Former Naps Girls principal, actress Mavis Lee Wah dies

JAMAICAN-BORN, Trinidadian actress and former Naparima Girls principal, Mavis Lee Wah has died.

Lee Wah (formerly Arscott) died around 9am yesterday. She was the wife of popular San Fernando-based playwright/director James Lee Wah. Apart from being an educator in south TT, she acted in and directed plays written by her husband.

According to the Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre, Lee Wah had acted in several plays in Jamaica before entering the UWI in TT. In the early days, she acted as Knowledge in Everyman; Juno in Juno and the Peacock; and as Mrs X in The Stronger, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, and Amanda in The Glass Menagerie among others. She later became the president of the University Dramatic Society.

South-based playwright, actor and politician Ralph Maraj was deeply saddened yesterday on hearing the news. “Mavis was my co-star in school plays such as Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and several other plays.”

Her passing, he said, is a great loss to the performing arts fraternity in TT and abroad. He said Lee Wah was not only an educator, but she was a cultural activist working hard towards promoting those in theatre arts in San Fernando.

South-based playright Walid Baksh said Lee Wah had been out of the limelight for quite a while.

“It has been a couple years now that she fell ill.”

She was a prominent member of the San Fernando Theatre Workshop, Baksh said, and the Theatre Guild in south TT.

Naparima Girls principal Carolyn Bally-Gosine said Lee Wah was a pioneer of drama at the school.

“She was a beautiful soft-spoken individual who never refused to help students in any way.”

Lee Wah was principal from 1984 to 1986 when she resigned.

Condolences to Lee Wah’s family were also expressed by the National Drama Association of TT of which her husband spearheaded its formation.