Get ready for ‘Ruckshon Junction’
Published:Thursday | December 26, 2019 | 12:00 AMYasmine Peru/Senior Gleaner Writer
Ruckshon Junction just sounds like exactly what it is – the name of a Pantomime, this year’s, to be precise.
When the doors of the Little Theatre are flung wide open later this evening, the cast of the Pantomime will be all set to do what they have been doing for the past 77 years – entertaining their Jamaican audience.
“ Ruckshon Junction is a kind of revamp of our 1991 Pantomime Man Deh Yah,” Anya Gloudon, daughter of Pantomime doyenne Barbara Gloudon and a long-standing member of the team told The Gleaner.
Gloudon revealed that in this sociopolitical ecological drama, it’s election time, and the main character, played by Carlton Butler, is a politician who is again running for office. The star of this year’s panto is one whose name can hardly be said without a chuckle – Mr Ignatious Constantine Biggaton, aka Mr Biggs.
The constituents, however, are tired of Mr Biggs and his bag of empty promises, and one of the community leaders, Miss Vi, is trying desperately to inspire the people to action. Not everybody is up for this as there are some who are fine as long as they are beneficiaries of the ‘freeness’
“But Miss Vi is adamant that they need to have more pride in their community and starts by cleaning down a monument in the park dedicated to the ancestors. It has a crocodile on it,” Gloudon related almost ominously.
Things get a bit testy when the crocodile comes off the monument and starts to create havoc. He wants to eat Mr Biggs’ pig, and while the croc is chasing the pig, Mr Biggs is busy trying to figure out how to keep his constituents happy. Mr Biggs decides to knock down the monument, and the people resist. There is also a fabled banyan tree, and between the tree and the croc, magical things begin to happen and Mr Biggs learns some valuable lessons about serving the people.
Gloudon, naturally, wouldn’t share the details of the denouement, but she promised that it is quite exciting and that there is something for every member of the family. “Nuff fun for everyone,” she stated.
On the musical side of Ruckshon Junction, Grub Cooper shines. “He has given us some awesome songs. And we have also been given permission from Fabian Coverley to use one of Miss Lou’s poems, and it’s really a bashment thing,” she added.
The Pantomime continues its tradition of opening on Boxing Day, and Gloudon emphasised that the production has never missed a year. “Not even hurricane can stop us,” she declared triumphantly.
Ruckshon Junction is directed by Robert ‘Bobby’ Clarke, and it is written by Kevin Halstead, who has now been with the panto team for 21 years.
The Little Theatre Movement (LTM) was founded in 1941 by Henry Fowler and Greta Bourke (later Fowler) to raise funds for the building of a Little Theatre and to help in the development of drama in Jamaica.
One of the first LTM undertakings was the launching of the tradition now known as the National Pantomime. The first production, in 1941, Jack and the Beanstalk, was in keeping with the tradition of English theatre, from where it came to Jamaica. In that form, a tale of childhood was adapted for the stage with elements of music, song, dance, comedy, drama, and colourful costumes and sets.
The Pantomime opened on Boxing Day – December 26 – as was the custom in England at the time.