three night run at City Hall last Thursday evening, billed as "an inspirational drama''.

The plot is: Renee Adcock a black Bermudian woman in her thirties, returns to her parents' home to regroup after a failed marriage to a white Canadian.

Her presence at home engenders old conflicts between her self and her traditionalist father, her mother -- a retired teacher -- and her brother, a qualified but frustrated engineer turned political activist.

The issues of race, politics, and spiritual living versus materialist values roil sub-textually, and occasionally explode to the surface.

It takes the near fatal accident of one of Renee's sons to bring the family together in affirmation of the spiritual values that have been the source of their strength and prosperous survival.

The unexpected appearance of the remainder of the Adcocks, father and two sons, played by Frays Sidney Sr., Jr., and Patrick, for the curtain calls, hinted at a more complete reunion to come.

Dr. Sebronette Barnes' class was evident throughout evidenced by her diction, timing and stage movement. She also sang the songs composed by Mrs. Eloise Furbert around which the playwright wove her text -- and she sang them well.

Malinda Simmons, in her first acting role, did a decent job as Renee Adcock and she too displayed a fine singing voice.

LaMonte Robinson also performed well, portraying the angry frustrated businessman with fire and playful humour. He attempted the songs gallantly even when they did not fall naturally within his range.

He is someone whose talent is under exposed to the theatre-going public. His real life father, Wayne Robinson played his stage father, Carl Outerbridge.

Michelle Laylor made much of her part in the sub-plot love affair with Michael the business man looking at home and comfortable on stage; another talent to watch for in the future.

The set was designed by Rotimi Martins and built by Kevin Bean, who surely by now deserves recognition for over a quarter century's labour in this field; and by Stanton Thomas, Sr., the playwright's husband, making this truly a family affair. Martins' expected directions were evident throughout.

Most of the paintings -- as well as all of the songs -- were the creations of Mrs. Eloise Furbert. Mrs. Durham-Thomson's talent as painter was also on display. Lighting was by Ritchie Lathan and met his accustomed high standard.

Two high points for me were the musical numbers "David Danced Before the Lord'', and the pathos filled "Gethesemane'' which the family sing in response to the near fatal accident that leaves Alex's life hanging in the balance.

The great thing is that in both instances, there was integration of the meaning of the lyrics, the modality of the music and the dramatic situation it commemorated. It also contrasted the extremes of joy and sorrow this family experienced and their turning to faith and creativity (are those two really different?) in times of stress -- even good stress -- or distress.

A word about the songs. They fall curiously in a border between late romanticism and a post revivalist hymnody. The two songs mentioned above "David Danced'' and "Gethesemane'' however draw on African American spirituals as models. They are fine songs and should be in some local singers' concert repertoire.

It is a little churlish perhaps to be in any way critical of this effort; the audience enjoyed it and the performers had a good time, evidently.

Furthermore, the playwright accepted an unusual challenge, that is, to write a dramatic text around pre-existing songs composed over a period with no dramatic intent.

Durham-Thompson accepted the challenge and in doing so found her subject; societal conflicts of the sort mentioned above.

"Joy'' is a family affair The play suffers somewhat from two things. Creditable though the attempt was, it was near impossible to accommodate the songs.

It also suffers from under development of its most central conflict and seems more powerfully driven by the playwright's convictions rather than by her character's struggle with their own problems.

The danger in my opinion -- one which the playwright did not avoid -- was having the piece sound didactic and preachy. What kind of play might it have been, for example, if the writer had chosen a point of attack earlier in the story and had situated Renee's conflict between her husband's values and her brother's, and actually writing Renee's husband George into the play? Clearly, in the play they were meant to be representative of opposing value systems. This tantalises us.

Renee's mother, Mrs. Outerbridge, underscores her value in family solidarity when her daughter chides her for not taking her side against her husband. The mother tells her daughter that after all, "George is my son-in-law''.

Maybe, that's another play, one that Shangri-La Durham Thompson has yet to write.

There is no doubt about her talents.

Ronald Lightboune THEATRE REVIEW THR REV