There was the slightest hint of rivalry between The Theatre Company & Gems Theatre Productions and MORI J’VON Comedy Jam prior to the start of a well-supported Mashramani weekend of theatre as the respective Producers, Gem Madhoo-Nascimento and Ron Morrison strove for market share amongst what is still a relatively small local theatre-going audience. The jousting, however, appeared altogether contrived since the two productions lacked a great deal with which to compare them.
The Theatre Company’s Link Show is marking its 26th year in the business of comedy, its annual satirical review offering what Director Ron Robinson says is a theatre production that seeks, beyond its principal preoccupation with the evocation of laughter, “to be a lampooning mirror of our society and, as such, the catalyst for change.” What the Link Show has done, with unquestioned success over time, is to provide a much sought after medium through which we can see ‘the funny side’ and often the serious side to societal issues that are otherwise concealed people by a persistent culture of political narrow – mindedness that does not always take kindly to the discomfiting outcomes of free expression through the traditional media. What The Link Show has done, to its considerable credit, is to help roll back those restraints to free expression. On the whole, we no longer care much for sparing the feelings of those in authority. In that sense the theatre has, in its own particular way, overcome the hurdle of censorship.
Morrison and Comedy Jam are both newcomers to local theatre. The downtown businessman is, by his own satirical admission, a “Johnny Come Lately” and it was he, who sought, through both the print and electronic media and through Comedy Jam Three’s perhaps overdone lampooning of the Link to create an illusion of rivalry. There was, he says, no “bad blood” either in his cartoons in the print media which sought to depict the Link Show as a thing of the past or in, Queen G, his elaborate on-stage lampooning of Mahdoo-Nascimento and Robinson, the cornerstones of the Link Show. He believes that what he has done is “good for theatre.”
On February 19th and 20th, respectively, Comedy Jam Two and Link Show 26 played at the National Cultural Centre to ‘sold out’ audiences, the former succeeding, through its sustained and costly media advertising in persuading theatre goers that what it had to offer would expand the paradigms of local comedy theatre beyond what The Link Show has customarily provided. The Link, however, is the Link, and its customary adherents, including large numbers who had given Comedy Jam its sought after viewing the previous evening, faithfully returned to their accustomed fountain of laughter last Saturday.
Comedy Jam Three unfolded, amidst what seemed to be a rash of technical glitches. Both the National Cultural Centre’s sound system and Comedy Jam’s own attempt to aid audience visibility with a simultaneous big-screen showing of what was occurring on the stage went wrong and what could have been a disastrous start to the show was brilliantly salvaged by a moving rendition of her winning 2010 Junior Calypso Monarch piece, I Don’t Want To Be Born, by 18 year-old Tennicia De Freitas, whose handlers, Cross Color Productions were the unquestioned and altogether deserving stars of Mash 2010. The poignancy of her lyrics and the power of her voice, altogether unaffected by the sudden loss of background music, provided a compelling distraction from the technical hiccups that might otherwise have ruined the entire show. De Freitas is, unquestionably, a considerable emerging talent.
By Morrison’s own admission the technical glitches that plagued his production impacted on the “rhythm” of the show. Still, it sparkled in parts, evoking its own fair share of applause and tumultuous laughter but did not find the consistency to bring the house down. De Freitas’ second piece, a refrain against reckless sex in an age of HIV/AIDS provided further evidence of a natural proclivity for the stage while Kirwin Mars’ racy performances in De Obeah Dan and Big Yard Brawl elicited generous measure of side-splitting entertainment. Mars is a coarse, energetic performer whose penchant for the kind of suggestive outrageousness so popular with many local theatre-goers makes him a considerable asset to Comedy Jam.
There is a sizeable section of local theatre –goers, who will accept no more than a modicum of coarse ribaldry and Kirk Williams’ repeated offerings in a sexist and suggestive mould that sometimes skirted dangerously with the boundaries of tastefulness decidedly underscored that truism. Chubby, the character played by Williams as a ‘stand-in;’ ‘stand-up’, comedian clearly had his moments amongst the more accommodating section of the audience who were genuinely entertained by his accounts of his various ‘sexual exploits.’ Amidst the uproarious laughter of those who warmed to him, however, Williams would probably not have heard the gasps of outrage and incredulity from the more austere theatre-goers, some of whom had troubled themselves to bring their children to the show. After the show Morrison conceded that Williams’ repeated appearance on the stage was actually designed to help solve some backstage challenges which the production was encountering.
Perhaps surprisingly, Comedy Jam Three steered mostly clear of the rich vein of political satire on which the Link Show has built its reputation. Morrison says that his avoidance of political lampooning has everything to do with a desire “to be different.” He says he wants to imbue Comedy Jam “with a character of its own” though, somehow, you feel that he will eventually come to understand that there is a place for political satire in Comedy Jam through the application of creative and thoughtful interpretation.
The Theatre Company & Gems Theatre Group resisted what must surely have been the temptation to enjoin the semblance of public rivalry created by Morrison’s aggressive media promotion of Comedy Three, focusing instead on what, over the years, has worked for The Link. Mahdoo-Nascimento herself had said in an earlier interview with the Guyana Review that there was no real rivalry, that The Link was the stage on which local comedy theatre had been built and that Comedy Jam is an infant newcomer. Link 26 stayed within the paradigms of what it has traditionally done best, social and political satire. Once again it had a wealth of material to choose from including Dr. Jagdeo , the Low Carbon Development Strategy, Acting President Rohee, the colorful and controversial Odinga Lumumba, Acting Prime Minister Persaud, the bullish and unpopular Robeson Benn and the ceaseless travails of the Guyana Power and Light Company and the Guyana Water Authority. Those themes plus Derek Gomes’ thoughtful and entertaining citations of the sexism in local folk songs were sufficient to give the audience the laughs they were looking for. At 26, though, neither The Link’s scripting, nor, generally, its acting, really did a great deal to raise its game. It entertained but, frankly, it was more of the same.
On the Link’s opening night none of the ‘leading men’ of local theatre – Henry Rodney, Linden ‘Jumbie’ Jones and Howard Lorimer appeared to be particularly ‘on song.’ None appeared to bring a sufficiently generous measure of either their accustomed energy or oft-demonstrated talent to the stage.
Creatively, much, perhaps, could have been made of the Link’s Political Collaboration piece and in the end it was probably (Professor) Ron Robinson’s Sport in Class that save The Link with its high point through its highly entertaining interpretation of the A for Apple, B for Bat Nursery School maxim while Henry Rodney’s own satirical perspective of his recent personal tragedy added a poignant touch to the proceedings. If the Link Show’s audience warmed, nonetheless, to its 26th production, more than a handful of theatre goers felt that they were probably entitled to more. “I would say it was OK,” one theatre- goer remarked.
To their credit, both Producers thoughtfully infused small measures of appropriate somberness into their productions. Comedy Jam’s Morrison read a warm tribute to the recently departed Jamaican cultural and intellectual icon Professor Rex Nettleford while The Link remembered the travails of the people of Haiti through a moving and beautifully choreographed dance against a visual backdrop of some of the horrors of an earthquake that left more than a quarter of a million people dead.
If neither production can honestly be described as memorable, the juxtaposition of the old with the new to offer successive nights of laughter at the National Cultural Centre added to the longed-for and well-received calendar of entertainment over the period of Guyana’s 40th Republic Anniversary celebrations. The Link Show persists as an institution in local theatre and Comedy Jam, its Producer says, is in the business for the long haul. Hopefully, the two, in their own particular ways, will push the boundaries of local theatre and, more particularly, of comedy beyond the current limited frontiers. (Arnon Adams)
