Triptych: A Kendel Hippolyte Play

This weekend (Friday 14 & Sat 15, November) the Vladimir Lucien Theatre in Gros Islet will come alive with TRIPTYCH, a play written and directed by renowned St. Lucian poet and dramatist, Kendel Hippolyte.  

The narrative of ‘Triptych’ is simple, yet not simple. Kadien, an amateur painter who has lost his regular job and can’t pay his rent, has to stay temporarily at the home of his two friends—Tyrone, a political activist/journalist and his partner Myrna, a teacher. The play looks closely into how this arrangement affects the relationships among them as each sees aspects of the others’ lives up close and personal. There are elements of a love triangle (that’s the simple part) and yet perhaps not (the not-simple part). More importantly, as Tyrone and Kadien pursue their life passions—Tyrone the firebrand in the very public world of workers rights activism and Kadien the introvert in the inner world of questions about the deepest meaning of life  – they clash and bring out truths about each other which strain the relationship. Myrna is going through a quiet crisis as she sees her relationship with Tyrone crumbling and tries to deal with his hectic avoidance of acknowledging this while he champions the cause of a female hotel worker wrongfully dismissed.

As the narrative progresses, the two men are drawn into confrontation, each trying to force the other to see the crucial gaps and faults in the other’s worldview while trying to not damage their deep friendship. In the process, each man is forced to examine himself and for Tyrone especially, the outward-looking man of action, the final act of his self-confrontation is both traumatic and dramatic. For Kadien the introvert artist, the self-examination is more gradual, more reluctant and more artistic, happening while he struggles to create a triptych which explores the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

In the exact middle of this is Myrna, who, by her unflinching honesty and truth-telling, her face-the-facts sincerity, helps to bring both men to their needed self-examination and bring herself to the point of decision about her relationship with Tyrone. All three characters undergo self-change but it is Myrna’s influence which provokes the two men towards their turning points while she walks her journey in independent integrity.

All of this may sound heavy but ‘Triptych’ weaves the story of their three journeys with exuberant dialogue, quite hilarious at times; suspense over the possible outcomes of Tyrone’s drastic decision of how to get justice for the worker; simmering vibrations in what certainly seems like a love triangle with the usual expected outcome; and a controversial, feminist interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent.

A Review by Robert Leyshon

The two outstanding plays in this collection, however, are “Triptych” (2000) by Kendel Hippolyte and Sistren’s “Bellywoman Bangarang” (1978, 1982). Hippolyte is a writer I have long admired, and he’s on top form here. Politics, once again, is at the heart of “Triptych”, but this time it’s gender politics. Exploring the relationship between three thirtysomething friends (Tyrone, Myrna and Kadien), the play is a gently devastating critique of the self-serving cant that lies behind so much male posturing, be it ideological (as with Tyrone) or artistic (in the case of Kadien). Towards the end of Act I, Myrna, a woman whose ‘road to truth is an unflinching honesty’ according to Hippolyte’s character note, skewers her lover Tyrone’s political dissimulation as she will later puncture Kadien’s different kind of duplicity. It’s a key speech, and worth quoting in full:

‘I never met one of your friends, not one, who was honest enough to say, ‘Okay, I’m doing this for the glory, for fame.’ Or ‘I’m jealous.’ Or ‘I want justice and revenge.’ Is always a lot of high-sounding balls about justice and equality and righting wrongs and the historical imperative and …just lying to themselves. These things might be true, but that’s not why they involved. Maybe at first, I don’t know. But all of them that I know now eh no different from those they say they fighting against. And if you ever try to have an honest conversation, without the slogans and the jargon, they get uncomfortable. Then they avoid you. But you cyah go through life without questioning yourself. Especially when you involved in something like political action. That’s people’s lives. You have to try and be honest with yourself.’ (Waters, 177)

Hippolyte’s ear for the rhythms, cadences and rapid code-switchings of contemporary Caribbean speech is perfectly illustrated here. At the same time, he displays his subtle understanding of how language reveals and defines character in good drama. This is dialogue the actor playing Myrna can speak without awkwardness. It’s Myrna’s voice, not the playwright’s we hear. And just as subtle is Hippolyte’s grasp of dramatic structure. The action unfolds over six concise scenes, three in each act, ending with all three characters gazing at the three panels of Kadien’s painting. Formally and thematically, “Triptych” is as artful as its title. In the quiet, economical handling of its material, the play recalls a poetic rather than a pictorial genre—the haiku. Either way, “Triptych” is the anthology’s small gem.

Poet and dramatist Kendel Hippolyte

Kendel Hippolyte was born in Castries, the capital of St Lucia, and was educated at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He worked as a teacher at St Mary’s College in Vigie, Castries, and the Sir Arthur Lewis College at the Morne. He is actively involved as a playwright and director with the Lighthouse Theatre Company, of which he was a co-founder.

He has written eight plays. His best known, Drum-maker, uses idiomatic Caribbean language to explore the indigenous local culture in a political context. He has published several collections of verse, characterized by its modernist-free style. He is also the editor of the anthologies Confluence: Nine Saint Lucian Poets (1988) and So Much Poetry in We People (1990). In 2000, he was awarded the St. Lucia Medal of Merit (Gold) for Contribution to the Arts. In 2013, he won the poetry category of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for his 2012 poetry collection, Fault Lines.

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