‘Dapper Dan the Anansi Man’ awaiting the rush
Since its opening in December, the support for the Little Theatre Movement’s pantomime, Dapper Dan the Anansi Man, has ebbed and flowed But that is the nature of theatre, according to veteran playwright and producer, Barbara Gloudon.
“It will pick up as we go along. We’re not shut down; we just have to wait on the build,” she told The Gleaner yesterday. Dapper Dan the Anansi Man opened on Boxing Day, 2017, at the Little Theatre. It is scheduled to run to the end of May.
“We don’t get the rural people yet. They’ll start in February, then the big buses coming. People come when they are ready,” Gloudon said.
This year’s pantomime is built around Dapper Dan, a dance promoter who hosts a nightly dancehall event which is a bone of contention for neighbours William and Elise Walters who are kept awake by the noise. The superintendent of police and her team station are besieged by the constant complaints, and already have their hands full with maintaining law and order in the neighbourhood.
RIDING HIGH
The 76-year-old pantomime pulled a modest, youthful and excitable crowd last Sunday.
“One person brought about 16 kids inside their car — and didn’t they have a party,” Gloudon commented.
Riding high from the childfilled weekend showing, Gloudon believes that this pantomime story is contemporarily relatable. “The music has turned out to be very successful,” she said. As the only theatre company on the island supported by a full orchestra, the presentation of
Dapper Dan will resonate with dancehall. “There was a couple from Germany last night and they went crazy over it. It’s how you do things. It’s dancehall, but you have to know how to place it”.
“There’s a whole generation who know of Dapper Dan as a well-dressed, hip-hop kind of person. So for this pantomime, it’s dancehall and ting,” Gloudon said.