Drama School production is out of this world

Michael Reckord, Gleaner Writer

The current production at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts' School of Drama takes audiences out of this world. With the pre-teen heroine, Phoebe Potts, we journey through her bedroom closet into another galaxy and meet some mighty strange creatures.

Billed as a show for children aged nine to 95, The Button Hole Bandit is for those who like fantastical stories with cartoon characters. Its strong elements are the visual ones - the colourful costumes, fairy-tale set and dynamic lighting. The first two were designed by Ron Steger and the director, Pierre Lemaire, and the last by Calvin Mitchell.

One weakness is with the script, which was written by an American multi-award winning playwright, Fengar Gael. Included in her awards is, ironically, for the children at Sunday's show seemed to have enjoyed it less than the adults, the National Children's Theatre Festival Award.

The script's problem is that it contains long episodes of exposition during which the forward thrust of the story stops and the characters Phoebe encounters explain their histories and problems to her. This happens at least three times as Phoebe (played by a lively Yenique Hines) travels from world to world in the new galaxy.

In the first world, one inhabited by gelfs, Phoebe meets Melf (Joanna Johnson), Alphos (Ruthann Hart) and Narbot (Chrystal Cole) - all non-human 'girls' of Phoebe's size and (apparently) age - and a male gelf, Vizeer Volspar (Kamal Lewis).

Two distinguishing features of gelfs are their up-turned shoes and long, pointed fingers.

The actresses playing the hyper-active girl gelfs tend to gabble their words. One hears only one sentence in five.

Cheerful

On the second world Phoebe visits, by means of a spacecraft looking like a huge bowling ball, she meets the cheerful Xanthees (Shane Wilson) and the grumpy Qwerkiss (Paul Wilson). Their shoes are huge and look like extra-thick galoshes.

Brelleya (Chris Ann Green), a green, mermaid-like creature, is apparently the only inhabitant of the third world Phoebe visits. It's a frozen world and Phoebe helps out by rescuing Brelleya's eggs from the icy ocean.

Another character, one who mysteriously re-appears everywhere Phoebe goes, is Phoebe Moth (Webster McDonald), a giant, black-costumed moth representing Phoebe's phobias. The message of the play is that little girls should not be as selfish and fearful as Phoebe is when we initially meet her in her home.

The first scene is the best written and acted. Moving rapidly, it introduces Phoebe, sends her off within minutes to the mysterious universe behind her closet, then introduces her parents, Howard Potts (Paul Wilson) and Mildred, his wife (Candice Mais). They, too, are rushed off stage - to go looking (in the New Kingston area) for their missing daughter.

Unfortunately, the speed of that opening scene is not maintained by the writer. Neither is its humour. A children's play should be full of witty lines and twists in the plot. There are few of either. On Sunday, over the nearly two hours of the show, there was laughter only four or five times.

The bouncy music is one of the brighter aspects of the production. Gael's lyrics are wittier than her dialogue and they are well sung, live, by Kimilla Isaac, Shaurna Miller and School of Music lecturer Cecile Strudwick-Green, who wrote some original music for the show. Her music complements that of Michael Silversher. Pre-show and inter-acts music was by André Adman.

The Button Hole Bandit closes today.