On a Caribbean island, the morning after a full moon, Felix Hobain tears
through the market in a drunken rage. Taken away to sober up in jail,
all that night he is gripped by hallucinations: the impoverished hermit
believes he has become a healer, walking from village to village,
tending to the sick, waiting for a sign from God. In this dream, his one
companion, Moustique, wants to exploit his power. Moustique decides to
impersonate a prophet himself, ignoring a coffin-maker who warns him he
will die and enraging the people of the island. Hobain, half-awake in
his desolate jail cell, terrorized by the specter of his friend's
corruption, clings to his visionary quest. He will try to transform
himself; to heal Moustique, his jailer, and his jail-mates; and to be a
leader for his people. Dream on Monkey Mountain was awarded the 1971
Obie Award for a Distinguished Foreign Play when it was first presented
in New York, and Edith Oliver, writing in The New Yorker, called it a
masterpiece.
Three of Derek's Walcott's most popular short plays are also included in
this volume: Ti-Jean and His Brothers; Malcochon, or The Six in the
Rain; and The Sea at Dauphin. In an expansive introductory essay,
What the Twilight Says, the playwright explains his founding of the
seminal dramatic company where these works were first performed, the
Trinidad Theatre Workshop.
First published in 1970, Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays is
an essential part of Walcott's vast and important body of work.
