Shannanigan's Search for More...

I have to say that, for being THE and I mean THE smallest role in the play, my role packs a pretty mean punch. It's definitely one of the most difficult roles I've ever had to do...

This play, "Caribbean Babylon," is about St. Thomas (my island) in the 50's when Calypso music started bringing in lots of tourists...and lots of white American women wanting a little piece of local boy action.

My character is in a scene that marks the beginning of the end of the tourism boom, when crime started to rise dramatically. She has come to the island for a little vacation before she gets married. She asks a singer to sing a song for her, and he does, and then buys her drinks. He has the bartender put extra liquor in her drinks, then offers to take her for a ride to make her feel better when she says she is dizzy. When he parks up and tries to kiss her, she resists. He slaps her aroud until she submits and he rapes her.

On the stage, we will be standing on opposite ends, acting out our movements and saying our lines as if the other was in the audience, or right in front of us instead of way to the side of us. When he swings his hand through the air, I have to twist to the side and cry out as if I've been hit. I'm supposed to whimper and cry, try to fight, and get "slapped" again and again. Then I finally give in and lay back as he talks about how he has his way with me. How he earned the right to have my character by singing for her and buying her drinks.

The audience is supposed to hate him at the end of the segment. Do you know how hard it is to know that it is your job to make the audience hate someone? Especially someone who I know well and who I know is a great guy. But that's the goal. We want the audience to gasp, to get angry, to feel truly sorry for me...

and I just think that that is sooo much harder than getting the audience to laugh...

Tiny role, big part.