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by John Blackwood, directed by Rudi Quammie Williams

Theatre Passe Muraille/Obsidian Theatre Company, Theatre Passe Muraille Extra Space, Toronto

November 1-20, 2005

He speaks Jamaican patois, he has all the Caribbean moves, he sings ska and reggae--but he’s white.  John Blackwood’s one-man show, part of Theatre Passe Muraille’s continuing “Stage 3” series, tells the story of a Canadian boy who grows up in Jamaica.  He identifies so much with the Jamaican way of life he feels an outsider in Canada while his skin makes him an outsider in Jamaica.

Blackwood presents a potentially fascinating paradox but fails to explore it.  Besides providing a sketchy history of Jamaica, he deftly plays several characters--himself at different ages, his British grandmother, a member of Jamaica’s white plantocracy, a black fruit-seller and best of all his failed entrepreneur of a father--but he evades the key issues.  Why was it so easy for him to identify with Jamaica?  What made it so hard for him then to fit into Canada?  Has he reconciled the two or not?  Without this focus the hour-long show is only mildly diverting.           

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2005-11-10.

Photo: John Blackwood. ©Aviva Armour-Ostroff.