By Tanya Batson-Savage , Staff Reporter
Jean Binta Breeze (standing) lectures a class about important forms in life such as the visa application form. Front from left: Lynier Hines and Andrew Clarke and (back, from left) Valerie Cunningham and Owen Ellis are her apt pupils. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
COMEDIC POETRY helps to create a frolicking good time in What A Gwaan?. Playing at the Blue Diamond Theatre in Montego Bay, St. James, the comedy revue combines poetry with music and comedy sketches to create a hilarious, though mocking, picture of Jamaica.
Owen 'Blacka' Ellis wrote several of the sketches and poems and doubles as director of the comedy revue. Other poems were written by Jean Binta Breeze and Joan Andrea Hucthinson. What A Gwaan? also features sketches by Tony Hendricks and Dorothy Cunningham and uses the musical direction of Winston 'Bello' Bell. Consistently funny, some pieces may actually induce stitches.
As the title suggests, What A Gwaan? deals with many issues currently roving Jamaica. While most of the sketches stand alone, some of the pieces share themes and flow from one to the other.
According to What A Gwaan?, bleaching, pollution, migration, murder and general mayhem are the answers to the question 'What a gwaan?'. Many Jamaican stereotypes appear on the stage. Chief among them are the philosophising drunk, the serial-mother (she has seven children) on the hunt for her perpetually wayward man, and the Rastaman.
Fortunately, 'Miss Posh', 'Father', 'Mad Woman', 'Ordinary Morning' and 'Johncrow' allow What A Gwaan? to step from the confines of stereotype.
Even so, the stereotypes, especially the Rastaman and the drunk, were the funniest part of the production. Ellis, a gifted comic actor, eloquently portrayed both characters.
The five-member cast is a combination of experienced and burgeoning talent and they work well together. Along with Ellis is poet and performer Jean Binta Breeze.
The other three actors are far less experienced than these two, but all show natural talent. Lynier Hines is a competent actress and her stint in What A Gwaan? allows her to show her versatility.
Valerie Cunningham shows signs of great latent talent, but she has yet to be tapped by this performance. The lone male of the burgeoning talent, Andrew Clarke, displayed expressive energy. It worked best in his rendition of Joan Andrea Hutchinson's hilarious 'Johncrow', an indictment of the environmental, noise and ethical pollution strangling Kingston.
THE GATEMAN SKETCH
One of the best sketches of the production is 'Gateman'. Everyone who has ever had to deal with a belligerent security guard whose power has gone to his head will certainly be able to laugh wholeheartedly at this satire.
Portrayed by Ellis, the security guard in question describes himself as a 'gateman, watchman, keyman security expert'. With the descriptive tag 'serious security' displayed on his shirt, he goes on to point out, 'Mi nuh tek argument, mi ongle tek ID'.
The pieces written by Breeze were not fully exploited to their comic potential. Breeze portrayed 'Mad Woman' and 'Ordinary Morning' with a seriousness which only an audience used to laughing at tragedy finds easy to laugh at. Of course, that is the intent, because as the theme song says, What A Gwaan? is about taking bad things and laughing at them.
However, in directing the Breeze pieces for mainly comic effect Ellis has taken some of the edge out of the poems. The same is done with the piece 'Father', which had been previously used in his poetic play Tick Tock. The jagged edge of the satire involved in these pieces have been dulled.
The performances and writing are the strong points of What A Gwaan? as, hampered by the space (though it does not completely excuse it) the lighting and set are barely adequate.
The use of recordings to accompany the musical numbers also detracted from the production. The players were not always in sync with the recorded words and it showed. The tactic was unnecessary as songs such as Bleach and Bleachless worked wonderfully with just the voices of the players.
