SOURCE: "A Black Man's Dream of Personal Freedom," in The New York Times, 4 April 1971, Section II, p. 3.

In this review of the NEC production, Riley describes Dream on Monkey Mountain as a "lush depiction of the many moods implicit in the ritual and realistic aspects of Caribbean Black life" but notes that at times the play does "falter under the weight of its voluminous dialogue."

Well, all right. "The Negro Ensemble Company has chosen to devote its entire 1970-71 season to a program of plays centered around a single subject: Themes of Black Struggle.'" A program note. The commitment is substantially realized with NEC's third production of the season, Derek Walcott's brooding allegorical drama, The Dream on Monkey Mountain.

The playwright, a Trinidadian, offers a very extended work, too long and sometimes structurally unsteady. Too many words. Yet an engrossing study, exercising its fascination upon us, designed...