Derek Walcott: The Last Carnival

Note

For further details see also the Classical Receptions in Late Twentieth Century Drama and Poetry in English online database, (ed.) L. Hardwick, [www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/GreekPlays/], Production ID 150.

Part of a triptych of poems (‘Beef, No Chicken’, and ‘A branch of the Blue Line’)  relating events of the 40 years of Trinidad's social and political history, beginning, in "The Last Carnival," with the colonial life-style of a French Creole family faced with the emergence of the Black Power movement. 

Set in Port O' Spain 1948-70. Agatha - young working class English woman comes to be governess to Victor's children and becomes his brother's mistress. The last carnival takes place amid unrest and guerrilla activity by which Victor's children Tony and Claudia are interested and to some extent implicated. Agatha has succeeded in empowering the maid Jean to become Minister in Government by the end of the play.

Connection with Cythera is tenuous; Walteau's 'Embarkation for Cythera' is the work Victor is copying out in Act I but he kills himself leaving it unfinished. His son Tony designs Walteau-esque costumes for the last carnival from it. Some references to the island as not being Cythera ("small desolate island south of the Peloponnesus - sanctuary of Aphrodite.... not one of the goddess's most favoured abodes, and it was far from being the enchanted island that was so popular with eighteenth century artists and poets" - Pierre Devambez, 'A Dictionary of Ancient Greek Civilisation' Methuen (1966) 1970)