Fifty thousand people have watched two men argue in a basement

Franketyen rewrote Pelin-tet and published the second version as Pelentet in 2002. It reached the stage first. The new text ran at the Rex Theatre in Port-au-Prince from 9 December 1999 to 9 January 2000, then from April to June of 2000 in New York, Miami, Tampa Bay and Montreal. Through those six months the author played Polido, the French speaking intellectual, with Ricardo Lefevre as the factory worker Piram. The first version had already been performed thirty three times at the Rex, and in Cap Haitien and Jacmel, and in Boston, Washington, New York, Orlando, Miami, Tampa Bay, Montreal, Guadeloupe and Martinique. Adding the two together, about fifty thousand people have sat in a theatre and watched it, more than for any other dramatic text in the Haitian language. The figure leaves out everyone who heard it on the radio or watched a recording of a performance.