The Caribbean has produced many celebrated comedians such as Paul Keens Douglas, Oliver Samuels and Louise ‘Miss Lou’ Bennett-Coverley, among others. Saint Lucia’s very own stand-out, homegrown comedic icon is none other than Carlton Cyril, popularly known as ‘Coaks.’
Coaks got an early initiation into the world of acting through his depictions of Bible stories. This served as a platform to launch his comedy career. Yet as humorous and carefree as he may seem, there is another side to Coaks that evinces a deep concern about serious social issues and the development of theatre locally.
Young Carlton lost his mom at age four whist attending the St Aloysius RC Boys’ Infant School. He was raised by his paternal grandmother who, from early, instilled in him a strong code of ethics and brought him up in a Christian family. He is the son of former Acting police superintendent, Gerald Cyril and the second of three children of his mother, seven brothers and six sisters by father.
He grew up in L’abayee, Bexon and attended the SDA primary school in Ravine Passion. The L’abayee community would transform young Carton’s life in a way he never quite imagined.
From performing with a junior church group he got to ‘hang out’ with the older church group members, rubbing shoulders with them until he got a foot in and a shot at doing short acting stints periodically. Eventually he became a member of the popular Che Campeche.
The group was officially registered as a company in October 2002 and went on to release their first comedy CD, ‘Zafe Moun’. Although the Che Campeche members had no formal training they participated in workshops to develop and fine tune their acting skills, script writing and stage presentations.
Coaks sat down with Dazzle to speak candidly about his love for the arts and his career as an actor and comedian.
Since I had been exposed to acting through school plays it gradually became a part of me.
Dazzle: When did you first sense that you had a knack for performance comedy and drama presentations?
Coaks: Well, truthfully, it is a natural talent that I possess. I have always been the ‘comic’ – the kind of jovial guy who, anytime and anywhere, I would always make fun of people. With the gradual transformation within the group it was not that difficult because I had that talent in me and it was a process that evolved for me. Since I had been exposed to acting through school plays it gradually became a part of me. It really hit me at about age 15 to 16 when I became more involved in acting with the older group members.
However, during that time the group broke up twice as some members migrated overseas and it was on the third time that we registered as a company. That is when we began putting things together and I began to get leading roles. It was smooth sailing from there.
Dazzle: How did you go about preparing for big stage productions?
Coaks: Interestingly, these were guys much older than me who were involved in the productions … and the good thing about all this is that we all came from the same community. This allowed me to be more comfortable with them. Everybody knew each other; Angelbot lived right next door, Bishop, Gonzag and those persons lived across from us, and Stepanie and Anglasia lived down the road. What we did at the time and what we continue to do is portray ‘popular theatre’ and not regular plays per se. It is popular theatre which addresses social issues and we bring it out in our own Saint Lucian context with the use of the Creole language in our general themes and presentations. We held rehearsals and thrashed out ideas, but later down the line it got to be different. For instance, I got a call from Derek Walcott about three years ago, requesting me to take up an acting role in his play ‘Ti Jean and his Brothers, and I was to audition for the role of Mi Jean… which I got. But though it never materialized, I gained experience at the rehearsals where we did some extensive work.
Dazzle: Other than your jovial personality and hilarious comedy scripts, there seems to be another part of you that is inclined to tackle social issues.
Coaks: This is something that developed along the way as we noticed that it was a strong selling point; so for our scripts we came up with the strategy where our plays always had a moral. In all, we addressed the issues, but there was a moral to the story we were telling. We continue to address social issues in our presentations. We have done the political, everyday economic situations but when it comes to gender relations, man and woman, these kind of everyday social issues appeal to the people and they respond positively.
Dazzle: How far do you see this art form developing in Saint Lucia and the wider region?
Coaks: Honestly, I am very disappointed. I feel enough is not being done in that regard. For instance, in our annual budget the Folk Research Centre allocation for culture is a meager $30,000. If we are talking about culture and where we want to go with it, I mean this is ridiculous. Can you imagine that for Creole Day alone, or the month of October, there are bars that make at about $30,000 profit from that month event? And to tell me that is what you are allocating yearly for culture, I am really not pleased with that.
It is true that we have the ‘Creative Industries’ which was a political promise as far as I am concerned, but the way that we are going about it, do we want it to grow? Jamaica planted that seed in their athletes and artistes and they are reaping the benefit now. That did not happen yesterday. Again, I must emphasize enough has not been done. I strongly feel that with acting it should start at the primary school level, the grass roots level because not everyone is the theory-type academic. You would be amazed to know the number of persons that possess vocational skills and have a talent.
Dazzle: What are your future aspirations for further development as an artiste?
Coaks: Well, firstly as a group Che Campeche has always been a part-time activity. But personally I have established a company called ‘Coaks Productions’ which started off doing advertisements, radio shows and stage performances for different occasions. In the future I am looking forward to using my studio to do my work, and as anything else, I am always interested in representing the art form. I am keen on imparting knowledge to younger persons and I am preparing to conduct workshops with some secondary schools and other children. I challenged some youngsters to participate in Head Phunk ‘spoken word’ sessions and interestingly, they came and performed, and were well received. As for me, I like a challenge and I am currently hosting a Creole show on Calabash TV for Creole Day, I emcee at functions, I am all about the place.
My first advice to young people when I interact with them is that they make sure this is what they want to do, so that they never end up regretting getting into it in the first place. First and foremost you must have a love, passion and commitment for your particular art form and then the monetary rewards will follow.
