Reviews - (Date: August 15, 2004) Sunday Gleaner

By Claude Mills, Staff Reporter

"CAUTION: MAY SPLIT ONE'S GUT"

They were rolling in the aisles during 'The Last Stand', the latest Jambiz production currently running at the Centerstage Theatre in New Kingston.

The play is a laugh riot from start to riveting end. The playwright must be commended for turning what could easily have been a one-act situation into a humorous, interesting full-blown play. The entire story takes place in the living room of the 'Schizo Girl from Hell', Shanika (Donisha Prendergast).

The play is an ensemble piece but it becomes quite clear from the moment of her arrival that Deon Silvera, who plays the loveable malaprop 'Bubbles', is light years ahead of the other players with her impeccable comic timing and nuanced dramatic delivery. Campbell plays serial 'woman-killer' Charlie Wood, who is about to have major impromptu surgery performed on him by the women he has slept with and slighted in his storied career.

A PRO AT HIS CRAFT

Campbell is a pro at his craft, and is able to deliver the nuances needed to perform drama and comedy with equal skill. And even though he is confined to a sofa for the majority of the play, the audience's eyes hardly ever leave him.

In the opening scene in 'The Last Stand' Woody wakes up in the dark home of one of his 'one-nighters' Shanika in the grips of a terrible hangover. It soon begins to dawn in his head that he is in deep trouble when Shanika whips off sheets from her impressive array of torture paraphernalia - very popular around the time of the Spanish Inquisition - and he finds himself chained to the sofa.

The fun increases exponentially when Shanika is later joined by Keisha (Camille Davis), the malaprop Bubbles and finally Simone (Christopher Hutchinson, yes you read right).

GENUINE RIB-TICKLERS

The play is driven by the performance of Silvera's 'Bubbles' character whose use of polysyllabic words in a harsh 'ghetto' drawl create some genuine rib-ticklers, and her constant reference to Charlie as 'Dutty Woody' created instant laughter. Donisha takes a dark turn from her real-life bubbly persona to plunge into the psychotic female netherworld, and truly shines a the black-mascara-running-under-her-eyes girl who is short a little furniture on the top floor. Quite a few teenage boys have admitted that they have gone to the play at least three times to see the dishy Donisha strut her stuff.

Christopher Hutchinson who wowed the audience as the transvestite 'Simone', and Mannings High Graduate Camille Davis who played jilted wife Keisha are relatively new talents to the stage, and did very well.

VALIDATING POLYGAMY

Women who come to the theatre expecting a pro-feminist take on cheating males are in for a rude awakening. The play is, after all, written by a man, and the author - not too subtly - slides in references which try to validate a male's polygamy. One of those gems intended to further indoctrinate the female species to the sexual failings of males was: 'less than three percent of male species are monogamous, and those three percent are on the verge of extinction'.

Now, that's some knowledge to 'colour' coffee table conversations all over the country!

Even though the play spends most of its time discussing the ills of Woody's predatory behaviour, it never dissolves into colourless drivel, or dishwater dirge. Director Trevor Nairne does an admirable job in allowing the performers to fully explore the dramatic possibilities of each scene and the conversations are well-crafted and riveting to the last sentence.

Patrick Brown and the rest of the Jambiz team must be applauded for having delivered yet another hilarious gem. It's a rollicking must-see for any theatre-goer looking for a good laugh.