JamRats a fun-filled tale for children

With its splendid set, gorgeous costumes and a story that's just the right combination of fearful and fun-filled events, JamRats is theatre that most children will enjoy. It closes its two-weekend run on Sunday (March 12) in the Dennis Scott Studio Theatre, Edna Manley College School of Drama.

Loosely based on Robert Browning's famous poem, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, it is the latest of at least a score of tales about a macabre Middle Ages legend. Apart from Browning, famous writers like the Brothers Grimm and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe gave us their versions. Browning's poem even provided material for a 1957 full-length movie.

The legend is that when the town of Hamelin in Brunswick on the River Weser, Germany, was overrun with rats, a mysterious piper in multicoloured (pied) clothing piped them away with his miraculous instrument. But after the vermin are drowned in the river, the town's officials refuse to pay the piper the money agreed on and he piped the children away. They never return.

The environmental issue that triggers Browning's story is the focus of JamRats, which was devised last year in the drama school's StoryDrama class and is energetically directed by Janet Muirhead-Stewart and Patrice Briggs. Other themes are greed and selfishness, personal integrity, sticking with the traditional versus being innovative, and the benefits of country life versus town life.

In this version of the tale, the central characters are not the people, but the rats. They live in an adjoining, very messy community, which, ironically, has many features of your average town. For example, there is a deejay rat (Kiana Jackson), a journalist rat (Lynier Want), a farmer rat (Dawntai Hall), a banker rat (Rianna Roberts); and a hustler rat (Karone Salmon).

Among the humans are Shaveesa Gasper, a manager; Britney Nicholson, who plays a baker, a resident, death and a machine; Kushnie Maxwell, the mayor's son; Oliver Scott, the mayor and a machine; Jermaine Dunkley, the pastor; Alyssia Clarke, who doubles up as a farmer and death; and Amoi Duffus, a tourist.

The rat's space is also very crowded and we learn that the rats want to take over the town. The news comes early in the story, which moves fast; the whole play lasts less than an hour. Thanks to the colourful set, cleverly designed by veteran Larry Watson. Though there are numerous scenes, the sets are flexible enough to be changed rapidly.

That helps the audience's interest to be held throughout – important, since the play is mainly for children, who have short attention spans. Even during set changes, there is music – mainly of the dancehall variety. It was composed largely in the StoryDrama class and integrated by musical director Leighton Jones.

The rats carry out their take-over plan in a sneaky way, by putting the mayor (Scott) into a hypnotic trance and convincing him that he should turn the town from an agrarian into an industrial, smoke-filled community.

“Industrialisation is the way to go,” is the rats' subliminal instruction to the hypnotised mayor. On the face of it, this might sound like good advice, but the creators of the piece have a negative view of what many would call progress. Instead of industrialisation bringing prosperity to the town, it brings pollution.

And that's what the rats want. They thrive in messy environments. Humans don't do well and soon the pollution brings death. One of the first to die is the mayor. Coughing from damaged lungs, he writes a note as he is dying – apparently expressing regret at his actions.

His son takes his place and at first continues his father's policy of encouraging the rats, who virtually take over the town. However, the pollution becomes too much for most people and a delegation of women complain to the new mayor.

Initially, he makes excuses to everybody, including the audience, but is eventually persuaded to call in the Rodent Anti-Pollution Agency (RAPA). The spray from their spray guns performs another bit of magic which causes the play to end happily.