It’s a com­e­dy but with a much deep­er mean­ing.

In a so­ci­ety where many fa­thers are ei­ther ab­sent or fac­ing the courts for child sup­port, pop­u­lar play­wright Fareid Car­val­ho is putting his own com­i­cal twist on the is­sue but al­so with a se­ri­ous, pow­er­ful mes­sage.

Car­val­ho, own­er and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Car­val­ho Pro­duc­tions and Car­val­ho The­atre and his team will host the open­ing of Taxi Cab Con­fes­sions on June 13.

The black tie gala, which be­gins from 6:45 pm, will be fol­lowed by the farce, Taxi Cab Con­fes­sions at 8.30 pm.

The farce is a com­e­dy to en­ter­tain the au­di­ence through high­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed sit­u­a­tions but sends an im­por­tant mes­sage to the au­di­ence as well.

Taxi Cab Con­fes­sions, con­cep­tu­alised and lo­calised by Car­val­ho, show­cas­es some of T&T’s most bril­liant ac­tors and ac­tress­es and tells the sto­ry of a taxi dri­ver who has two wives and two sep­a­rate fam­i­lies.

“This is much more than com­e­dy. This taxi dri­ver has a mid­dle-class house­hold in Flag Staff and a low­er brack­et house­hold in Bel­mont. He’s mar­ried to two wives at the same time for 18 years and with two chil­dren. None of them knows.

“One pre­car­i­ous day all hell breaks loose be­cause of the In­ter­net and Face­book with his young teenagers,” Car­val­ho ex­plained.

He said this play re­flects mat­ters re­lat­ing to this coun­try’s cul­ture.

“Not that I sup­port cheat­ing or horn­ing...but it’s the re­al­i­ty in T&T. The play has clas­si­cal el­e­ments of com­ic re­lief be­cause af­ter a long day of work and stress it’s the ide­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to ease their minds.

“But at the same time, it’s shock recog­ni­tion...peo­ple can ac­tu­al­ly see lifestyles and re­la­tion­ships which they can iden­ti­fy with,” Car­val­ho, who has carved a name for him­self in chil­dren’s the­atre for some three decades, said the mes­sage of Taxi Cab Con­fes­sions, how­ev­er, was love, com­mit­ment, and fam­i­ly; el­e­ments seem­ing­ly lack­ing in to­day’s so­ci­ety.

“This coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a lev­el of dev­as­ta­tion that wasn’t there be­fore. There’s a killing every day and the sto­ries about the break­down in fam­i­ly are con­stant­ly in your face.

“On the news­pa­pers or on so­cial me­dia there are sto­ries about ab­sent fa­thers and the ef­fects on chil­dren and on fam­i­ly. There are many fan­tas­tic fa­thers out there and I salute them, but for the ones who are mess­ing up their good homes there are ob­vi­ous­ly se­ri­ous con­se­quences and they need to take stock. We need to pre­serve morals and val­ues in so­ci­ety and I want my play to send this mes­sage,” Car­val­ho added.

Car­val­ho, who praised his grand­fa­ther Manuel for be­ing in­stru­men­tal in his life urged young men not to fall in­to so­cial ills and use the­atre as a means of pos­i­tive­ly shap­ing their lives. The open­ing night of Taxi Cab Con­fes­sions, how­ev­er, will be a “bit­ter-sweet” mo­ment for Car­val­ho as it will be the third an­niver­sary of his grand­fa­ther’s pass­ing.

“If we as the­atre pro­duc­ers and scriptwrit­ers could ac­tu­al­ly re­in­force the pos­i­tives of a fa­ther fig­ure in the house­hold that will be great. My form of giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty is to pro­mote fa­thers and to bring the tal­ent of young peo­ple to life.

“This cast com­pris­es all new ac­tors. When I opened my com­pa­ny 18 years ago my fo­cal is al­ways to give young peo­ple a chance,” he said.

Car­val­ho, who ini­tial­ly be­gan his jour­ney in the adult the­atre went on to fo­cus on chil­dren’s pro­duc­tions.

He cur­rent­ly has three com­pa­nies; Car­val­ho The­atre is the sub­sidiary of Car­val­ho Pro­duc­tions and Car­val­ho Dolls.

Last year was his first edi­tion of Car­val­ho The­atre where he co-di­rect­ed the play The Right Kind of Wrong.

Taxi Cab Con­fes­sions will show­case Car­val­ho’s skills as, for the first time, he sole­ly di­rect­ed the play.

Not­ing the­atre is ex­pen­sive, he thanked Cul­ture Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly in par­tic­u­lar for con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ing the arts.

“We re­al­ly need the cor­po­rate sec­tor to help. Di­rec­tors and pro­duc­ers may have grand ideas but it’s cost­ly. It’s hard to raise the cost of a tick­et in Trinidad be­cause apart from the eco­nom­ic cli­mate peo­ple don’t want to pay.

“In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, the cheap­est tick­et is 100 pounds or US$125. We on­ly charge TT$200 so cor­po­rate fund­ing is so nec­es­sary,” Car­val­ho said.

Just in time for Fa­ther’s Day week­end, the play con­tin­ues from Thurs­day, June 13 to Sun­day, June 16 (Fa­thers’ Day).

On Fa­ther’s Day it­self, there will be spe­cials in­clud­ing door prizes such as an all-in­clu­sive trip for two to Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort, To­ba­go.