Jamaican Plays

The Centerstage Theatre in New Kingston came alive on Boxing Day, December 26, 2009, with the premiere of the 13th annual Jambiz Christmas production – Easy Street. The Patrick Brown-penned comedy with music offers a belly full of laughs and so much more.

In Easy Street, writer Patrick Brown takes us on a journey to the city dump, and forces us to come face to face with some very compelling realities. He exposes the underbelly of a society beset with many social ills, but skillfully shows that the inhabitants of the dump who literally survive off the refuse of the wider society, are real people, with real hopes and aspirations, real failures and disappointments, real dreams and nightmares.

The story is carried on a ‘comedic vehicle’ like only Patrick Brown can, milking laughter from each and every scenario, but respecting delicate sensitivities.

The Easy Street cast is led by Glen ‘Titus’ Campbell, who is widely regarded as one of Jamaica’s most talented actors. Campbell gets yet another chance to milk another of Brown’s multi-dimensional characters, and the opportunity to wring every comic moment from the situations encountered.

The cast also includes the increasingly popular Camille Davis, who has now established herself as one of Jamaica’s leading young thespians. Theatre fans will still remember her and speak glowingly of her outstanding performance in last year’s “Sheep In Wolf Clothing”, as well as DIANA – which had its final performance in December 2009.

Courtney Wilson is also part of the energetic cast, alongside the hilarious Christopher Hutchinson, and songbird Sharee McDonald-Russell, who again appears courtesy of the Ashe Caribbean Performing Arts Ensemble.

Easy Street’s story revolves around Queenie (Camille Davis), the socialite who fell from grace and landed on ‘Easy Street’. After an uncertain start, she finds herself living among a truly diverse set of friends. There’s Fungus (Glen Campbell), who claims to have lost his wife, house, farm and ambition in “Jamaica’s 9/11″ – Hurricane Ivan. He claims to have an educated son in foreign, and clings to the hope that his “landed papers” will come through one day.

Living next to Fungus is the jilted artiste, Scab (Courtney Wilson), who sacrificed education and inheritance to pursue his art, and who still awaits his big break as a poet/artist/singer/dub-poet/sing-jay, and whatever else comes to mind … artistic that is.

Not too far away is the house inhabited by Princess (Sharee McDonald-Russell) and Bully (Christopher Hutchinson), the delusional ex-cop, who is always wearing his decade-old “uniform”, always armed to the teeth and is never off duty … although he hasn’t really been a cop for some nine years. Princess is Bully’s long-suffering wife of 15 years, who has a perennial black-eye and claims that “is cold she catch up in it”. She has the voice of an angel, but the unmistakable appetite of a horse.

Easy Street plays Tuesdays to Fridays at 8 p.m., and on Saturdays and Sundays at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. For more information, please call 473-4485 or 968-7529.