HTML Copyright © 2001-2002, awsltd.netMATT LOWE & MISS RUBY
For their May 2002 theatrical event the Abaco Cultural Society and Alton Lowe will bring to the Gallery Stage, Green Turtle Cay, Matt Lowe and Miss Ruby. These solo dramatic portraits written by Sandra Riley for Travis Neff and Luisa Black come to The Bahamas after a grand US premiere at the San Carlos Theatre, Key West. Both plays celebrate the rich heritage that Green Turtle Cay and Key West share as sister communities. Ties between the Bahama Islands, Florida Keys and the islands of the Caribbean reach back hundreds of years before Columbus.
What does an early 18th century turtler, wrecker and sometime pirate have in common with a late 19th century spinster schoolteacher? Matt Lowe and Miss Ruby bear the stamp of the character of the early Bahamian settlers: uncommon courage, humour and resilience. Originally from England, the ancestors of Matt Lowe and Miss Ruby voyaged to The Bahamas with Bermudian adventurers and whalers in the late 1640’s - and they stayed. Eleuthera, Harbour Island and Nassau became the first English settlements, but colonisation had its price. The Spanish and French terrorised those settlements for the next 130 years. Sheer determination, courage and physical toughness characterised these Bermuda seafarers. In the early years Bahamians endured all manner of hardships, even sleeping in the woods to avoid surprise attacks. As Winston Churchill said: “After all, it is not given to many to start a nation.”
Matt Lowe was bred to the sea and, like his neighbours, his family’s survival depended on the sea: fishing, turtling, whaling and wrecking. During the early 1700’s, when The Bahamas was a haven for pirates, these indomitable few held onto their small farms and fishing sloops. In the face of an enemy attack and at the risk of imprisonment, Bahamians traded with the Spanish at Cuba and with the French at Hispaniola. Bahamian fishing grounds in Abaco and the Florida Keys were visited by pirates seeking either safe harbours to careen their vessels or Spanish treasure fleets to plunder. With pirate captain Benjamin Hornigold (Blackbeard’s tutor), Matt dives for Spanish gold in the Gulf of Florida. Now, marooned on the Isle of Pines, Cuba, Matt discovers that the gold he sought was the woman he loved in Cuba long years ago.
Miss Ruby recreates her childhood growing up on Green Turtle Cay in the 1880’s, a time when the island thrived as part of a trade network that included Cuba, Key West and New York City. Wrecking was big business. Bahamians had been fishing and wrecking along the coast of Florida since the days of Matt Lowe. Several men left Green Turtle to live and work in Key West. John Barthum, ship builder, and William Curry, ship chandler, were among them. Ruby’s story is also set in Key West where she attends college in the 1890’s and lives with her Uncle William Curry, or “Rich Bill” as he is affectionately called.
Many Cubans emigrated to Key West in the mid-1800’s to escape revolutionary reprisals. Jose Marti visited Key West in 1891 to gain support for the revolution against Spanish domination of the island of Cuba. In 1896 the US battleship Maine arrived in Key West. The proximity of Key West to Cuba ultimately brought the United States into the Spanish-American War. Within this historical context, Miss Ruby is a love story. At eighteen, Ruby meets the man she would love for all of her days.
Ultimately the stories Matt Lowe and Miss Ruby illuminate two fiercely independent people struggling to live - and to love - through the crises of their times.
Luisa Black brings Miss Ruby to life. As a native of Cuba, Florida Keys resident and frequent visitor to Green Turtle Cay, Luisa has a keen interest in the historical and cultural connections between these places. A faithful supporter of the Abaco Cultural Society, Luisa made her acting debut at the Garden Theatre, Green Turtle Cay, in 1997 in The Magenta Shift. In 1999, Luisa played Eve in Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve and Margaret Prideaux’s Postcards at the Gallery Stage. May 2001 marked the world premiere of Miss Ruby at the Gallery Stage where audiences enthusiastically received her inspired and sensitive portrait of this island woman. To perform at the historic San Carlos in Key West, where parts of Miss Ruby actually took place, was an inspiring experience for her.
Travis Neff comes to the Gallery Stage after an exciting performance as Matt Lowe at the San Carlos. Native Miamian, Travis is resident lighting designer for New Theatre, Mad Cat Productions and several Miami-based dance companies. In 200, he won a Curtain Up award and a Carbonell nomination for his lighting design for The House of Seven Gables at New Theatre. Travis is also production manager/technical director for the Miami Light Project and Abaco Cultural Society-sponsored events. At the Garden Theatre and Garden Stage, Travis played Elyot in Private Lives, Adam in The Diaries of Adam and Eve, Leonard in Postcards, the student in the Shakespeare Master Class scenes, and the Storyteller in The Forgotten Carols.
Sandra Riley, playwright/director, draws her dramatic portraits from her historical works, Homeward Bound: The History of The Bahamas to 1850 and The Lucayans. She has directed over 80 plays in high schools, community theatres and summer stock in the US, Bahamas and Japan, including Anouilh’s Antigone, The Comedy of Errors, Death of a Salesman, On the Verge, The Fantasticks, The King and I, Oklahoma and A Streetcar Named Desire.
Matt Lowe and Miss Ruby will perform together at the Lowe Gallery Stage, Green Turtle Cay, on 2nd, 3rd and 4th May at 8pm. Tickets are $15. There will be a special matinee performance for Abaco schools on Friday 3rd May. Contact Veronica Saunders in Marsh Harbour at (242) 367-3643 or the Albert Lowe Museum on Green Turtle Cay at (242) 365-4094.