‘Timeless’ eternally enjoyable

The circle of life and its fundamental facets of youthful exuberance, adulthood, and then ageing can be fascinating to those who appreciate that the only constant in life is change.

Playwright Douglas Prout took creative liberty with this notion and went to town, crafting his play Timeless, and scoring big with audiences who gladly went down memory lane with him and his merry characters who reminded them of an epoch when life was sweeter, gentler and less complicated.

Timeless, which opened on October 11, chronicles the lives of two senior citizens from rural Jamaica who find themselves in what appears to be a timeless state, situated between heaven and that other place. The two try to decipher both their next moves, as well as work out past issues that have been vexing topics that were put to the side, but never resolved. All of these happenings unfold before angels from the two known realms of above and below, who compete to see who will sway the pair in their preferred directions.

As it is set across several decades, Timeless biggest appeal is that it resonates with an audience that is young at heart who will remember what a ‘Dulcimina grip’ and a ‘shet-pan’ are and also the purpose of turning a broom upside down and sprinkling salt on it.

It tugs at that emotional and nostalgic heartstring as it highlights the love between a man and his wife who have been married 49 and three quarter years. Though they know each other like the back of their now wrinkled hands, this does not mean they still do not push each other’s buttons. What it means is that their union is as timeless as their love, which is just as passionate as the day they said ‘I do’.

Alwyn Scott is flawless as Edward, the not-so-educated, but hardworking man who loves his wife, but his wandering eye caused a rift in their relationship. Elfie, his wife, is superbly played by Shanique Brown, while Susie Braham is also outstanding as the modern-day Lucifer.

Prout scored big with this one. As he told The Gleaner, the whole idea behind the play was to bring something not often explored on the local theatrical stage.

“Unconventional’ is my thing. I felt the urge to come up with Timeless from varied core sources and had the desire to be bold enough to offer something distinctly different. I wanted to explore the conviction that a love story with salt-of-the-earth, recognisable, ordinary folk of perhaps a bygone era, needed to be told,” Prout explained.

His hope was that Jamaican audiences would still embrace good old-fashioned theatre steeped in high emotions, as well as “the romantic notion that love, pure and true, may still exist and can heal wounds, offer sustenance and resonate with those who feel deeply”.

After seeing the production, theatregoer Hortense Radcliffe-Simmonds’ review was that more stories about ordinary people need to be told, as everyday folks in Jamaica are extraordinarily contrary, as well as interesting.

“I enjoyed it because I could relate to it. It was like watching my own parents’ love story unfold; the good, the bad, and the ugly. At the end of the day, even when they quarrel, if you asked them, they would choose each other all over again in a heartbeat, and so I can appreciate that while that is not the norm nowadays, there still are a few love stories out there that need to be honoured and highlighted,” Radcliffe-Simmonds said.

nicola.cunningham@gleanerjm.com