FOR AT least the fourth time, Basil Dawkins has produced his comedy Couples for Jamaican theatre-goers. Judging by the audience with me on Saturday at the Barn Theatre, they are enjoying it as much as ever.
Buddy Pouyatt is director of the current production. Veteran thespians Munair Zacca, Fae Ellington and Paul Skeen are convincing as the characters they portray - Phil, his wife, Sandra, and Allan, respectively. They act, on the whole, with the confidence and verve of professionals.
In one scene each, however, Zacca and Ellington forsake realistic acting for melodrama. Zacca's scene shows him doing a very bad imitation of a drunk; Ellington has an overdose, tear-soaked scene near the end. The episodes are pure soap.
Newcomer to the commercial stage Marsha Ann Hay plays Betty, Allan's wife. Were youth and beauty the only considerations, she would have been better cast as the lust-provoking Sandra. But I suspect her acting was not initially good enough for the bigger role. Now, some weeks into the production, she has settled comfortably into the part.
The story is about husband swapping. The wives initiate the activity in an effort to halt the disintegration of their marriages; but, of course, swapping partners for a weekend only exacerbates the situation.
Directed for speed, the play shifts between a sparsely dressed bedroom to well-furnished living room. Robin Baston designed both the set and the lighting.
The between scenes blackouts come quickly and often, but the songs filling the dark spaces match the characters' emotions and are pleasant. One is Shaggy's current number 1 hit, It Wasn't Me.
This production is, as the beautiful programme proclaims, "hilariously funny." And it hasn't got stale in the 20 years or so since it was first produced.
On Sunday morning, I and a fair sized audience welcomed in the year's first staged reading at the Phillip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts (PSCCA). The director, Brian Heap, Drama Tutor at the Centre, has taken up the mantle reluctantly laid aside a couple of years ago by the Company Limited (TCL), which used to stage the readings.
The TCL readings were elaborate, with set and lights and well-rehearsed, often costumed performers. Consequently, they cost a lot of money. The high costs caused their demise.
Heap cautiously give us a stripped-down presentation of the play, Blue Orange. On stage were three chairs on which the minimally costumed actors sat or moved around as they read. Props and set were mimed.
The readers - Heap, Rooney Chambers and Andrew Brodber - were excellent. Brought alive by the three, all experienced actors, the play was written by Joe Penhall, a leading young British playwright. Relatively new, it premiered at the Royal National Theatre in April 2000.
The action takes place in a London psychiatric hospital and centres on the discussion Christopher (Brodber), a patient, has with his doctors, Bruce (Heap) and Robert (Chambers). Christopher is a mixed up young black Londoner and issues of race, sex, mental disturbances, power-plays and England's National Health Service surface as the men learn more about themselves in their confrontations with one another.
Generally, the PSCCA readings are staged on the final Sunday morning of each month. February's function, however, will not be a reading of a play but a panel discussion on the many talents and professions of Sir Phillip Sherlock. Panelists will speak on Sir Philip as poet (Prof. Edward Baugh), humanist/educator (Prof. Barry Chevannes), historian (Sir Roy Augier), and folklorist/storyteller (Mauc Fuller).
University Vice Chancellor Prof. Rex Nettleford will chair the discussion.
Michael Reckord
