As we continue a review of the Guyanese stage in 2023, the spotlight is turned to focus on the production Nothing to Laugh About. This performance continued in 2023, and in spite of the several issues confronting the local theatre, hardly put a foot wrong. On the contrary, it not only made a statement about its place in Guyanese theatre, but articulated several statements about its identity, its theatrical type, its style and its audience.
Nothing to Laugh About is a collection of skits, short and long pieces (very long pieces), in an annual full-length programme of popular comedy and commercial theatre produced by Maria Benschop and directed by Lyndon Jones. It has come a long way since its error-strewn beginnings on the stage, seeing considerable qualitative improvement in competence to a current mastery of its own brand. But one thing that has not changed since it first hit the stage is its immediate and constant popularity. It has never failed to fill the house, and one of the statements it made in 2023 is that it was the only production to command a large crowd.
It was a part of the bounty enjoyed by the theatre during the year in the sense of a steep increase in the number of dramatic productions after the decline seen in previous years and the income earned by practitioners. But it could measure its own achievements, including its popularity – its ability to continue to attract crowds while others struggled with uncertain audience numbers. During the year, it was still the only one sure of box office success in the middle of trending hardships faced by theatre producers. There are high costs of production and many of the regular producers have been scared away. Private sponsorship is a scarce commodity.
Interestingly, among the statements made by Nothing to Laugh About was its management of private sponsorship. What is very important to document in a study of this theatre is the impact made by this management not only on financing but on theatre. First of all, Jones and Benschop seem to have taken no chances when it comes to keeping their growing trend of support from a very long line of businesses, including an amazing conglomerate of small enterprises. This has been achieved through fairly innovative thinking and the application of a number of techniques and strategies which impact production management, public relations and the stage.
This support from sponsors sustains itself. It has been built in, not merely as announcements calling out the names of sponsors, but as an integral part of the production, as strategies and techniques of performance. The design of these appeared to interest both the sponsors and the audience. There were several give-aways – dozens of gifts, handouts and prizes won by ticket holders, and these are announced and handed out to members of the audience at intervals during the show. This consumes inordinate lengths of time. Every sponsor, however small, gets public mileage and attention while the audience is entertained by the way the handing out is actually performed. Each session of prize-giving was a comedy show in itself, and a popular performance item.
Many of these small enterprises are commercial concerns with which a working class population can relate, and the performers took advantage of this. Additionally, these sessions allow for direct interaction with the audience in which comedians on stage will revel. It is a throwback to the past age of vaudeville that used to be popular entertainment around the Caribbean more than 40 years ago. Those included the Christmas Morning Concerts of Jamaica and the cinema house shows of Trinidad and the stand-up comedy appearances in British Guiana.
Much of that has now been incorporated into Nothing to Laugh About as popular commercial theatre. At least two members of the cast have perfected the art of crowd interaction during the give-aways. Actress/comedienne Leza Singh delighted the audiences in previous years and that role was commanded by Jones in 2023. Each session of prize-giving was an act of stand-up comedy – a particular talent of Jones. Audience interaction was also fully exploited in the process, turning them into hilarious interludes of banter, repartee and audience talk-back. Comedy acts often involve two performers taking on each other, and in this show, an Australian performer appeared as partner to Jones.
Nothing To Laugh About was predominantly farce and slapstick, as it customarily is, with a number of skits primed for laughter. There were a few satirical pieces, but the show was unblushingly farce with full audience endorsement. The show itself was not bothered by the fact that it made direct audience appeal. It is very audience-oriented in many ways which definitely includes the prize giving performances and the audience interaction, which was in evidence in some of the skits as well. In one case Michael Ignatius seemed to break the fourth wall in playing a narrator’s role, while in other instances there was ad-lib and spontaneity in taking on the audience or responding to talk-back.
This was additionally related to the overall style of the performance, which, as has been said, contains a reprise of the vaudeville of old and it also contains a reflection of vestiges of the contemporary Roots theatre. Some of the skits were particularly lengthy, not because of the demands of the content, but owing to the repetitiveness and the stretching out of moments of slapstick that commanded sustained audience laughter. This is a form common in the Jamaican Roots theatre and seen in the signature tactics of comic actor Shabada, for example.
Low farce was therefore dominant in a number of items, especially the usual lampoon of a beauty contest featuring transvestites. In Guyanese comic theatre there have been stereotypes over the years. For a long time homosexuality held central focus as a popular subject for laughter on stage. That has diminished somewhat but not disappeared. Vestiges of it continue in male characters cross-dressing, and in male characters assuming female personalities. These have prevailed as audience favourites and were much in evidence in last year’s Nothing To Laugh About.
The usual subjects, then, continued as topics for comic treatment in the skits, foremost among them being sex in various plots, quite often in plots of infidelity. Of late, too, have been Chinese characters who have come in for their share of comic attention, and this, unfortunately, has been one feature of the popular Guyanese reaction to the increased Chinese presence in Guyanese society. A particularly popular Chinese character put in his usual appearance as a serial personality in the production.
The production was enriched by solo appearances of stand-up comedians, vaudeville style, to help fill out the show. This continued to be one of the strong points as the producers of this event are also responsible for the foremost production of stand-up comedy titled Uncensored. That, too, is a show guaranteed a full house.
Nothing To Laugh About was only one of the many productions in the paradoxical year of bounty and trials, 2023. But it was of a kind that demanded closer scrutiny, and it was found as one that made a statement about its achievements as popular theatre, about its identity, and about the Guyanese stage in 2023.
