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In his synopsis of Sounds From Yaad, which is written in the programme, erudite writer and director Owen ‘Blakka’ Ellis declares, “From the onomatopoeic musicality of romantic overtures and social conversations to the creative cacophony of a market place trace-off between competing vendors, sound remains that distinctively delightful and disruptive element of our national character. And generally, we tend to release our sounds loudly. Yes. Many of us we sing loud, pray loud, dress loud, talk loud, and walk loud. And in a good way, wi loud bad!”
Yes, “dat deep”, as the characters in Sounds From Yaad would say, nodding their head and their entire bodies. And in real life, it’s also accurate.
Sounds From Yaad had its opening, two-show run on December 29 at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, and it was an exhilarating, unifying, real Jamaican experience. Loud? Definitely. Not to mention that it was also amusing, hilarious, and chock-full of “dead wid laugh” moments.
The talented cast, which comprises Sherando Ferril, Kadeem ‘Kenzic’ Wilson, Everaldo ‘Pukopoo’ Creary, Raul ‘Blaze’ Davis and Joan ‘Kenzie’ McKenzie, working with a minimalistic stage setting — five boxes are the main props, with a big screen used as a backdrop to project pictures — do what they do best as they breathe life into a series of memorable characters in some rather interesting and perplexing situations.
Take Sounds Inna Class, for example, in which the entire cast participates. These students are presumably in a French class because the male teacher enters saying ‘Bonjour”, but we later learn that the class is actually LIT which stands for Language in Therapy.
Anyway, the students confidently respond in Spanish to Sir’s greeting: “Buenos dias señorita profesora.” Wrong language and wrong gender. And throughout the nearly eight-minute long skit, it becomes increasingly apparent that the students and the teacher talk two different languages - English and Jamaican. Sounds familiar?
A conversation about the various types of trauma that each student is experiencing ends up with one student explaining that his mother who is overseas isn’t working, but she’s going to “throw pardner” to get lots of money to buy him a pair of shoes for Christmas.
An incredulous Sir asks,“You mean your mother is going to throw her partner through the window? But that’s spousal abuse!”
Attempts to get Sir to comprehend the “pardner” concept, including referencing dancehall artiste Shane O’s Partner Draw song only further complicates the matter. “Shane O? Is he in this class?” Sir questions in perfect English.
Frustrated at the language barrier, the students can only ask, yet again, and with some measure of concern, “Sir, yuh a eediat?”
Among the gaggle of students is ‘Boad Head Pinkey’ who doesn’t like the class, she doesn’t like Sir, “because yuh talk like white people and mi don’t like white people” - she doesn’t like black people and she doesn’t even like herself. Then there is Force Ripe Stacy who blatantly has her eyes on Sir. She expressed to Sir, rather coyly that her only trauma is that she “keep on a meet bare short man … and mi like tall man like you, Sir”
At this point, poor Sir is totally traumatised, and he desperately tries to stoop low so as to appear short.
In Yaad Style ABC, Blaze, proudly declares that although he can’t spell big words like cow and mosquito, one thing he does know is his Jamaican ABC.
For the uneducated, it goes something like this: “ ‘A’ is fi austeering when yuh big and wutliss so; ‘B’ is fi boogoyagga ... oonu tek time wid di noise nuh; ‘C’ is for chaka chaka like how some a oonu house tan; ‘D’ is for degge degge whe always hitch up side a one; and ‘E’ is for henkerful ova di people dem porridge.” He skilfully recites all the way to ‘Z’.
Other skits include Market Melee; Clicka and Jacqui; Emergency Hotline; Ram Goat Story; Testy Money; Weh Yu Run Fah?, Guess Who Dead, My Pay; Upper Echelonia, Aria Sketelan in G Minor, Porridge Symposium, Whisper Tell Me, Rage Against Age, Manversation and Loud Like.
In a previous interview, Ferril, who doubles as producer through her company Yaad Bridge Entertainment, which mounts the production alongside Bekele Studios, emphasised that Sounds From Yaad is not just a theatrical experience, it is a nostalgic experience.
“It’s an experience that will take us, whether we are in Jamaica or in the diaspora back to that time of ‘Bwoy, Jamaica did nice een.’ Or if yuh live a foreign, ‘Hey, mi miss dem summ’n deh from Yaad yuh kno.’ And that is what makes Sounds From Yaad different,” Ferril stated.
She spoke the truth.
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