Jamaican Plays

Title: Which Way Is Out

Starring: Sakina Deer, Donald Anderson, Jean Paul Menou, Ruth Ho Shing, Maylynne Walton, Jerry Benzwick, Christopher Taylor

Written by: Basil Dawkins

Directed by: Douglas Prout

Basil Dawkins has said his latest play, Which Way Is Out, is about hope, a very loaded word in 2009, with U.S. President Barack Obama seeming to be the new hope made manifest among us. This American connection is important because Dawkins’ play, Foreign retains its power as a symbol of hope to the Jamaican sufferer. In the play pluck and resilience are virtues that are ultimately rewarded. Scheming and bigotry are punished. This comedy has a mirror structure designed perhaps to emphasize that when superficial layers of class and colour are removed, we are all the same. The play does not give an explanation about why we need the prickly coatings to distinguish ourselves, but clearly shows that these coatings are in fact there. Which Way Is Out, which has a touch of the fairy tale, very simply presents a funny account of one woman’s triumph.

That woman is Monica (Sakina Deer), the Cinderella of the story, and her tribulations are many. She has lived her entire life on capture land and chicken back, but the real difficulty seems not to be her poverty but, rather, her standing within the community, a small district in rural Jamaica. As Miss Chin (Ruth Ho Shing), the mixed-race shopkeeper of Chinese extract who amusingly considers herself ‘brown’, points out, Monica belongs to a grouping that is the lowest of the low: ‘nasty negar’. Monica accepts that status, but she lives happily. Her freedom is depicted by her bare feet. Her fighting spirit is made manifest by the song she belts out, I am not afraid. Given her status, however, she is deeply confused when Godfrey (Jean Paul Menou), a white American tourist takes a liking to her and eventually asks her to become his wife. He gradually whittles down her defenses and eventually the couple migrates. However, ill fortune strikes and Monica is forced to navigate the harsh American landscape without Godfrey’s protection – without papers, without friends. Ultimately, through chance and her own tenacity, Monica is rescued and, showing a truly large heart, looks to rescue another sufferer.

It is a nice ending and Dawkins perhaps means for us to see that there is no sense in climbing out of the barrel and leaving all the others to suffer. The play supports the idea that those persons who are struggling at the bottom of the barrel, through no fault of their own, can achieve. Monica is an interesting character. She plays dominoes while singing in her yard; she outwits Eustace (Donald Anderson), Miss Chin’s handyman, in a bid to earn a few dollars; and she is hospitably happy to offer the little food she has to her more well-to-do visitor. But she has a hard exterior. Her forehead is known to be her weapon of choice, although we only hear reports of its effectiveness and watch her angle it threateningly, comically. She finds it hard to understand why Godfrey wishes to marry her and he is forced to explain to his new wife how to be affectionate. It is a credit to Deer’s acting that she is able to portray a likeable Monica and there is at least one moment of true vulnerability interspersed with many of loud blustering and hustling. The audience feels sympathy for Monica thinking it unjust that she is so maligned by her community.

Thus Jamaica, as the audience sees it, is unfair and ultimately unable to offer hope to the poorest among us. The U.S. is depicted as unfair as well, but nevertheless is a place where good things can happen to benefit the poor, huddled masses. Monica chooses to migrate and although she returns home at the end of the play we know that she will soon return to Foreign. This, then, is a funny kind of hope for a Jamaican audience to watch, Jamaica is seen in the first half of the play; the setting is the U.S. for the second half. America is convincingly conveyed through the Southern accents of Jean Paul Menou and Maylynne Walton. There is, though, a touch of the soap opera in this Southern USA with Walton’s evil twin character, who is devoted to Daddy and possesses a hot-tempered bigotry.

Jamaica and Foreign – good sister and wicked sister. The play has some mirror images and the cast doubles up in interesting ways. Ho Shing, for example, plays the half Chinese shopkeeper in rural Jamaica and doubles as the lawyer in the United States. Both stereotypes are in their respective societies money-grubbing and unethical characters. In the play, however, the half-Chinese lawyer, Ho Shing’s U.S. doppelganger, experiences prejudice and is much more sympathetic to Monica than her shopkeeper counterpart, who in Jamaica perpetuates small-minded shadism. This kind of mirroring supports one of the play’s central ideas: we are all the same (no doubt it is also economically efficient from a stage production point of view) whether Jamaicans or Americans, or whether in Jamaica or in the U.S.

To bring the U.S. and rural Jamaica to life at the Little Little Theatre, multi-functional set pieces are used. Parts open out to create a new setting and, thus, Monica’s house becomes the Embassy with the audience using a little imagination. The stage properties and set are not overly elaborate, and well suited to the purpose. The actors themselves often assist in scene changes, providing singing as background and moving properties as well.

The cast does well and gives a credible performance. There were some plot developments which perhaps could have used more explanation, such as Monica’s ultimate decision to marry Godfrey after protesting that she never would. Also, her final love interest was believable but a little too convenient for the happy ending. The notion that Jamaican offers little hope to the poor is perhaps an understandable position but troubling too, is the depiction of the heroine marrying the very sweet American tourist not for love but for the economic gain. It is realistic but disquieting for this critic. In the end, play, though amusing, offered little in the way of hope for this Jamaican theatre-goer.