Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer
THE THREE-HANDER Family Secrets, written by Roberto Ramos-Perea and directed by William Lampert, is an interesting play which never quite fulfilled its potential. The play has just completed its two-weekend run at the Dennis Scott Studio Theatre, School of Drama, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.
The play was this semester's major production for the school.
In the director's note, Lampert points out that what makes Family Secrets simultaneously precious and problematic for students is that it is a conversation play. Unfor-tunately, in the main the cast was unable to rise sufficiently high above this problem.
The cast featured Melisa Gibson as Victoria, Kreshna Jones as Mario and Nickeisha Smith as Gina. Of the three, Smith was most able to achieve some of the nuance and liveliness, which allowed her character to breathe real three-dimensional life.
PREGNANT WITH PAUSES
The problem with conversation plays is that they are a lot of talk - or at least they appear that way. It is, therefore, up to the actors to both deliver all that talk with full meaning, as well as fully explore and understand the characters so that everything about them speaks. As such, if one is at the level of drama where the technique of 'acting' comes through more easily than the art of 'being', the discrepancy shows much more easily.
Especially at the beginning the play was pregnant with pauses that signified nothing. The actors were able to deliver their lines, but unable to imbue them with enough meaning so that they easily soared across the distance between audience and actors.
As such, Gina began life on the Dennis Scott stage somewhere in the background. The red dress she wears at the start is enough to tell the audience that Gina is a woman whose sexuality is prioritised. This was one of the areas in which Smith actually fell short. While she does look attractive, she was unable to convey raw sensuality.
However, as the character developed, Smith stole the show, delivering some very worthy moments that were in many ways the redeeming factor of the production. Gibson turned in a decent performance, though she was unable to grant Victoria, an intriguing figure carved from the Lady Macbeth archetype, with the full range of nuance the character demanded. Victoria is the kind of woman willing to plunge her hands into life's belly and pull out its guts, but Gibson was only able to give us a glimpse of this.
Interestingly, Jones delivered the most unaffected performance. However, what he needed to make Mario an endearing character was charm, charisma and energy and he never brought enough to the table to sate those needs.
A simple set, playing with the black and white colour scheme, heralded the fight between good and evil which was never fully actualised. Unfortunately, the costuming highlighted that costumes and clothes are not the same thing. The costuming was barely adequate, but with the right touches could have added significantly to the piece.
As such, like secrets in a closet, Family Secrets approximates too much of a skeletal frame. It's success rested on the actors, and they were unable to cover it with sufficient flesh.
