‘Calamity Jane’. I think that it was Ronald Simms who started calling Winston ‘Pa Ben’, based on the character he originated in Trevor Rhone’s Old Story Time. But it was Winston who gave the name ‘Calamity Jane’ to Gail. You see Gail Saunders is a very polite person and she has this interesting habit of apologizing to inanimate objects. For example she would be in the cupboard getting a pot and in doing so two other pots would fall and immediately she would say “sorry”. Winston would just look up and say, “She just apologized to the pots.” I took it upon myself to drag them kicking and screaming into the 20th Century by setting up their first Television and VCR. That decision caused me to visit their home even more because it took quite a while for them to understand how to operate these machines. Now, I think that it would be very hard to find a married couple who where were as bright as these two but there are a few stories about them that I would like to share.

I would get many calls from Winston concerning a Cable Box issue or a remote control issue or a television issue and usually I was able to talk him through these problems on the telephone. On one particular day I spent about a half an hour trying to talk him through a particular problem and it was just not working. I decided that I would have to drive to his house and see if I could get the problem sorted out. I walked in and Winston says, “Do you think we’re going to have to get a new one?” I look around for a few seconds and then I say, “No, this will be just fine. These things are finicky sometimes, and tend not to work if they are not plugged in.” Well, we all laughed and sat down and talked for the rest of evening.

I’m not sure if the following story is apocryphal but there is the famous Gail story that I first heard from members of the Bethel family and it concerns going to a certain bakery on Collins Avenue. Apparently Gail went to purchase a cake for someone’s birthday and when they brought out the cake she asked to whom should she make out the check. The attendant said Just Rite Bakery so Gail took out her checkbook and just wrote . . . Bakery.

Now at least Gail is able to send and receive emails, which is something that somehow eluded Winston. Here was a man who wrote the entire “Nehemiah” series (three full length plays) on a computer, but the Internet was another story. He had his own email address but he would give out Gail’s if anyone wanted to email him. That email would arrive and Gail would print it out for Winston to read. If there was supposed to be a reply, she would have to go and type that reply, as he dictated it, and then send it. I always found it fascinating when someone would ask him if he had email he would answer in a stentorian voice, “of course I have email” then he would proceed to offer them Gail’s email address.

In 1981, at Carifesta in Barbados, Winston and I decided to get away from the confusion of one of the most disorganized Carifestas we had seen (until a few months ago) and head up to Farley Hill National Park and have a look at Codrington College. One of my tasks in Barbados was to direct Winston’s play Them which he had reworked based on certain suggestions that I had made. During a break for lunch Winston produced one of those Milo Butler exercise books and said “I want you to listen to something and tell me what you think.” He then proceeded to read what he had written, “They were born in a house which was seven by eleven. Where the kitchen was kitchen and the kitchen was the bedroom with the fridge and the stove, and the kitchen was the kitchen with the big iron bed.” I said that I thought it was nice but I was not sure where it was all leading. In early 1983 Winston handed me a stack of papers, a number of which were stapled together. His words to me were, “here is an undoable work, see if you can do something with it.” Those papers, and the words he had read to me two years earlier on Farley Hill, were to become what I consider the greatest Bahamian play ever written, You Can Lead A Horse To Water. Winston, Cleophas Adderley and I would work on this piece over the next year, both in Nassau and in San Francisco. We also did this when the three of us worked on the Opera Our Boys. We would lock ourselves in a hotel room in some foreign city and hammer out the final details.

In the early years of this work, Winston could, or would, not watch a performance of You Can Lead A Horse To Water with an audience. We were never sure if it was because the characters were too close to him or if he had a problem being in the same space with people while they watched this play. When I received an invitation to direct a play at Grand Valley State University in Michigan last year, as a part of their cultural diversity program, I asked them if they were going to choose the play or if I could choose it. They asked me what I would choose and without hesitation I said You Can Lead A Horse To Water. I sent them a copy of the script and after reading it they agreed that it was the work to be done. After a month of rehearsals the play was performed and the University flew Winston to Michigan to see it and to talk with the students in the theatre program. Maybe it was because the play had sat idle for about fifteen years before this revival but Winston seemed to have a new appreciation for his play. He also got along great with the students and finally was not shy about discussing this acclaimed work. Also in attendance at this production was the Director of Culture, Dr. Nicolette Bethel, who knew that this was the dramatic piece that the rest of the Caribbean should see as a representation of what The Bahamas had to offer in drama. I am so pleased that Winston got to see this great work produced and performed again. I’m also pleased that so many Bahamians and members of the Caribbean community got to see the brilliance of his writing again, or for the first time at Carifesta.

There are so many more things that I can say about Winston Saunders. I know that there will be discussions about his legacy and what will be done to commemorate his life. Sure one can name some building after him but the thing about which he was most passionate and the thing that he worked tirelessly for over the past four years was an Arts Council Bill. He was pleased to see the Honors Bill and the Heroes Bill read in Parliament but it’s the Arts Council Bill that has not yet been presented that would be his real legacy. This was the Bill that was first drafted in 1986 by Winston and Clement Bethel as a result of the Shaffer Report on Bahamian Culture (UNESCO). Whatever tweaking has to happen to get this bill right, all of the members of the Cultural Commission are prepared to work to see this dream come true. I think that the most fitting tribute that this country could pay to Winston Saunders would be to pass this bill.

Goodbye Winston and rest in peace. Your work, but more importantly you, will never be forgotten.

Your friend,
Philip

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