Plenty of comedy and a little horse play in Famous For Fifteen

The characters in this year’s Famous For Fifteen plays proved rather extraordinary — from a marriage-shy partner with a penchant for pony porn to an obsessive neurotic blind date with a fixation on guinea pigs.

The audience was warned at the start of the 11th annual scriptwriting competition about adult language and content which was probably a smart move.

• The evening’s fair began with three-time winner Owain Johnson’s We Wish You The Best In Your Future. It seemed very apt in the current climate for a play to focus on redundancies and ensuing disdain for corporate bosses. The first lines in the play contained graphic swearwords directed straight to the top.

The two departing employees hate each other, hate their lives and hate the security guard who watches their every move to ensure they don’t swipe or damage so much as a staple.

As the play develops they see that they can at least find some common ground.

There was some punchy dialogue throughout the play to keep it entertaining — Colleen’s lines were probably the best. She has no need for children, for instance, as they are “sticky and smell terrible — men are the same.”

The play veered off on a bit of an obscure angle when Colleen talks of her ridiculous “billion dollar plan” but on the whole it was enjoyable.

• Pecan Pie by new-comer Helen Jardine attracted a steady stream of giggles throughout.

It’s a playful piece about how people lie about themselves on online dating sites and the trouble it can get you in to. Pretence is the prime theme which starts with the carefully selected book chosen by blind date Emma to suggest she is intelligent but not intimidatingly so.

The strength of this play is in its characters — after all, guinea pig whisperers are a very rare breed indeed.

Emma who is a beautiful, seemingly sane young lady, proves that looks can be very deceiving. The contrast between our expectations of who she is and who she actually is magnifies the humour and really makes the point that we can never be truly sure of people until meet them. Her blind date Steve’s desperate pleas to remove himself from a situation had us falling about laughing.

• Adam Gauntlett’s play Banana took ‘obscure’ to a whole other level. His characters could only speak in numbers though one of them had a different plan of his own. It reminded me of the kind of improvisation exercises actors do in the classroom —holding full conversations using only numbers.  

It was fun for a few minutes but after a while seemed like one of those interminable jokes that you wish would just get to the punch line. However, the play took a sinister turn and brought to the fore some raw emotions. We end up caring for that little rebel in the end.

• Liz Jones play about family relations during the Cuban Missile Crisis stood out for its serious content — going by the line-up of plays, it did the opposite of providing comic relief.

It’s Not The End of the World, Hannah is set at the height of the crisis in 1962 and cleverly weaves in conflicts closer to home. At first — everyday conflicts between a mother and daughter, then, more deep rooted conflicts between a mother and her brother.

One argument revolved around the mother’s prying about her daughter’s new boyfriend. It seems so unnatural to worry about the everyday when the threat of nuclear destruction looms outside. The dialogue deals well with this. Hannah blarts out to her mother: “For God’s sake we are all about to blow up and you want to know what his father does?”

The play shows how the ravages of war can tear us apart, reflecting the deadlock between JF Kennedy and Nikita Khrushcev at the time the play was set.

• Catherine Hay’s play NACAD delivered some laugh-out-loud comedy moments then surprised us with a diversion into the sincere and emotionally charged. The playwright clearly had fun mocking some aspects of Bermuda’s politics with the “Minister of Culture and Good Sportsmanship” dishing out ridiculous marriage licensing policies. An emotionless NACAD (Nuptial and Courtship Assessment Department) assessor quizzes an oddly matched couple about their compatibility. As she delves into their sex lives we are left, mouth agape, at some of their most unfathomable fantasies. It should be said that no horses were harmed during the making of this play.

The play then kind of jerked into a totally different genre. While the switch was initially a little confusing emotionally, the play left our hearts warmed. 

• Finally, 50 Shade of Beige by Justine Mackey taught us that true love trumps exotic sex. All Sheila wants is a little spice in her marriage and finds herself wishing she could live another woman’s life. When she realizes that, that woman has an ulterior motive she begins to see things more clearly.

The playwright didn’t make clear whether Sheila’s realization would actually make her life more interesting — or whether she would exchange the 50 shades of Beige on her living room walls for more lavish hews. But there is certainly a song in her heart. Move aside EL James, true love is the biggest turn on of all.

Famous For Fifteen Minutes runs from June 14 to 15 then June 19 to 21. Tickets are $25 and available from the BMDS box office, by calling 292-0848 or online at www.bmds.bm. The Gala Night and Presentation is on June 22 at 6:30pm with a cocktail reception. Tickets are $75.