River Bottom

We went to see River Bottom last night (with Oliver Samuels). This was a typical, wonderful Jamaican play that left us in stitches. The story line goes as follows:

• Corrupt preacher Cappo in River Bottom promises the world to his congregation while using their donations to build a 2 story house and buy a car
• Preacher admonishes congregation member to bring her daughter, Pearl, to church (so he can begin to work on her for marriage - or worse)
• Young man Quatty returns (educated) to the village and searches out his old friend Pearl
• Flashbacks to time spent with her while they were young and best friends
• Quatty and Pearl start to shyly show interest in each other
• Cappo observes and worries about his own chances, then begins to scheme and speak out against Quatty
• Hurricane shows up and Quatty starts to rally the village to leave
• Cappo talks up against him, says the hurricane will not come, and gets the villagers to stay
• The hurricane arrives and Cappo tells Quatty that his drunken father is down in the high water
• Quatty goes into the water to find his Dad (who then shows up in the village drunk after a nap)
• The village thinks Quatty has died and Cappo tries to get a marriage going with Pearl
• Quatty returns and ends up married to Pearl

The highlights:

• Cappo twitching as "message coming in" from God that the hurricane will not arrive
• Quatty in the water (beautiful scene behind a blue screen with Quatty appearing just as if he were swimming - he is quite a dancer)
• Quatty and Pearl discussing marriage while the village encourages them
• The musical numbers - work by Jon Williams - he is amazingly talented!
  
• Oliver
• Oliver
• Oliver
• Glen Campbell
• Glen Campbell

The part before intermission was a little difficult for me. The patois was pretty thick and the sound system did not really reach the balcony where we were sitting. After the intermission voices projected better and the patois was a little more understandable.

One of the things I love about theater in Kingston is that the audience participates. They laugh and clap and shout out their favorite punch lines before the actors get there. Everybody really has a great time! As always, anything with Oliver in it is a success. He connects with everyone.