Demerara Gold, a one-woman show written by and featuring Ingrid Griffith, is the story of a 7-year old girl in Guyana whose parents get visas to America and must leave her in the care of her two grandmothers.
Demerara Gold, a one-woman show written by and featuring Ingrid Griffith, is the story of a 7-year old girl in Guyana whose parents get visas to America and must leave her in the care of her two grandmothers.
One grandmother is a rigid recluse. The other grandmother is a religious fanatic. The girl's dreams are on hold until she finally gets a visa to join her parents in the U.S.
Her new home in America proves to be all that was promised but more than she bargained for.
There are thousands of Guyanese and Caribbean immigrants living in New York, across America and all over the globe. Demerara Gold is my story and theirs. And it’s an account that is rarely told fully.
The show captures the voices, the exhilaration of promise and hope that immigrants from everywhere; Ireland, Iran, Russia, Mexico, Guyana – who dreamed of moving to America share. It also resonates with the story of the black migration in America from the South to the North.
Demerara Gold is about dreams but it is also about resilience. A girl has been left behind in the clutches of her two grandmothers in Guyana and is finally reunited with her parents in America. In her new home, her parents are not the people she remembers and her American life is not how it felt in her dreams.
Demerara Gold reaches across generations. The play gives an audience that may know very little about Guyana a taste of the land and culture. And leads the audience to examine gender roles and family dynamics while having a good laugh and a good cry.
With its tropical Guyanese flavor, Demerara Gold is transporting and is meant to stir the senses.
Christmas time and flute players, drummers and flouncers dance in the street.
The music and the language of the characters throb like the rhythms of a Caribbean masquerade.
About the writer and actor
Ingrid has been in theatrical productions in and around New York City. Some of her favorite roles were playing Lady Reveller in the 18th century play, The Basset Table, by Susanna Centlivre, Mrs. Muller in John Patrick's Shanley's "Doubt", Hedda Gabler in Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" and various characters in Eve Enseler's "Vagina Monologues"
The classically trained actress has had a busy eighteen months. In May, 2013, she brought audiences out of their seats at the center stage at the Southampton Cultural Center in a supporting role in “Buckingham”, a period piece by Tina Andrews about slavery and African bloodlines in British royalty and in June 2013, she performed excerpts from "Demerara Gold" at Soho Playhouse as an opening act for Debra Ehrhardt's popular "Jamaica Farewell"
This April, she drew raves for her performance at the John Jay Black Box Theater as Mama Nadi, the lead character in "Ruined&", a play by Lynn Nottage about brothel women in war-torn Congo.
Demerara Gold premiered at the Midtown International Theatre Festival this summer. It was 1 of 50 plays selected and was the first time a play about Guyana was in the line up. Performances were July 17 – July 31, 2014. There were 3 sold out performances and due to audience demand, a show was added on August 2, 2014.
Acknowledgment:Demerara Gold was originally developed in Matt Hoverman's Go-Solo Workshops.
More about Demerara Gold
