Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer

Barbara McCalla and Volier Johnson in a scene from 'Toy Boy,' now on at the Pantry Playhouse in New Kingston. - Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer

Basil Dawkins' witty relationship comedy Toy Boy is once again doing a tour of duty on the Jamaican stage, this time at the Pantry Playhouse, New Kingston, once again in the hands of director Robin Baston who also acts as the show's producer.

The same cast from the summer 2004 outing of the play, Barbara McCalla and Volier Johnson, also return. The new staging remains as entertaining as the last, but this time the set is much better suited to the much smaller Pantry stage.

Tale of lunacy

Toy Boy is a tale of madness, but it is quite hard to tell whether it is the madman who is insane or the backbiting society of which the supposedly sane woman is a part. This society drives her to make a decision which must have been born in lunacy.

Josephine (McCalla) is a successful business woman. Yet overcome by loneliness, desperation, disappointment in love, and being rejected by her society, she decides to turn a madman into her lover.

Josephine is not the first woman to have found a man, dusted him off, given him a good scrubbing and then turned him into her lover. For too many women, men are projects to be refined.

Discovering that food is the way to a man's heart (although that is a fallacy as it only goes to his stomach), she woos Festus and proceeds to shape him into a desirable man.

Her problem is that she is unable to live for herself and so is left at the whim of a hypocritical society of which she is also a part.

Josephine finds herself in a self-destructive pattern of sabotage from which Festus helps her to extricate herself.

Festus (Johnson), on the other hand, has long realised that the physical and mental torture imparted by society will send one crazy. So he is largely happy to live in his own world and turn his back on pressures of money, shelter and cleanliness.

Deeper message

Much of the play's humour surrounds Festus' logical illogic which always seems more sensible when contrasted with Josephine and her friends' behaviour.

His dialogue is often hilarious and through it, the playwright is able to speak to the madness which guides the sane society.

Toy Boy is a well-written play that manages to capture a deeper message about society behind its humour.

However, with the same cast and director once again, it would have been lovely if they had found a way to dig deeper into the character and the totality of the play.

Even so, the play remains an interesting time at the theatre for those new to the story, and those who may wish to see it again may not find themselves disappointed.