The Tribune

y ALESHA CADET

Tribune Features Reporter

acadet@tribunemedia.net

THE CURTAINS were pulled back last week on the highly anticipated Shakespeare in Paradise theatre festival. Out o’ Wedlock, a play in two acts, was the shining star. It matched the esteem of its author Jeanne Thompson, a former Justice and women’s activist. The two acts - Back of the Moon and Father’s Day - brought laughter as well as deep thought to patrons who attended the festival.

Father’s Day displayed a classic study of a Bahamian man navigating his relationship with a wife and two sweethearts over the course of an evening. Back of the Moon showed a feisty domestic servant accusing her boss, a white English minister of religion, of fathering her child, while she attempts to enlist the support of the middle class black community to rally in her defence.

Tribune Entertainment sat in on the play and spoke to a number of audience members, including Ms Thompson herself.

Out O’ Wedlock Author Jeanne Thompson

“I thought the play went quite well. Someone tonight described Back of the Moon as whimsical. It was part of my childhood, so it is a bit of old Bahamas, and I think people enjoyed it. I got the impression that the audience enjoyed themselves. I liked both of them because they are different.”

Shakespeare in Paradise Festival Director Nicolette Bethel

“I like the fact that Father’s Day made people laugh and Back of the Moon made people think. I am a little disappointed in the turn out of the audience but I am hoping more people come out and support.”

Festival Patron Sherice Ferguson

“All I could remember is “Gal gat more guts than calabash.” Father’s Day was simply hilarious and I like how she made light of something that not only happens in the country, but all over the world. People do not like to talk about it, but these things happen. Men cheat, people get divorced and situations happen. Zeke, the man who played the husband tried to juggle three whole women and ended up playing himself. The lesson of the situation was to never play with people’s feelings.”

Student Camille Culmer

“I think the play was actually based on real life issues in the Bahamas. On how a married man wouldn’t actually stay true to his wife. How he would go have sweet hearts and try to play everything out. I just believe that obviously if you keep doing that, you are not going to get anywhere in life. So now I guess young men who watch this play, can use it as a lesson to say that they have to respect the laws of marriage and stay true to their wives and children, so it won’t back fire.”

Student Arielle Saunders

“From watching the play, I like the fact that they displayed three different scenarios of how the married man started off with one wife and left her for someone younger. In the end he was basically left high and dry and he was still unhappy. They all moved on and ended up happy and he was left trying to figure out why he did what he did. I mean there are enough men to go around; it is never that serious to want to go and take someone else’s man. If you can’t find any here in Nassau, go to a Family Island or state side or something.”

The strong performances from Out o’ Wedlock and the Shakespeare inspired Merchant will be followed over the next four nights by a regional display of performance art: “Mr and Mrs Blacke”, a Jamaican play; “Lion City Live”, a Trinidadian production; and “Speak the Speech”, a whirlwind tour of Bahamian history from the 1492 landfall to Bahamian Independence through speeches and correspondences. For more information, visit Shakespeare in Paradise on Facebook or contact the box office at (242) 677-8900.