Matura, Mustapha (1939-2019), a West Indian-born dramatist, won praise for his plays about West Indians either in the Caribbean or as immigrants in the United Kingdom. In 1978, Matura helped found the Black Theatre Cooperative, the United Kingdom’s leading Black theater company. He also wrote a number of plays for television.
Matura was born on Dec. 17, 1939, on the island of Trinidad in the West Indies. He was educated there at Belmont Boys Roman Catholic Intermediate School. His given name was Noel Matura. He changed his first name during the 1960’s, when he was establishing his career as a writer.
Matura moved to the United Kingdom in 1961 and worked in a number of odd jobs until becoming a full-time writer in 1968. His first play, As Time Goes By (1971), brought him critical acclaim and has been widely produced. It concerns a Trinidadian mystic and con man living in London who solves everyone’s problems for a fee. The jokes and high spirits in the play cover the despair of characters struggling to get by in a hostile environment.
Matura’s plays Nice (1973) and Welcome Home Jacko (1979) deal with West Indians in the United Kingdom. Play Mas (1974) and Independence (1979) explore the impact of Trinidad’s independence on the local population. A Small World (1984) deals with West Indian characters in the United States. Matura adapted the Irish dramatist John Millington Synge’s famous play The Playboy of the Western World (1907) into The Playboy of the West Indies (1984), using Trinidadian dialect. Matura’s other stage plays include Rum an’ Coca Cola (1976), Meetings (1981), and The Coup (1991). His television dramas brought his work before a larger audience in the 1980’s. Examples include the series “No Problem” (1983) and “Black Silk” (1985), and There’s Something Wrong in Paradise (1984). Matura died on Oct. 29, 2019.
