Soyica D. Colbert

Derek Walcott, Ti-Jean and His Brothers. Directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian; Central Square Theater, Cambridge, Mass.; 3 March 2011.

The Underground Railway Theater and Playwrights’ Theatre at Boston University production of Noble Prize winner Derek Walcott’s Ti-Jean and His Brothers takes the viewer on a journey to a place and time where animals talk, spirits negotiate with the living, and a murdered child comes back to life. The play, which takes place somewhere in the Caribbean, has been produced several times since 1957, when Walcott wrote the play over three days in a New York City hotel room. The lack of geographical specificity leaves the play open to several different interpretations.

Hampton Sterling Fluker (Gros Jean), Cedric Lilly (Mi-Jean), Sonya Raye (Mother), and Kervin George Germain (Ti-Jean) in Ti-Jean & His Brothers, Central Square Theater, Photo by A.R. Sinclair Photography.

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