BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IT was a huge BanGarang on Saturday (Jun. 11) evening at 17 Degrees when the cast of the Jamaican-staged play highlighted several issues with which Caribbean people are faced.
The play, held as the first charitable event of the Champs for Charity Foundation, drew close to 1,500 patrons to the venue to see the cast in action.
The play surrounded Monique Ellis’ character Pearl Harbour, a higgler by day, but by night she transforms into one who sells what she did not purchase but rather that with which she was born.
She had a dream of opening her own boutique, but after 15 years of working the streets she still had not realized that goal. She however gets caught in a web of love. Three men were in love with her but her heart seemed to rest with one, the one who could not look past the fact that she was a prostitute.
Keith ‘Shebada’ Ramsey erupted onto the stage during the second scene of the play and drew boisterous applause and screams from the welcoming audience.
He too played the part of a higgler, one who was a bit of a handful and one who always seemed to instigate mischief.
Appearing to deviate from the script from time to time, Shebada knew exactly how to incorporate the audience into his routine and adroitly drew responses from some individuals which complemented his presentation.
SKNVibes observed that as joke after joke was masterfully placed within the lines of the play, the laughter of the crowd rang through the venue and some individuals momentarily lost their seats only to regain after composing themselves.
The play had a wealth of surprises! From the power hungry Chinese shopkeeper who would even go to the lengths of “buying” a politician so she can get what she wants, to a politician who was willing to hire someone he did not know to speak on his behalf so he could win votes, to a policeman who could not decide on whether he was corrupt or not, to a rasta man who falls in love with Pearl and turns out to be the shopkeeper’s son.
Members of the cast were Patrick ‘Diggle’ Smith as Officer Shellaz, Christopher McFarlane as the corrupt politician Winston Justice, Iris Terri Salmon as the power-hungry storeowner Ms. Chin, and Junior Williams who played the part of Ms. Chin’s secret son ‘Preacher’.
While prostitution, hustling and love were some of the nuances in the earlier part of the near three-hour presentation, the fangs of deceit and murder did not take grip until nearing the end.
Public Relations Officer of the Champs for Charity Foundation, Tasha Hendrickson told SKNVibes that based on the number of tickets sold, close to 1,500 individuals attended the show.
“The success of the show, without a doubt, was overwhelming. We had more persons than the tickets we printed. We printed 700 tickets and we ended up selling more at the gate. So we had more than enough people to achieve our objective. We had close to 1,500 people.”
She said the success of the show puts Champs for Charity in a better position to be able to fulfil its promise to provide financial assistance to those parents and guardians who work for less than minimum wage. She said the assistance would be for them to purchase school supplies for the upcoming school year.
With BanGarang only featured in Jamaica, St. Maarten and the UK, Hendrickson said she was told by the show’s manager that the St. Kitts show was one of the largest crowds they had ever seen.
