Writer and Director: Samantha Gray
Finding love should be easy in the modern world, shouldn’t it? However, in this brand-new comedy from Samantha Grey, we discover that it’s all a little more complicated and murkier than expected.
Lad (Stanley Karikari) is a successful guy in search of love. Fortunately, he’s found a dating website that’s matched him with Mary (Emma Von Schreiber). They’ve been chatting for several months now and are about to go on their first date. Unfortunately for Lad, he’s also been using other dating sites and one in particular is turning out to be a little more unsavoury than others. Fronted by Cash (Ben Felton), an advocate on how to win at love with the manner of an evangelist preacher, it drags him into a nasty sex-scam that ultimately ends up costing him his job and potentially more.
Online scams are increasingly sophisticated in extorting money and whilst Sacred & Profane doesn’t dwell on that too much, it does show how easy it is to be lured into them. It also illustrates that, on both sides of the fence, there are real people with reasons for doing what they’re doing. In this instance, Lad is desperate to find love and is trying every means possible. In this one approach, he’s been duped by Nancy (Athena Zacharia), who was fired from her job and in desperate need of cash. She in turn had been lured into this by her friend, Stella (Jazzie Ricks) who potentially had other interests in mind.
Sacred & Profane is a multi-stranded story that gives us a rounded view of how these scams lure people and impact their lives. Gray’s script, while addressing the various impacts, finds and focuses on the humour, though most of it is at Lad’s expense. The cast all deliver assured performances, but it is Karikari who anchors the show as the love-lost Lad whose life is being turned upside down through a minor discretion.
This is great fun with a cautionary twist.
Runs until 27 April 2024
