By Michael Reckord, Freelance WriterHugh King's Nightwork, now showing at the Pantry Playhouse, appears to be self-contradictory. It is a Christian, adults-only comedy. We usually associate Christian plays with family fare, but as with all oxymorons there is a logic to the phrase 'Christian adults-only'. King - the playwright, producer, director and lead actor of the production - has written about a sexually troubled marriage. A Christian (and this is clear not only from the printed programme, but from the on-stage action) he, not surprisingly, doesn't want children in the audience.
I'm not sure that they would be harmed. The dialogue contains no 'bad words' and though there is some sex talk and action, it is milder than some of the stuff readily available on cable. That this comedy steers close to farce is seen by the characters' names. Paul Cocksman (King) is an eccentric pastor; his wife, Mary (Petrina Williams), is sexually 'frigid'. Jenni Steel (Tasha Rashelia Gooden) is a streetwalker with brains and ambition. Her brother, Bogus (Jermaine Gordon), also a streetwalker - of the gay variety - wears more make-up than she does.
Dick Benwood, a psychiatrist with a secret, is sometimes played by Bruce Pennant, sometimes by Marvin Walters. Each also plays the tiny parts of Stormy Weather, a policeman, and Mr. Byron, a company secretary.
The action of the play unfolds in two bedrooms, one belonging to Paul and Mary, the other to Jenni. The unimaginative, unattractive set shows the two rooms having a bed, a table and wall pictures in identical places. To indicate a change of location, stage hands simply put different coverings over those objects.
Happily, the set is the production's worst component. The story and dialogue are entertaining, though wordy, and the acting is good. King seems to be the only one with any acting experience, so as director he and the cast deserve congratulations for a job well done.
The first scene presents us with an important problem. Paul and Mary have been married for two years, but their sex life is unsatisfactory. At first we think Mary doesn't enjoy sex. "I can't just kiss without notice," she says at one stage, "I need time." But later, after much probing by Paul, she confesses that she can't achieve an orgasm. Scene two switches the story line and presents us with another problem, the main one this time. We meet Jenni and realise that hers is the main story; the Paul and Mary story is the subplot.
Dressed in tight short-shorts, Jenni is walking the streets, soliciting invisible men in invisible cars. (This mimed scene is incongruous, being the only one in an otherwise realistically directed play.) Enter Paul in a 1960s plaid suit, the trousers of which is way too big. Why?
Jenni leaps on him, attracted because he reminds her of a younger brother. That's what she tells him later, in her bedroom, but her actions toward him there are not sisterly. She tries to seduce him.
From then on, we get only glimpses of Mary, enough to know that she is seeing a psychiatrist about her sexual coldness. The spotlight generally remains on Jenni and Paul. He grows to like her and attempts a Pygmalion-type transformation of her.
Years pass and the main problems start to recede. Fresh ones come up, however, but because this is a comedy all ends well. The penultimate scene in which the love poems in the book of Solomon are quoted is a gem.
At curtain call, the cast comes on singing There's Power in the Blood of the Lamb, an unusual ending to an unusual comedy. It deserves better houses than it has been getting.
