Veteran film director optimistic about local industry

Jan 06, 2015 News

By Leon Suseran
Veteran actor, director, playwright and broadcaster, Ron Robinson is hopeful that Guyana’s film industry

Ron Robinson

can develop further in this New Year. Mr. Robinson, whose acting days began at the tender age of eight, believes we have to get more into films, “because we do have some very, very good actors.”
The major organizations that write, direct and act plays in Guyana are the Theatre Company, which Robinson himself founded in 1981. Over the years, a few Guyanese have managed to release short films as well, including eight released in 2011.
Some famous local plays Robinson has and directed over the years were Agatha Christie’s ‘Witness for the Prosecution’; ‘Wait until Dark’; Trevor Rhone’s ‘Smile Orange’; ‘Two can Play’; ‘Ten Little Indians’; ‘Sleuth’; ‘December’; and his biggest production of the famous Biblical Musical, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’. The latter had over 120 people on stage and back- stage in the 1980’s.
“That was big, big, big and I had a full steel orchestra in the pits of the National Cultural Centre.” He also acted in numerous plays under the directorships of Andre Subryan and Al Creighton.
Ron, at age 8, would dab his face with white yachting boots cleaner and paint his lips red with his mother’s lipstick. “I looked like a clown and I went to the window and waited until some child saw me and said, ‘Look! Look! Look! A clown!’, and by the time the others looked up, I would duck!”
In no time at all, he had over 100 of his schoolmates in front of his Hadfield Street house waiting for the clown to emerge. He also did a lot of drama at Queen’s College. Ron started the Theatre Company in 1981, the first professional drama company in Guyana. He thought it was time for actors to get paid for their talent. “I had a dream that people could make acting a career and feed their families and themselves and survive.”

Guyanese actors (with Robinson) during the performance of play ‘Miriami’ at the National Cultural Centre in 1990

That organization, over the years, has done more than 100 productions, most of which saw Robinson as actor and/or Director. Today, his work centres on the Theatre Guild, producing and directing plays for that entity. It is a place that provides an environment to nurture the acting skills of many. “It’s a good amateur, but yet professionally amateur space…”
He said that the Theatre Company is feverishly working on the upcoming Link Show 31 this year. That show, he said, has become “an institution” in Guyana. Frank Pilgrim, whom he described as the “Godfather of satire in Guyana” was the man who motivated him to start the Link Show. Pilgrim did a show at the Guild called the ‘Brink Show’ set in a country called ‘Lootupia’, “and it was quite funny…and he coached me a lot in satire.”
Another one of his masterpieces is ‘No Big Thing’ aired for many, many years on radio as well as ‘Stretched out Magazine’ on the television. “And we started with very simple, basic equipment.”
When asked where the satirical ideas come from, Mr. Robinson identified his team of writers.
Robinson does believe that acting has a future. He is quite optimistic that the art of both film and stage is poised for development in the future. But he has a warning for film producers in Guyana. “For God’s sake, keep a standard…apply yourselves to the techniques and professional standards of film- making.”
Apart from acting and directing countless stage performances, Robinson’s voice is no strange sound to Guyanese as he is also a veteran in the radio broadcasting business, having given over 49 years to that facet of life.
When asked what has changed from then to now in broadcasting, Mr. Robinson said that today “we have allowed the tail to wag the dog, in that, we have ‘dancehall deejays’ doing radio and coming in to your homes, screaming at you, shouting at you, talking all the way, interrupting the music and so on—That’s not radio at all!”
The veteran broadcaster was quite passionate on that issue. “What is happening now is that there is too much of talk and too many times, the deejays on the radio prefer you to hear their voice on the radio than the music—they’re full of themselves—and we have to correct that and do it quickly.”
Among the names of some programmes Mr. Robinson has hosted over the last 49 years or so on radio were: Beat the Clock, Good Morning Guyana, Panorama, and today there is Ron’s Rendezvous.