GODDESS Theatre makes its debut - Rosie Murray, Paul Skeen star in Trevor Rhone's 'Two Can Play'

GODDESS Theatre, operated by award-winning actress, Terri Salmon, is set to make its official debut on the theatre scene on Boxing Day with the staging of the Trevor Rhone-classic, Two Can Play, at the Pantry Playhouse in New Kingston.

Theatre veterans Rosie Murray and Paul Skeen have been selected to play the lead roles in this masterpiece, which has been described as "a play with a specific message, a specific place and time, but with a universal theme". And it is the universality of the theme that makes Two Can Play a favourite, which, regardless of how often it has been done, ensures that it will get done again.

A challenge for actors

As a two-hander, the actor and actress readily admit that Two Can Play poses a specific challenge, but it is one they are quick - and even honoured - to embrace. After all, it is a Rhone play, and Rhone, to many, is the playwright of playwrights.

"There are some pieces that are classics," Actor Boy nominee and movie actress Rosie Murray stated.

"And I have a great appreciation for Trevor Rhone, so this play is about nostalgia on many levels," she explained.

The seasoned theatre practitioner casually shrugged off any suggestions that Two Can Play has been done so many times already that it doesn't need to be repeated. A self-described 'child of the '70s', the era in which the play was set, Murray noted that in staging such a production it is "the identity which the actors, producer, director stamp on a play which makes it worth the while."

She noted that it was a play to which she could personally relate, having lived at the entrance to Jones Town as a child, and growing up as the principal's daughter during what was a politically tumultuous period in Jamaica's history.

"I remember some political activists coming to my father and telling him that they wanted to use the school, All Saints Primary, for a political meeting and he was challenged when he said no. However, it was my mother who stood up to them that day, by stepping in front of my father and telling them that they would have to go through her first. Her strength, like that of Gloria (the protagonist in Rhone's Two Can Play), just shone through that day, and we were all so amazed," Murray reflected.

Both Murray and her onstage husband, Skeen, who takes on the role of Jim, were also quick to point out that although Two Can Play made its debut four decades ago, the similarities are striking. The violence, they noted, may have changed, but it still exists; the sliding value of the Jamaican dollar against its United States counterpart, was, and still is, an all-too-harsh reality and although women in 2012 are more liberated than Gloria, there are still many for whom Gloria is a mirror.

A masterpiece

Arguably Rhone's most produced play, one reviewer noted that Two Can Play is "a masterpiece about an archetypal lower-middle-class couple. It is about love, and estrangement; about domination, and liberation; about confusion, and compassion. It is a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always life-affirming play."

Despite the harsh realities portrayed in Two Can Play, it is the wit, the laughter which ring out the loudest. It is a comedy of monumental proportions and Rhone's skills as a playwright are stretched to the fullest. From start to finish, the play is embedded with situations which are as dramatic as they are humorous and which involve the use of the word 'play' on multiple levels.

Terri Salmon, CEO of the newly launched GODDESS Theatre, in her synopsis noted that Two Can Play is a Jamaican story, reflecting life in the inner city, ravaged by violence and hopelessness. It is the need for a better life which gets Jim and Gloria involved in a scheme to secure American citizenship. However, it is Gloria not Jim ('the general') who takes the risks. Gloria and Jim come to a new understanding of the world and their relationship.

Directed by Carolyn Allen, better known as a lecturer at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, but whose theatre credits include directing student productions, Two Can Play is produced by Salmon who is known for her realistic and comedic performances.

Murray will bring her charisma and star power alongside Skeen, who has appeared in the movie Lively Up Yuself and numerous plays.

Two Can Play offers benefit performances Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m.