O.D. on Paradise
Synopsis:
An engagingly peculiar comedy about eight tourists who get off the same plane in Jamaica, each with their own particular holiday fantasy. Two of the couples are young and vaguely counter-culture with backpacking sojourns in India behind them, never mind that they are lawyers and have condos now, there was always the dream of the next journey. But it has turned out to be a package tour, the last adventure ended up ashes, and they are uneasy with themselves. They immediately come up against the doughy gestalt of a working class family out for a romp. Fred has always terrorized his weakling son, Vic, who has managed to find an even weaker bride, the shrinking Joan. Fred has a new wife, an angry pachyderm named Peggy. When one of the 'hippies' flops down beside them, battle lines are drawn. But the power of the landscape encourages dialogue across class lines and the beach becomes a hotbed of exploration. Through the intensity of this experience, all characters must challenge their hypocrisies and certainties.
Written by Linda Griffiths in collaboration with Patrick Brymer. Winner Dora Mavor Moore Award, Outstanding New Play.
". . .below the comedy lurks a timely world weariness∧ that is the way of overdosing on Paradise; to visit it when the outside world is out of joint, and gangia alone can't set it right."
The Globe and Mail
