Through “Ring Game”, 22-year-old playwright Arnetia Thomas has established impressive credentials, way in excess of her age and relative newness to T&T theatre.

This multi-tiered production, staged at the National Drama Association’s (NDATT’s) annual New Play Festival in Curepe, is superbly scripted. It first emerged as a UWI drama class assignment and now persists as a creative work in progress.

The play’s current incarnation arises out of a process of extensive workshopping and literary tweaking under a combination of watchful, experienced eyes and youthful interpretation and feedback. Veteran dramatist Tony Hall is listed as dramaturge for this version of the play, and the reactions of knowledgeable audiences were a part of arrangements for the NDATT performances of the play.

The play also succeeds as dramatic tragedy under the exceptional direction of Rhesa Samuel, a playwright herself who was responsible for last year’s memorable workshop production of “Asylum”. 

Ring Game represents a bold attempt at artfully offering themes and subthemes related to the sexual exploitation of women, poverty, and (as a sidebar) religious hypocrisy.

Samuel keeps it flowing; often drifting into visual metaphor, but never losing an energetic, grounded pace.

To her credit, Thomas skilfully avoids the temptation to insert undue preachiness to clichéd themes. This is not disguised advocacy or subliminal messaging.

Ring Game is theatre as art.

Samara Lallo convincingly plays 17 year old Susanna who is forced into prostitution by elder sister Lisa (Kedisha Thomas) – a complex character who develops in emotional dimensions as the play proceeds. Such is Thomas’ remarkably deft hand.

Susanna’s initiation at 12, at the hands of landlord Martin (Emmanuel Ansolia) resists both the outright salacious and a more elaborate dissection of the act of paedophilia. Following Sunday’s performance, one audience member urged a more accurate depiction of the established process of child grooming, leading to exploitation. But, Martin’s role strips away process and exposes its end product in the brutish form of sexual violence. 

Lisa’s sidekick, Alice, who is superbly played by Ahalia St Bernard, assists in broadening the themes presented by an otherwise fairly predictable storyline. Janessa Thomas, as Susanna’s school friend, Madeline, plays a similar role – however underdeveloped as a character she remains throughout.

Samuel directs Susanna’s secret lover, Michael, as a shadowy presence. This suggests both the ubiquitous nature of the character and what he represents, and a largely unexplored pathology that ends in hapless victim-blaming.

That this young team of dramatists ventures there is absolutely impressive. Ring Game is much more than a meagre start for Thomas.

It also firmly establishes Samuel’s bona fides as an emerging force in the world of directing.

Stage manager Jillia Cato worked well under somewhat minimalist conditions and White doubled on the drums and sound design.

This is sufficient theatre for an evening, though there were two to go on a busy New Play Festival day.

Ring Game hit a wholesome dramatic spot. “There’s a Brown girl in the ring sha-la-lala-la and she looks like a sugar and a plum plum plum.”

Catch the play in its next stage of development when it comes again to a stage near you, and find out what that timeless verse can mean.