With a cast featuring Kirk Johnson (host of Matters of The Heart) and Pastor Mario Moxey, audiences enjoyed superb performances. The key issue addressed in the play centered on redemption. Essentially writer Radell Parks argues that because Eddie has given his life to Christ that those that haven’t persecute and undermine Eddie. Which, unfortunately is an old tried and true ideology.
For me this is where the play ran into problems. At 2 hours and 45 mins long I only saw 30-45 mins worth of actual plot progression, character development and sub-plot. Throughout the play there were small simple scenes that ran from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The majority of these scenes required background changes, so often the time between the scenes were longer than the scenes. This should have been avoided.
Theatre is about characters in conflict. One of my favorite things about this play was the presence of the dramatic arc (begging, middle and the end). This is not a necessity of a fantastic production, but it separates good plays from bad, chaotic messy ones. Imagine watching a three hour play that spent one hour doing nothing but exposition; would you really enjoy that?
With that said I don’t think that a good job was done with Parks script. Unfortunately after the show was over, it was clear that she was beating the bush with the same stick. To me, a good work in any medium needs to be original and creative. Whilst creativity was present, Parks’ gleaning of Tyler Perry’s plot of forgiveness in a black Christian setting did not keep me interested in what most characters said – simply because there were too many stereotypes and overemphasized clichés. This play obviously deals with the drama in a Christian community, but does a good job of not saturating the audience with preachy dialogue. Although I don’t think the audience would have cared.
Now there is a distinct difference between theatre and movies. Actors in theatre must project themselves so that their action can be heard and seen by all members of the audience. Theatre is live and therefore every night of performance is different. In the movies, actors act for the camera and every time one views a movie, it never changes. The actors never grow old or change the way a line is delivered. With that said, I don’t think that prerecorded footage of scenes should be incorporated into stage plays as a means to substitute an actual scene. Essentially this issue boils down to, am I watching a play or a movie?
Now there were a lot of things I liked about this play too. Don’t get me wrong, One Man’s Struggle was a great attempt that has loads and loads of potential. I saw a cohesive cast work together to deliver a play, which is no simple task – simply because anything and everything can go wrong in a live production. I saw scenes that had me laughing, scenes that moved me and a character that actually delivered a monologue. I know that Redemption Productions will steadily learn more about the stage and when they do, theatre in The Bahamas will be all the more richer for it.
