Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Jeffrey (Dervan Malcolm) relives his harrowing experience of being shot at in 'Through the Fire'.

Through the Fire, a play put on by Mediaplanet and the Independent Jamaican Council for Human Rights, delved into the meaty matter of hanging, with a side serving of suicide. All well and good, but after a few minutes of the opening post-intermission scene, I was thinking more along the lines of torture.

For that was close to how I felt as Richard (an expressive pastor, sometimes overplayed by David Crossgill, who at one point addressed Jeffrey as Richard, but quickly corrected himself) and Jeffrey (an effectively distressed Dervan Malcolm) went on at length about whether or not to hang, the dear pastor a huffing and a puffing and a fuming, and Jeffrey often a musing (though not amusing) and a fuming. It was a great deal of emotional expenditure on an opinion, when Jeffrey had been chased and shot at after witnessing a murder the day before.

A banging point

And they kept at it, because that is what was required. It is the Jack Hines script, then, that should have gone if not Through the Fire, then certainly through extensive revision.

Granted, Hines was constrained by the human rights intentions of the play, but ultimately, what Pablo Hoilett had to direct was a script that preached way too much and continued ramming home the 'no to hanging' point long after it had been well and truly rammed.

It was like a carpenter nailing a piece of zinc sheeting on to a roof and, long after the nail has gone all the way in, keeps banging and banging and banging and banging.

Through the Fire, which ended its one-weekend run on Sunday afternoon, opened with Pastor Richard waxing warm (and at length, too; the opening scene took 15 minutes of his preaching) about suicide, using the tale of Sisyphus rolling the boulder up a hill eternally, but not contemplating killing himself. Sister Madeleine, seated at the front of the audience of under 40 persons, joined in very briefly and another weakness in the script showed as her mispronunciation of 'Sisyphus' as 'Sisypuss' was simply not funny.

Not enthused

The audience was not enthused, the handclaps for the uptempo music that was interjected at points not catching on.

So Sister Madeleine has a son, Macca (Kadeem Wilson), a diehard 'shotta' who turns out to be the youth who committed a murder and then chased potential witness Jeffrey. In that theatrically traumatic post-intermission scene, Jeffrey's home is invaded by Macca and a second gunman (Gabio Campbell) and in a ludicrous series of struggles, body shield, prayer and shooting, Macca dies.

But Through the Fire plays straight into stereotypes as Macca is from a poor home and a second gunman, whose testimony to Pastor Richard is staged, has locks.

On the redemptive side, acting out various characters' recollections was a good touch, with Jeffrey and Macca engaged in a slow motion chase under strobe lights. However, the set of a slope and a door with a landing which was used throughout did not enhance Through the Fire.

Capital punishment is an important topic and it deserved a better script.

Jeffrey (left, Dervan Malcolm) struggles with gunman Macca (Kadeem Wilson) during a murder attempt. - photos by Nathaniel Stewart/Freelance Photographer