This
two-hander takes place in "no time" but references to World War II
war duty could place the action anytime from the 1950s to the present. Harry
Trewe (Kipp Moorman), a white British man, and Jackson Phillip (AndrŽ Teamer), a black man who may be from
the tropics or may be from somewhere else, live at an island tourist hotel that
features guest services and entertainment. Both characters have great humor and
anger in equal parts. Their characters' shifting and reading of dialogue and
taking on different roles, sometimes calmly, sometimes belligerently, suggest
the two men may have roles in a larger game. Are they merely preparing for
upcoming "panto" (pantomime) performances for the tourist hordes, or
are they pressing each other's emotional buttons to aggravate, agitate,
entertain themselves for some other purpose? Are these men both perfectly sane?
The answers to these questions are delightfully unclear by the end of the well
written and exquisitely acted evening.
If
you expect actors in black clothes, in white face and miming broad gestures or
suggesting a box in space, think again. This is pantomime as a riff on life, a
commentary on a story with occasional segues into song, dance, and stage
fighting. This is a story of theatre, of the interdependence of two characters,
and it is a story of attempting to escape one's past. Three other dramatic
works, first plays then movies, are powerfully evoked while watching this
performance. First, Tennessee Williams' "Night of the Iguana" set at
a tropical tourist hotel, with both a dissipated ex-pat hotel manager and the
descending tourists. Second, Ronald Harwood's "The Dresser" (and also
his recent lovely film "Being Julia") that looks at the key backstage
supporting role of a personal servant to a great actor in decline. Finally,
Harold Pinter's "The Servant" and its look at class relations through
the morphing relations between an Oxford bachelor and his manservant. All of
these themes are delightfully present, yet are given new and unexpected twists
in Derek Walcott's
work. Is this an existential no-man's land or a realistically set play? Harry
at one point, in describing the sequence of "roles" he has played in
life (actor, father, husband, soldier) says of his current role "If the
new script I've been handed says Harry Trewe hotel manager, then I'm going to
play Harry Trewe hotel manager to the hilt." We are left wondering: how
much of his current behavior is merely a role? The answer to this question is
delightfully obscure, depending upon the literal or allegorical bent of an
audience member's mind
The
fictional story of shipwrecked British citizen Robinson Crusoe and his native
manservant "Friday" is referenced through the play, as part of the
show the men are preparing and perhaps as proxy for working the characters'
relationship with one another. The men debate whether white Harry should play
Friday and black Jackson should play Robinson Crusoe, to shake things up. Each
of the characters gets more intensely into his acting worlds at different times
during the morning and afternoon we spend with them. And both we and the
characters forget at times when Harry and Jackson are "in character"
or when lines are crossed emotionally, dramatically, thematically, personally.
Harry repeatedly reminds Jackson "Its pantomime, Jackson. Keep it light.
Improvise." And the characters move into unexpected and powerful places.
Jackson brings to this character of "Friday" a 20th (or 21st) century
sensibility. He notes to Harry that "in that sun that never sets on your
empire, I was your shadow", then repeats poetically, rhetorically,
oratorically , the words servants have used to refer to their masters including
"Boss" and "Bwana" and a string of others. In the first
act, discussion of race relations focuses primarily on which of the two actors
might play Robinson Crusoe. In the second act, the dialogue between the
characters and their roles becomes more intensely provocative, with Harry
suddenly referring to Jackson as "boy".
These
two actors, as directed by Jonathan Wilson, provide expert versions of scripted and perhaps
occasionally unscripted theatre games, improvising a play, hinting at musical
hall traditions. About 45 minutes in, Harry feels as if the games have gotten
too extreme and appears to want to stop them; Jackson insists that he leaves no
job undone. Harry presses throughout to keep the pantomime light, noting to
Jackson, "If we take this seriously, we might commit art. We'll make
people think too much." He continues, "what we would have on our
hands would be a play, not a pantomime" and that, apparently, would be too
threatening to this complicated and wounded character.
After
intermission we discover why Harry, the old song and dance man, has isolated
himself at a remote cliff top tropical tourist hotel. Personal facts are
introduced to the story slowly, piecemeal, and incompletely. Harry's journey is
to come to terms with his past while Jackson plays the persistent provocateur.
He notes sympathetically to Harry about life in a hotel "Its lonely here
out of season" (suggesting a powerful sentiment like "Another Winter
in a Summer Town", in the new Hampton based musical "Grey
Gardens"). In one emotionally draining sequence for the characters,
Jackson presses Harry to reconcile himself with a piece of his past, with a
prop that perfectly resonates with the pantomime framework and metaphorical
frame for the adventure.
The
set by Timothy Mann is suggestive of a dilapidated tropical retreat with an
impressionistically painted sky, yet is also delightfully concrete with a house
and grass and porch and Adirondack chairs. The lighting by Denise Karczewski is clean; the sound design by