Theatre

Pleasure isle

Ted Whitehead

Rum an Coca-Cola (Royal Court) The Artful Widow (Greenwich)

Recently I went to hear a steel band, expecting some lively ethnic music, and it was a bit of a shock when the four young West Indians Plunged into 'Sailing' and then proceeded to drill their way through the current Top l'wentY. Later I learnt that the band all came from South London and didn't know any 'ethnic; music.

I was reminded of this when I saw Mustapha Matura's Rum an Coca-Cola, Which is about the prostitution of calypso music (for which read West Indian culture) by respectability and the dollar. Two calypso singers, one has-been, one would-be, sprawl On a beach, drinking rum and trying to compose an entry for the annual calypso competition. The old man, who won the competition three times on the trot in the 'fifties, hankers after the simplicity and rawness of the early songs, and complains that the f°rM has become debased ever since it was approved by the government as a means of attracting tourists. His own creative force is clYmg but he hopes to pass on the torch to ti!l.e Young man. Meanwhile the pair make a lying by entertaining tourists on the beach and in a night-club with precisely those calYpsos, full of plastic good cheer, that the °Id man condemns.

Finally he rebels, partly out of disgust, and Partly to save the young man from being Seduced—by the dollar, by fame and the °ffieial blessing, and by the American women hungry for a black stud. First he hurls some home truths at the customers in ILhe night-club, in reward for which he is "eaten up and thrown out. So his chief source of income is gone. And then he strangles his partner's girl-friend, an Amentourist who was going to finance their alYPso entry. He walks into the ocean. Donald Howarth's production is subtle, and maybe a bit too subtle. The first half stets up the received image of Caribbean cul°re, inviting all the clichés that usually 1)ePPer reviews of that lifestyle: warm, reaxed, amusing, touching, indolent, vital, efte. The lighting, by Jack Raby, plays beaut °HY on Jocelyn Herbert's marvellously !iPare set in wood and cloth, and we are „Mr, Mediately whisked away to one of the leasure Islands' promised us by the Trimdad and Tobago Tourist Board in a progthraMme advertisement. Norman Beaton as ,ge ex-champ is touching and amusing (sic) 4nd Trevor Thomas effectively eager and arlalve, and we fully share their creative el!,°nies as they struggle to compose a '.13135o about the maid who discovered her til'stress in bed with the Minister of Works

and Communications.

The trouble is, I fell for it. And judging by the delighted laughter of most of the audience, black and white, I think they fell for it too. By the interval I had begun to think how nice it would be to sprawl in the hot sun, swigging rum and scribbling calypsos—and if that meant I had to put on a show for the tourists now and again, well at least they were paying.

But the result was that after the interval, when the image was shattered and we were shown the underlying disgust and disillusion that led to murder and suicide, it felt forced. To be more precise, I could accept the old man's suicide, because Norman Beaton had conveyed a sense of defeat in his characterisation: a sense made explicit in certain lines, as when he refuses to take a dip in the ocean to wake up after a session on the rum, and said: 'Who wants to wake up?' But hard to accept that he could murder anyone.

Perhaps the production could do with more anger, more ugliness before the interval. Matura signifies his intention very clearly in the title R14111 an Coca-Cola: the sharp bite of the one, the synthetic sweetness of the other. And he has never been afraid to satirise his fellow blacks for selling out and living up to white-inspired values. In his earlier plays, As Time Goes By and Black Pieces, he explored the problem for blacks of living in a white-dominated society; in his last one, Play

Mas, and in this, he explores the problem for blacks of living in a black-dominated society. He shows how easily the black succumbs to the white infections: the sentimentalisation of sex, the worship of work, the lust for respectability. Yet he is also very aware of the condescension implicit in the common view of the black as a natural song and dance man, an animal with 'sour, whatever that is. His dialogue is casual, funny and apparently directionless, but he knows exactly what he is doing; and it is fascinating to watch how he ravels and unravels his themes while the political issue is absorbed completely in the human relationships.

With The Artful Widow the Greenwich Theatre claims to be reviving the 'spirit' rather than the 'letter' of Goldoni. You may remember that the letter was disastrously presented by the National in 11 Campiello last week; it is a Pity that the spirit is even worse. What's with Goldoni ?The first three invitations to review that I received were all for plays by him.

I gather that the French turned to Italian comedy in reaction to the general gloom felt during the closing years of the reign of Louis XIV ; they wanted some fun and escapism, and the Italians provided it. Is the Theatre trying to divert us from our Problems? Myself, when feeling low, I turn to Strindberg and Euripides (things can't get worse). But if you prefer to turn to utterly committed nonsense, then this may be your Cup

of froth: you may laugh yourself silly.

The play is translated by Frederick H Davies and adapted by Richard Sparks, who in a joint programme note explain that they 'have updated it, have made some alteration to the character and plot and have provided new dialogue.' Goldoni's play is about a widow who exercises her art in choosing between four suitors, an Italian, an Englishman, a Frenchman and a Spaniard. Here the Spaniard is replaced by an American and the play is updated to sometime between the early nineteenth and early twentieth century. Tired parodies abound, with the American wooing the widow in the guise of Groucho Marx, and three waiters who are acting as go-betweens presenting themselves as the Marx Brothers.

I was impressed by the game spirit with which these performers, all competent, some very talented, tackled their ludicrous roles. Diane Cilento as the wiclow and Frank Barrie as the Italian suitor are emotionally convincing when all around are hamming it • up. Ursula Mohan is hilarious as the ultimate French maid, whether waggling her hips or flashing her stocking-tops, and is superb when coaching the widow's young sister in 'femininity'. And the evening was almost saved by John Kane as Arleechino, whose turns must have been every bit as good as the lazzi of the original Italian improvisers. Which leaves me wondering whether the bright vulgarity of the early Commedia dell' Arte might not be preferable to Goldoni's refinement of the form. Back to Rum an Coca-Cola.