By Gibron Rahim
“BENJIE darling, my only sweetheart.”
THE lyrics and the song ‘Benjie Darling’ by the late great Nisha Benjamin are instantly recognisable. The song is a motif in Dr. Paloma Mohamed’s play ‘Benjie Darling’. The play was just staged at the recently concluded 2017 National Drama Festival (NDF) in the open full-length category. The performance of Benjie Darling at NDF 2017 was undoubtedly a memorable one.

Benjie Darling was staged on November 20, on the Festival’s third day, and directed by Simone Dowding. The audience was first introduced to the Springer sisters Alexandra “Alex” and Candace “Daisy” and to their gardener Benjie in the opening scene. Benjie was resentful of the sisters’ ease of living while he had to toil in his old age. The basis of his resentment would later be revealed in one of the play’s twists. The sisters repeatedly clashed over Alex’s contentment with how their lives turned out contrasted with Daisy’s deep regret. That conflict worsened when Daisy discovered that Alex had a role in her remaining unmarried. The relationship between the two sisters became further endangered when Daisy fell in love with and married Benjie. That conflict and the antagonism between

Alex and Benjie came to a head in Benjie Darling’s final scenes.
The play is primarily a love story-if an unconventional one. Benjie and Daisy’s love story was not built on the purest of motives as the audience discovered. Yet, we were able to see love in progression. The play explored love and romance in an advanced age. Aging and regret were another important theme in Benjie Darling. The sisters were elderly unmarried spinsters. From the opening and throughout the play it was seen that Alexandra was quite content with that lot and perhaps even reveled in it. At the same time, Daisy was shown to be regretful of never having become a wife and mother. One of the play’s heartbreaking moments occurred when Daisy came face-to-face with her aged reflection in the mirror. There are some choices we make and there are some that are taken out of our hands, as

Daisy and the audience learned.
Benjie Darling is carried by the three main characters – Benjie, Daisy and Alex. Benjie is forced to work for the sisters in his old age. He was shown to be resentful of them living in comfort while he had to toil in the sun. His bitterness became even more understandable when it was revealed that he was homeless and had been living in the sisters’ shed. The character had a softer side as well, as Daisy discovered. It was just masked by his gruffness. Then there is Daisy. Like her namesake flower, Daisy was delicate. Kind and gentle, she was undoubtedly Benjie Darling’s vulnerable character. That is not to say that she did not possess strength. She had the resolve to defy her sister and social expectations to marry a man she loved and to referee the outbreaks of conflict between her sister and Benjie. That leaves the character of Alex. She is a character who is quite complex. She was haughty and proud.

But she also had an element of vulnerability to her. Alex had made difficult decisions in her life. It was also clear throughout that she loved her sister.
The performance of Benjie Darling at the 2017 National Drama Festival could not have been possible without its superb actors. Playing the role of Benjie was Clinton Duncan. The actor pulled off the role with competence and nuance. Duncan’s crotchety Benjie was so believable that it was easy to forget that the character was much older than Duncan’s years. His crisp delivery made Benjie’s clever lines all the more impactful and side-splitting. Simone Dowding gave a very heartfelt characterisation to Daisy. The character was the play’s heart and Dowding carried the role beautifully.

We laughed and cried with her essaying of naïve but kind Daisy, Colleen Humphrey brought the strong character of Alex to life on stage. Humphrey’s Alex was proud and no-nonsense. Yet, there was a layer of vulnerability to Alex in her relationship with her sister and in a twist that was revealed later in the play. Humphrey was able to capture and balance Alex’s vulnerability and strength.
Though there were only three of them, the stage never felt empty with Duncan, Dowding and Humphrey performing. This was especially true when all three were onstage together. The three played off of each other without overpowering each other.
Benjie Darling made use of lights, sound, costuming and set design. There was no difficulty in making out the characters’ words. Alex’s fashion sense contrasted beautifully with Daisy’s dowdiness, a clear reflection of the difference in personalities between the two. The age makeup of the three characters sold the illusion that they were elderly.

The song ‘Benjie Darling’ reminded the audience that the play is a love story but also of a bygone era when the characters were young. The set was designed to portray an aura of affluence in the house and garden of the Springer sisters. It succeeded to a great degree. One might have wished that the set’s grand piano had been placed more prominently on stage since it was part of a touching scene between Benjie and Daisy. But that is minor and nitpicking at best. Overall, the different elements all worked together.
The National Drama Festival of 2017 gave its audience another year of some truly memorable plays. Benjie Darling is for certain among these. The actors’ performances and the technical elements combined to create a hilarious and heartwarming performance.