Caught up in a dark love triangle

It’s being billed as ‘a twisty, dark, comedy about ambition and ruthlessness’ and a fresh face to Bermuda’s theatre scene is to take one of the three leading roles. 

Travis Chambray, brother of Mohawk Radio singer Mia, is to play the character of Chris in Paul Grellong’s Manuscript which presents an exploration of a tricky love triangle. 

The play, which has been described by Time Out as ‘hip, witty and wholly unpredictable’, opens at Daylesford Theatre on June 19. It is set in the bedroom of a Brooklyn Heights brownstone and centres around three ambitious college freshmen. They are in the mood to party and the parents are out of town so David (Geoffrey  Faiella) decides to host a gathering. 

He invites his best friend Chris (Chambray) and Chris’s girlfriend Elizabeth (Paige Hallett). She is a famous author and David aspires to write. The show poster promises: “The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle has nothing on these three when they find themselves on a roller-coaster ride of an evening, with enough twist and turns to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and wondering what will happen next.”

The unpredictable plot is one of the play’s highlights, according to Chambray. He told the Bermuda Sun: “Without giving much away I think one of the best things about this play is how you think it’s going one way but then you end up crashed in the ravine with your wheels still spinning and that happens a few times.”

An alumni of Saltus Grammar School, Chambray has performed for the school’s productions and theatre scene and he was also in an amateur movie production, Crossed Paths, a few years ago. 

He told said: “I hadn’t really done any auditioning in Bermuda before and I didn’t know anything about the production but since then I have looked it up and other people have used scenes from the play and used it in acting classes in the States. It’s a New York play written by a NY writer I think that’s fairly interesting. 

Wilfully ditzy

“My character Chris is an interesting guy — he is studying at Yale and he and Elizabeth have been going steady for a few months. 

“He is a bright, almost wilfully ditzy and silly and playful sort of character. I think he means well — he battles between being a laid-back well meaning person and someone who pushes ulterior motives for the good of him and his own friend. 

“He is like the moral character among the trio — he feels very bad about the






chicanery.”

Asked whether there were any similarities between himself and his character he said: “Well... he goes running twice a day and goes to Yale but I do think we could get along — I do think we could hang out. He’s got a small penis and I can’t relate to that!”

Chambray carries on a family tradition of performing arts — his sister Mia heads up Mohawk Radio out of Manchester, UK and his father Victor Chambray was a singer for local band The Sharks.

Travis said: “Being on stage and the love of giving back in a performance way has always been a part of my family. My sister is doing well with her music in Manchester she has found her voice. It’s wonderful that she has brought that to light. You would think she would come home to see me on Bermudian Broadway but she’s not! My father is a singer here in Bermuda and in various bands in Canada.”

Chambray, who returns to Bermuda after living overseas, said aside from his attraction to the stage he hopes to give back to the theatre movement in a deeper sense locally. 

He said: “Now that I’m back in Bermuda and think the theatre is really important for the community. You don’t have to necesarily be
involved in the theatre for it to be beneficial. When you go and see a good performance that is relevant to society I think there is a lot that can be thought over. 

“I’d like to expand the theatre community in Bermuda and see if there is any serious involvement or organization that can be done for young people who are interested and also young people who want to perform in theatre but don’t have the venue here to address it. 

“I am doing a play here that I auditioned for which is all well and good but I know there are other people my age, I am 23, who are living in Bermuda and may feel like their options are narrowed. 

“I think we should get those people together and make short films or our own little plays. There’s a lot of opportunity for that in Bermuda and it’s a great opportunity for all as culture breeds culture. 

“The more cultured we are as Bermudian people, the more that we can get along and see who we all are.”