'VIBES '

Patrick Brown's VIBES
The perfect blend of humour and passion
BY BALFORD HENRY Observer writer
Sunday, August 07, 2005

Just how good a playwright is Patrick Brown?
That question should be answered over the next few weeks, as VIBES, his latest production, goes into full swing at the Centrestage Theatre, New Kingston.

There is no doubt that Brown is Jamaica's funniest and probably most intense playwright. Our best comedians, including Oliver Samuels and Glen Campbell, are more at home with him than any other writer. And Brown has had a tradition of being responsible for their funniest and most memorable lines.

In fact, Jambiz, the production company that not only operates Centrestage but is responsible for staging all of Brown's comedies, as well as the reason why he gave up his professional career as a building engineer for full-time theatre, has had the distinction of being the ultimate outlet for the energies of some of the country's most talented actors.

Somehow you get the feeling that the greatest ambition of the rising stars of modern Jamaican theatre, and even some of the established ones who have not had the chance, is to perform in a Patrick Brown play.

Well, after a very lengthy period of working with the established, Brown has decided that he will be using virtually unknowns in his new play, which opened last night, and he is convinced that the lack of stars will have no really adverse effect on VIBES.

"People are not funny unless they have a funny script," he explains. "It is just a misconception that people have."
He insists that the lack of star material didn't mean that he had to put more into this latest play, either.

"I didn't have a cast in mind when I was writing it," says Brown. "I write the plays, then I try to cast them and this was the available cast. Glen (Campbell) is in another play now, Oliver will be on tour, Dione (Silvera) was supposed to be in this play but she had prior commitments, so we just worked with the best that we had."

For VIBES he has drawn on three graduates of Jambiz's theatre training school at Centerstage, which has been offering free classes to students interested in the art, plus a pair of mature actors and his usual director, Trevor Nairne.

Camille Davis, Chris Hutchinson and Courtney Wilson are the fresh-faced graduates of the theatre school. Hutchinson and Wilson alternate in the role of Chris, a familiar character as the Earlys' rustic gardener, while the very attractive Davis plays Dimples, the underprivileged downtown girl who moves uptown to the Earlys' upscale St Andrew home but, unfortunately, gets caught in the trap of an emotional involvement with Mr Early in the process.

Then there are the Earlys themselves, with Maylynne Walton playing the overbearing, chic, white uptown lawyer and her similarly arrogant lawyer husband, Steve, played by Karl Williams.

But even if Brown didn't notice it, although VIBES is the usual concoction of humour and vanity, it reaches out much further, probably, than anything he has done so far on a social issue, which is really privilege. What a difference privilege can make to one woman's life, against another.

"The thing is that when you strip away the trimmings, you find the same humanity underneath," Brown confirms.

The fact is that even while Mr Early wants to get underneath Dimples' micro-miniskirt, he doesn't recognise her as a human being equal to himself or Mrs Early. This makes it easy for him to quickly suspect her of stealing his wife's missing gold chain.

Dimples is even more underrated by Mrs Early, who cannot understand how this girl could be naive enough to believe that Mr Early could really care about her.

"I figured women like you were never a threat," she admits, pointing out that her privileged upbringing and professional success should have been enough to protect her from women who depend on skimpy miniskirts and stewed peas to win men, and who can easily relate to Tony Rebel's contention that Jamaica is a nice place to live, if only some "dollas" could run.

She is, however, persuaded that "there is a level of sincerity that only comes with ignorance". And, she admits to Dimples, "there is a part of me that wants to be like you, and, I am sure, there is a part of you that wants to be like me".

After seeing a number of Brown's plays over the years, you may be convinced that he has finally found the perfect formula for his exquisite blend of humour and passion in VIBES. Well, you are certainly not alone, and you may not be wrong.