One-person shows aren’t my favorite form of theatre, but when they’re done right, they render an ensemble utterly extraneous; the presence of other actors would be a spell-breaking imposition. That’s certainly the case with “Jamaica, Farewell,” writer-performer Debra Ehrhardt’s exhilarating monologue about her tumultuous, autobiographical voyage from Kingston to Miami.
If we believe every word, it was a journey fraught with great wonder, luck, romance, risk, illegality and more than one perilous detour into oblivion. Even if it’s a tad embellished—of which nearly all monologists are guilty—it was still a remarkable survival story rendered, in its South Florida tour at Fort Lauderdale’s Empire Stage, with enthusiasm and versatility.
In the production, which runs through Oct. 19, Ehrhardt has little to work with: a few multi-purpose pedestals is all, against a vacant backdrop granted texture and context by Preston Bircher’s precise lighting design (the sound design, credited to Ehrhardt, adds ambience too, with its mix of reggae tunes, ominous instrumentals and spot-on sound effects). Yet it’s a testament to Ehrhardt’s ability as a storyteller that we feel transported, wherever her narrative takes us. We can see the heavyset bully charging her as a young girl. We can smell the rancid sweat and rotting food she encounters on a produce truck later on. We can feel her panic, when she’s confronted with Satan in the flesh, and we forget to breathe for god knows how long. This is a show that does that to you.
It is not always so, not from the very beginning. It takes a little while for “Jamaica, Farewell” to pick up steam. The early scenes, in which she describes her childhood and her perennial dream of emigrating to the States, will resonate more with Jamaican natives than the mass audience (several people in the audience nodded in recognition at Ehrhardt’s description of her home country’s customs, laws and political unrest, for instance). But when her frequently thwarted attempts to gain a legal visa yield to an extralegal opportunity to fly to Miami, we’re off to the races, and the show never lets up.
Clutching a bagful of a million dollars, Ehrhardt encounters a panoply of quirky and sundry characters—a stuttering drunk with a bum leg, a large-bosomed madam at a bordello, a pot-smoking cabbie who takes it easy when she needs him to floor the accelerator. In each case, she transforms into a different person, and the results are never as surprising or terrifying as when she embodies the red-eyed, dreadlocked, would-be rapist who stalks her off a bus. The scene plays out in terrifying whiplash, bouncing back and forth between his predatory advances and her panicked retreats.
This is the show’s dramatic high point, but there’s also plenty of comedy—you’ll love her off-kilter sense of humor, even in dangerous situations—and melancholy, the latter achieved through Ehrhardt’s teary reminiscences of her father, a charismatic gambler who lost himself in the bottle. And the gleam in Ehrhardt’s eye—which is forever trained on the prize, the American land of plenty—is an infectious reminder that our country, whose problems are diagnosed more than its benefits are championed, can still be a beacon of hope. Most of all, “Jamaica, Farewell” is a breathtaking showcase for Ehrhardt’s dynamism as a performer. There’s enough proof in this hour and a half that she can do just about anything.
“Jamaica, Farewell” runs through Oct. 19 at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive, Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $35. Call 954/678-1496 or visit empirestage.com.
