Jamaican Labrish is the unique production of the Jamaican Folk Icon Louise Bennett Coverley. Louise Bennett has been described variously as Jamaica’s leading comedienne, as the “only poet who has really hit the truth about her society through it’s own language”, and as an important contributor to her country of “valid social documents reflecting the way Jamaicans think, feel and live.”
Louise is all these things and more, for her understanding and feeling for the language which most Jamaicans speak has already carved for her a well earned place in the infant nation’s cultural history. Through her poems in the vernacular, she has raised the picturesque dialect of the Jamaican folk to an art level which is acceptable to and appreciated by all in Jamaica.
In her poems she has been able to capture all the spontaneity of the expression of the Jamaican’s joys and sorrows, his ready, poignant and even wicked wit, his religion and his philosophy of life.
A British Council Scholarship took her to the royal academy of dramatic art where she studied in the late forties. After graduation she worked with repertory companies in Coventry, Huddersfield and Amersham as well as in intimate revues all over England.
On her return to Jamaica she taught drama to youth and adult groups both social welfare agencies and for the University of the West Indies Extra Mural Department. She has lectured extensively in the United Kingdom on Jamaican Folklore and music. She has represented Jamaica many times abroad – most recently at the royal common wealth Arts Festival held in Britain (1965).
Her research and folklore creations for the Jamaican stage have helped to save much of Jamaican folk material from extinction and she has already published many of her works - poems, songs and Anancy stories. Her contribution to Jamaican cultural life has been a positive one and she was honoured with the M.B.E for her work, as well as the Musgrave Silver Medal, a Jamaican Award in recognition of her tremendous achievement. In private life she is Mrs. Eric Coverley, the wife of a well – known theatre personality in Jamaica.
