Starring Vanessa Caicedo-Cardona as Denise, a reformed drug addict and former trick turner, and Blessing Mbonambi as her felonious talk show obsessed partner RJ, 'Problem Child' presents protagonists whose main function is to scream and stress in a tiny motel room while they circle a telephone awaiting calls from social services or television producers.
Also flitting in and out of the confined action is Philly, a drunken caretaker played by Junelle Mbonambi-Stroh and Helen, an uppity and overbearing social worker brought to life by Joalette de Villiers.
Orbiting around issues of class, the reality of redemption, the invisible lower echelons and the prejudice meted out those Walker calls the scum of the earth, 'Problem Child' articulates some sobering themes that tend to lose steam every time we hear them screamed out of the mouth of a protagonist one struggles to feel sorry for.
Playing Denise loud, angry and agitated, Caicedo-Cardona oscillates between show-stopping and shrill. Short on subtlety and offering an abundance of expletives punctuating dark diatribes lamenting her self-inflicted lot in life,
Denise is almost entirely unlikeable which does little to help one endure her almost ceaseless whining.
Though, the play is meant to share truths and inspire sympathy for a class of people often given the short end of the stick purely because they are born into a society of low lifes and are rarely given the opportunity or the benefit of the doubt to get beyond their circumstances, the irony is that 'Problem Child' fosters nothing in the way of compassion.
Denise takes zero responsibility for her actions. She blames her mother and the world but never herself and her recklessness only escalates as she buys a gun and dreams up a kidnapping which may get Philly arrested.
Screamingly selfish and ostensibly unfaultable, 'Problem Child's' protagonist is a pretty pain in the arse whose moments of subtlety and introspection are sparse if not too little too late as seen in Denise's closing monologue which comes long after that kind of calm is necessary.
As for RJ, Mbonambi plays him a little daft but endearing. Mostly concerned with railing at the television in-between soothing the frantic Denise, Mbonambi embodies the man on the mend with his usual dramatic finesse but does so at the cost of refining the script and direction in his role as producer and director.
From ill-timed cellphone rings, De Villiers' ceaselessly slipping Canadian accent and the enduring high pitched nature of the presentation which would have benefited from the balance of some muting or quiet indignation which can be just as effective as screaming your lungs out, Mbonambi's 'Problem Child' often mistakes incessant and strident melodrama for engaging, well acted theatre.
Earning praise for her much needed comic turn as Philly is Junelle Mbonambi-Stroh who plays him as dazed and as confused as the actress is famed for, though having watched this schtick for the third, fourth and fifth time one wonders about the actress' range.
De Villiers as Helen, was far less than her best. Offering an awkward accent fluctuating between Canadian and her own, De Villiers was also saddled with a role that went from stern to implausibly sympathetic via burial alive in a character and plot twist that wouldn't do any actress any favours.
Certainly intense, certainly flush with bouts of brilliance, particularly from Caicedo-Cardona, the problem with 'Problem Child' is that for all its truth, its characters only reinforce stereotypes and there is little to no enlightenment.
Perhaps this is realistic. Life ticks on, people don't really change, the lower class get screwed and while we rail at the scum on talk shows we fail to see that we're no different or any better. Still, this is a play that leaves one cold. Offering an outlandish twist and a repugnant central character who never escalates to endearing anti-hero, 'Problem Child' lacks heart. In the character of Denise or otherwise.
The Nabian
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