"Well, I am not saying not to give the bird a fair trial, but I see nothing wrong in taking him out the cage at dawn, blindfolding the bitch, giving him a last cigarette if he want it, lining him up against the garden wall, and perforating his arse by firing squad."
"The war’s over, Jackson! And how can a bloody parrot be prejudiced?"
"The same damn way they corrupt a child. By their upbringing. That parrot survive from a pre-colonial epoch, Mr. Trewe, and if it want to last in Trinidad and Tobago, then it go have to adjust."
Early in Pantomime, Jackson complains that the parrot who came with the hotel has been calling him a racist slur again. Harry insists that the parrot is merely saying the name Herr Heinegger, the German former owner of the place, but Jackson attributes malice to the bird. In this exchange, Jackson jokes that he wouldn't mind executing the parrot in the same way the military used to execute convicted soldiers. Harry asks Jackson how a parrot could be prejudiced. Jackson explains that racial prejudice results directly from the way a society raises and educates future generations, likening the bird to a child. In a line that typifies the play's satirical edge, Jackson references the post-colonial era they are living in, saying that the bird, like any holdover from the precolonial era, is going to have to accept and adapt to the current social structure.
"You want my honest, professional opinion?"
"Fire away."
"I think is shit."
When Harry proposes the idea of staging a race-reversed version of the Robinson Crusoe story in pantomime form, Jackson delivers this verdict in his blunt, sarcastic style. To emphasize his excoriating opinion, Jackson first asks if Harry wants his "honest, professional opinion." Having primed Harry for a balanced critique, Jackson then undermines the expectation he has set by crudely dismissing the entire notion as "shit." With this exchange, Walcott sets the tone for Jackson's and Harry's playful but aggressive dynamic.
"I'll tell you one thing, friend. If you want me to learn your language, you'd better have a gun."
To mock Harry's idea of a race-reversed version of the Crusoe story, Jackson improvises a scene in which he moves about frantically and names everyday objects in an invented language. In doing so, Jackson lampoons how colonizers imposed their culture and language on colonized peoples. Harry responds by saying he would only learn Jackson's language if he were threatened with death, conceding that a foreign language and culture can only be introduced in a colony through violence and intimidation.
"This is the story ... this is history. This moment that we are now acting here is the history of imperialism; it's nothing less than that. And I don't think that I can—should—concede my getting into a part halfway and abandoning things, just because you, as my superior, give me orders. People become independent. Now, I could go down to that beach by myself with this hat, and I could play Robinson Crusoe, I could play Columbus, I could play Sir Francis Drake, I could play anybody discovering anywhere, but I don’t want you to tell me when and where to draw the line!"
When Jackson's portrayal of a race-reversed Robinson Crusoe makes Harry uncomfortable, he demands that Jackson stop improvising. In this monologue, Jackson tells Harry that their play is an extended metaphor for imperialism. He criticizes Harry—who represents the white colonizer—for being unable to accept a black man in a leading position. He points out the hypocrisy of Harry trying to impose his will on Jackson after encouraging him to explore the role, just as the British sought to stifle colonized people after they adopted the colonizer's culture and demanded equality. This passage is significant because it captures the play's unique balance of farce and serious social critique.
"Look, I’m sorry to interrupt you again, Jackson, but as I—you know—was watching you, I realized it’s much more profound than that; that it could get offensive. We’re trying to do something light, just a little pantomime, a little satire, a little picong. But if you take this thing seriously, we might commit Art, which is a kind of crime in this society … I mean, there’d be a lot of things there that people … well, it would make them think too much, and well, we don’t want that … we just want a little … entertainment."
To explain why he tried to stop Jackson's improvisation, Harry says that he envisioned a pantomime with light satirical elements rather than a serious critique of colonialism. By exposing the horrors of British imperialism, Jackson would probably offend the viewers because it would open their eyes to the inhuman way the people in the colonies have been treated. In this explanation, Harry betrays his own sense of discomfort as a white British man living in post-colonial Tobago. Rather than seriously reckon with his privilege, Harry wishes to maintain the status quo.
"All right. Stay as you want. But if you say yes, it go have to be man to man, and none of this boss-and-Jackson business, you see, Trewe … l mean, I just call you plain Trewe, for example, and I notice that give you a slight shock. Just a little twitch of the lip, but a shock all the same, eh, Trewe? You see? You twitch again."
Even though it is Harry who suggests the two should speak man to man, Jackson exposes Harry's discomfort with the idea of being on an equal level with Jackson. In this passage, Jackson remarks on Harry's subconscious reaction—a twitch of the lip—at the would-be insubordination of his Black employee addressing him only as Trewe, and not Mr. Trewe. With this visual tell, Harry betrays the fact he doesn't actually see Jackson as his equal, and thus his desire to speak "man to man" is merely superficial.
"All right, so it’s Thursday. He comes across this naked white cannibal called Thursday, you know. And then look at what would happen. He would have to start to … well, he’d have to, sorry … This cannibal, who is a Christian, would have to start unlearning his Christianity. He would have to be taught … I mean … he’d have to be taught by this—African … that everything was wrong, that what he was doing … I mean, for nearly two thousand years … was wrong. That his civilization, his culture, his whatever, was … horrible. Was all … wrong. Barbarous, I mean, you know. And Crusoe would then have to teach him things like, you know, about … Africa, his gods, patamba, and so on … and it would get very, very complicated, and I suppose ultimately it would be very boring, and what we’d have on our hands would be … would be a play and not a little pantomime."
As he explains his issue with doing a serious race-reversed version of the Crusoe story, Harry outlines what Christian colonizers have done throughout the world to colonized peoples. In this monologue, Harry puts words to the absurd reality of a group of foreigners arriving in an inhabited place and attempting to erase the native culture and dismiss it as barbarous. While vocalizing this process, Harry becomes audibly uncomfortable, stuttering as he reckons with the cultural erasure his people have engaged in for centuries.
"Adam in paradise had his woman to share his loneliness, but I miss the voice of even one consoling creature, the touch of a hand, the look of kind eyes. Where is the wife from whom I vowed never to be sundered? How old is my little son? If he could see his father like this, mad with memories of them … Even Job had his family. But I am alone, alone, I am all alone."
(Pause)
"Oho. You write this?"
In this passage, Jackson reads the monologue that Harry has written from the perspective of Robinson Crusoe. In contrast to the original pantomime's trivial tone, Harry envisions a serious version of the play in which Crusoe reflects on his homesickness. With this monologue, Harry sublimates his own feelings into art, using the medium to express his grief and loneliness. In this way, Harry draws a parallel between Crusoe and himself, seeing his life in Tobago as similar to washing ashore on a remote island.
"Man to man: that vindictive hammering and singing, and I thought, Well, maybe we could do it straight. Make a real straight thing out of it."
"You mean like a tradegy. With one joke?"
"Or a codemy, with none. You mispronounce words on purpose, don’t you, Jackson?"
(JACKSON smiles)
"Don’t think for one second that I’m not up on your game, Jackson. You’re playing the stage nigger with me. I’m an actor, you know. It’s a smile in front and a dagger behind your back, right? Or the smile itself is the bloody dagger. I’m aware, chum. I’m aware."
"The smile kinda rusty, sir, but it goes with the job. Just like the water in this hotel. I turn it on at seven and lock it off at one."
In this exchange, Jackson purposefully mispronounces "tragedy," provoking Harry to come back with a mispronunciation of "comedy." Wise to Jackson's mischievousness, Harry accuses him of playing up his ignorance for Harry's benefit. Jackson explains that his act "goes with the job," by which he means that their unequal relationship as employer and employee demands Jackson behave in a subordinate way. Jackson likens his act to the hotel's water—something he turns on at the beginning of his shift and turns off at his shift's end.
"You played Crusoe in the panto, Ellen. I was Friday. Black bloody greasepaint that made you howl. You wiped the stage with me … Ellen … well. Why not? I was no bloody good."
By holding a photograph of Harry's ex-wife, Ellen, in front of his face, Jackson manages to get Harry to talk through the grief and resentment he has been suppressing. In this passage, Harry admits that he wanted to stage the Robinson Crusoe pantomime again because Ellen starred as Crusoe in the first performance while Harry had to play Friday. The humiliation of playing a servant to his wife still stings Harry, but he concedes she was the superior actor. From this confession, the audience understands that Harry has been adamant about redoing the pantomime because he hopes to regain some of the dignity he lost the first time.
