Patrick Brown's RAS NOAH AND THE HAWK
Starring: Glen Campbell, Oliver Samuels, Dahlia Harris, Sharee McDonald-Russell
Directed by: Trevor Nairne
Watching a play inside the Centre Stage is somewhat akin to doing a long-haul flight in the crowded economy-class cabin of a jet-liner (the announcer's voice added to the hermetic feel). Extending that metaphor, the in-flight entertainment provided on this trip turned out to be an enjoyable diversion.
Patrick Brown has chosen to reimagine the biblical ante-diluvean story of Noah in a post-millennial (and post-Ivan) Jamaican setting, a choice given added currency with the year-end tsunami disaster.

Noah (Campbell), as the title suggests, is recast as a Rastaman, re-emerging in society after five years as a recluse in the Wareika Hills. His father, Butcha (Samuels), local shopkeeper and unofficial farmer of "winter vegetables", is under the illusion that Noah is studying "doctorin" and thus gets the first of many shocks upon seeing his now dreadlocked, sandal-wearing son. There's Norma (McDonald-Russell), a sort-of love interest, and other local rabble.

And of course, there's God. As played by David French, he looks like a failed cross between famed new medicine pundit Andrew Weill and Barry White, on a really bad hair day, and comes across both authoritative and wimpy. His first face-to-face with Ras Noah, aided and abetted by McDonald-Russell as a "sketel angel" is among the play's best sequences. Flat-out funny.

The programme notes from the creative team make a big to-do about examining moral and social issues, but don't be taken in by them. Laughs are the primary objective of this production and, to their credit, both cast and crew manage to wring the chuckles and guffaws from diverse sources. Among them, the malaprops and misunderstandings generated when Standard English and Jamaican patois collide, snappy rejoinders to insults (Samuels' territory) and not least, in the audience interaction, freely encouraged and well-fielded but dampened by shameless promotional plugs.

Several of the cast members have dual onstage roles, but Dahlia Harris gets a longer extension than the others. She's markedly more effective as Cass-Cass, the half-blind, wheelchair-ridden senior citizen (well, almost) who serves as the story's self-appointed narrator, than as Go-Go, the wig-wearing, clothing challenged, self-appointed sketel. The chief make-up for the latter is that the other characters and Butcha, in particular, get to have a lot of fun at her expense.

Campbell is at his bug-eyed best, whether reeling off his parody of Rasta psycho-babble, but even more so when relating to his onstage father. If Brown and company have succeeded in examining anything to an appreciable degree it's a father-son dynamic not often seen on the Jamaican stage. The other characters fill their roles with verve - particularly Chris Hutchinson - but on the night in question; all Loeri Robinson did was mug and echo one-liners from the others. Perhaps a revisit on a night when she is understudying the Norma role may reveal some plausible grounds for her inclusion.

Relying on Jon Williams for the music was indeed a touch of inspiration that produced handsome dividends in terms of the quality of the arrangements, although a printed song listing might have helped. (Singing to tracks was also a minor turn-off). Two of them stood out on the night, the mid-point number Mister Man (the mortals questioning God's motives) and the closer, More Mighty in which they acknowledge His superiority.

That is about as "deep" as the production is allowed to get, but the producers can be forgiven this, as their pacing is assured and the cast has an unassailable synergy, most of them having worked together on so many previous occasions. On this theatrical flight, the "laugh button" is unquestionably on.