Reparations formed part of the cultural conversation at this year’s Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival with the staging of Repair, a satirical musical production, held 5th May, at the Anchorage Car Park.
Presented as part of the festival’s Art and the City programme, Repair used music, humour and storytelling to invite audiences to reflect on the connection between Saint Lucia’s colonial legacy, the country’s present-day challenges, and the changes needed to move forward.
For Sherween Gonzales, Saint Lucia-based Community Organiser with event sponsor The Repair Campaign, the play offered an accessible way to expand conversations around identity, community and reparatory justice.
“As an educator, I see the arts as one of the most powerful ways to reach people,” Gonzales said. “Repair allows us to engage audiences through laughter, music, story and reflection, while still asking serious questions about who we are, what we have inherited, and what reparations can look like for Saint Lucia.”
Christelle Lee, who portrays lead character Ma Ayo, said the production speaks to the ways in which history continues to shape everyday life. “I believe the very lives we live are intricately shaped by our history,” Lee said. “The reality that our ancestors endured years of subjugation, torture and torment has quietly crept into our psyche. It has influenced how we approach life, how we view and trust systems, and even how we show up for each other. That is exactly why this story matters. This play invites you to reflect, to question and to reconnect with a history that still lives within us.”
That reflection is central to the purpose of Repair. Rather than presenting reparations as a distant or abstract issue, the production places the topic in a format that is familiar, cultural and community centred. “The topic of reparations is increasingly important to us, and we should take every opportunity available to educate our people,” said actor Kolbe Devaux, who portrays Robert in Repair.
“To me, the chance to do so using theatre arts is a perfect union. It provides another avenue for sharing information with the public, while taking a cultural art form usually seen solely as entertainment and using it to make a real impact on its audience. These things line up with our goals as a group for every performance we do.”