Theatre review – Pastoral

In his brilliant but flawed debut stage play, Thomas Eccleshare, winner of Soho’s Verity Bargate Award, turns the notion of an environmental disaster on its head. In PASTORAL nature has run amok and it’s humans who find their future is threatened. His vision recalls John Wyndham’s post-apocalyptic novel The Day of the Triffids, but with more laughs along on the way.

An elderly woman, Moll (Ann Calder-Marshall), is alone in her high-rise flat observing people down on the street and waiting for her cat, Winston, to return. When Manz (Hugh Skinner) and then Hardy (Richard Riddell) arrive on her doorstep, Moll thinks she’s being taken on holiday. But strange things are happening outside. Paperchase is infested with voles and there’s a rabbit warren at the bottom of Aldi. Weeds are growing everywhere, trees are bursting through cracks in the pavement and the sighting of a deer strikes fear into Manz’s heart. Then the army moves in, quarantines the block and suddenly it is too late to leave. Moll offers shelter to a couple and their young son Arthur (played by actress Polly Frame).

Eccleshare subverts our expectations by finding humour in this dystopian world and satirising the urbanites’ fear of nature. When Hardy goes hunting for food, he proudly returns with a hedgehog, to everyone dismay. Ocado’s delivery man (Bill Fellows) heroically fights his way through the mayhem to Moll’s flat, minus the shopping, only to come to a sticky end. There are also moments of poignancy such as when Moll and young Arthur share a last cigarette as they are left to fend for themselves. But the play’s ending, involving the arrival of a bedraggled bride (Carrie Rock) dressed in a pink T-shirt and mini-skirt, is disappointing.

Steve Marmion ensures the pace never slackens and Michael Vale’s stunning design features an oak tree that comes crashing into Moll’s flat, and flowers on darts that drop from above. Gradually the walls and floors begin to cave in.

PASTORAL is superbly acted and this is entertaining, engaging and provocative theatre. Eccleshare proves himself a talent to watch and a worthy award-winner.

At Soho Theatre until 8 June

Theatre Review – These Shining Lives

The spanking new Park Theatre opens its doors with a dazzling production of Melanie Marnich’s heartbreaking play. Set in 1920s Chicago, THESE SHINING LIVES is based on a true story about an American corporation’s shameful exploitation of its female workers.

A young mother of twins, Catherine (Charity Wakefield) is delighted to be offered work with the Radium Dial Company, painting watch faces. Her hard-working husband Tom (Alec Newman) tells her it is only until he starts earning a better wage. But Catherine revels in her new found liberation and financial freedom.

She shares a table with three other women, outspoken Charlotte (Honeysuckle Weeks), practical Frances (Melanie Bond) and joker Pearl (Nathalie Carrington). Over the years, they become close friends. But unknown to them all, they are working with an invisible but lethal killer. Radium is used to make the watches glow in the dark. The women are encouraged to lick the tips of their miniature paint brushes to keep them in shape not realising that they are imbibing a highly dangerous chemical element.

The first sign something is wrong is when Catherine’s hands and clothes begin to glow in the dark. Then she starts to suffer from excruciating pain in the ankle. Her friends also struggle with various ailments, an aching jaw, bleeding, a numb arm, but the company doctor tells them not to worry and proscribes aspirin. As Catherine observes: “The definition of a company doctor is someone who takes care of the company”. When her health deteriorates and she has to take time off work, Catherine is sacked. Finally an independent doctor tells the women the truth. The radium has poisoned them. Supported by her friends, weaker by the day, Catherine begins legal proceedings against her former employer.

It’s a terrific drama, brilliantly staged. I defy anyone not to be in tears by the end. Tim Shortall’s design is gloriously simple, Rob Casey’s subtle lighting indicates a shift in setting with minimal fuss, Vic Craven’s video projection adds atmosphere and Loveday Ingram pulls it all together, directing with real panache. It’s beautifully acted and costume supervisor, Brigid Guy, deserve a special mention for her superb attention to period detail.

In Park200, Park Theatre until 9 June

Review originally published by Theatreworld

 

Theatre review – Purple Heart

One of the central messages of Bruce Norris’s brilliant play – written in 2002 and given its UK premiere at the Gate Theatre – is the dehumanising effects of war. He focuses on what this means for those left behind and the often disturbing nature of the grieving process.

It’s 1972, somewhere in the American Midwest. Carla (Amelia Lowdell) is mourning the death of her husband in the Vietnam War and has sunk into alcohol dependency. When not drunk she sleeps off her hangover. Her 12-year-old son, Thor (Oliver Coopersmith), attempts to distract himself and his mother with novelty games and jokes. It’s another way of coping. Carla and her overbearing mother-in-law Grace (Linda Broughton), constantly bicker. We never learn what Grace feels about losing her son.

Then a lone soldier, Purdy (Trevor White) turns up on their doorstep. He is calm and quiet and sits almost deathly still. At first Carla thinks he is there to share memories of her husband but gradually a more sinister reason for his visit is revealed.

Cleverly, Norris gives his anti-war drama a domestic setting and frequently plays with our expectations. Grace is not as insensitive as she seems and Carla is struggling to disentangle ambivalent feelings towards her late husband – whom she loved, but who was also abusive.

PURPLE HEART was originally commissioned by the Chicago-based Steppenwolf Theatre Company known for their actor-centred ensemble work. Norris is clearly a dream writer for actors. The four give excellent performances and Christopher Haydon’s finely judged production draws out the play’s contemporary resonances. Norris writes with real vigour and his frequent plot twists and shifts in tone keep us guessing until the end.

Running at the Gate Theatre until 6 April

Review originally published by Theatreworld

 

Theatre Review – God’s Property

It’s London, 1982, and the Brixton riots are still fresh in people’s minds. Chima (Kingsley Ben-Adir) returns to his mother’s house on a small council estate in Deptford. He’s been away so long his little brother, Onochie (Ash Hunter), now sixteen and dressed as a skinhead in DMs, upturned jeans and braces, doesn’t recognise him. Knives are drawn until Chima convinces Onochie of their shared history.

The brothers are mixed race; of Irish-Nigerian extraction. Their father is dead and their mother strangely absent. During the course of 90-minutes we learn of Chima’s years spent in prison. Onochie doesn’t want his brother’s past to affect his burgeoning relationship with his white girlfriend and neighbour Holly (Ria Zmitrowicz). Inevitably, though, they meet and Chima ends up cooking them a traditional Nigerian meal. Already angry with Onochie for dressing in a “pillock’s uniform” and denying his Nigerian roots, he becomes suspicious of Holly’s true intentions after she drops in a casually racist remark.

Although there are some minor inconsistencies in the plotting and some clumsy exposition in places, Arinze Kene’s drama packs such a punch that one can easily forgive a few flaws. Kene constantly plays with our expectations and raises interesting questions about race and identity without being heavy handed. There is plenty of humour, particularly in the scenes between Onochie and Holly, as well as a real political edge to his writing. At the heart of Kene’s absorbing work is a terrible injustice born out of racial inequality. It serves as a damning indictment of the racism that provoked the riots. Sadly, we realise, nothing much has changed in thirty years.

Ellen Cairns’ detailed kitchen set comes complete with a patterned lino that deliberately clashes with the flock wallpaper. At the side are broken slabs of concrete and corrugated iron reminding us of the poverty outside and the threat of violence.

Kene is clearly a talent to watch and is well served by a terrific cast. Michael Buffong skilfully negotiates the changes in mood of this provocative and entertaining play and allows the tension to brew until its inexorably brutal conclusion.

Soho Theatre running until 23 March 2013

Originally published by Theatreworld

Theatre review – Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka’s classic tale of social alienation is brought vividly to life by David Farr and Gisli Orn Gardarsson in their stunning Anglo-Icelandic production. METAMORPHOSIS enjoys a welcome return to the Lyric Hammersmith for a limited run. So if you haven’t already seen this captivating show, catch it while you can. This is a second outing for me.

The Samsas find their lives turned upside down when they wake up one morning to discover that their son has inexplicably turned into a giant insect, apparently of monstrous proportions with a voice that they no longer understand. But instead of displaying familial love for this new incarnation, their primary concern is that Gregor, the main breadwinner, is now unable to work.

The family cannot bear to look at their son in his insect form or listen to the cacophony of sound he makes when attempting to speak, and their initial pity soon turns to resentment. Gregor’s sister Greta is herself transformed from sympathetic defender of her brother to his gaoler and torturer. Her actions and the reaction of Herr Fisher, a potential lodger, recall the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe. There are also wider, more recent resonances including the financial crisis. Gregor is told that if he is unable to fulfil his responsibilities, to earn a living and provide for them all, then he will be denied the rights of a family member.

Kafka’s insect-hero comes to represent all persecuted people, past and present. Left alone in a bare room, starving and miserable, the family begin to strip Gregor of everything that makes him human. But throughout the play’s 85-minute duration he retains his essential humanity despite their brutal treatment of him. In the play’s final moments, when a window springs open offering Gregor an escape from his tortuous existence, one hopes he will choose to climb to his freedom rather than fall to his death.

It’s a terrific performance by Gardarsson in the central role. His physical dexterity and daring aerial feats, leaping from chair to table and quite literally scaling the walls and ceiling, makes his metamorphosis utterly convincing. The supporting cast is also brilliant – particularly memorable is Nina Dogg Filippusdottir’s descent into frenzied cruelty as Greta.

Co-directed by David Farr and Gardarsson, METAMORPHOSIS is stunningly staged. Borkur Jonsson’s split-level set recreates the family’s living area downstairs, while on the upper storey, we get a clever ceiling-eye perspective of Gregor’s room. The original score by Nick Cave and his long time collaborator Warren Ellis adds an eerie atmosphere to proceedings.

Running at the Lyric Hammersmith until 16 February

Theatre Review – Gruesome Playground Injuries

Kayleen and Doug meet at primary school, aged eight, and forge an unlikely friendship. He’s just ridden his bike off the school roof and “broken his face.” She is suffering from a stomach ache. This unpromising beginning develops into a tenuous love affair that spans over thirty years and is defined by their various injuries and ailments.

Doug is forever having accidents while Kayleen makes herself sick or self-harms. They spend years apart and usually only come together as the result of one or the other falling ill or being hospitalised. Somehow, though, they always fail to make the connection that will tie them together definitively.

It doesn’t sound like a great story for theatre but don’t be put off. Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph’s GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES is a wonderful piece of drama, finely detailed and beautifully executed by Mariah Gale and Felix Scott. It has many funny moments but is also heart wrenchingly sad. The violence of the injuries sustained by the characters over the years, and the bravado they display, contrasts with the evident tenderness they feel for one another. Love, it is implied, can damage as well as nurture and until they begin to care about themselves their relationship cannot flourish.

The action is played out on Lily Arnold’s clinically white set, a traverse stage slicing the Gate auditorium diagonally in two. Under the deliberate glare of Andy Purves’ lighting, Kayleen and Doug both wear their hearts on their sleeves but appear unable to articulate the complexity of their feelings for one another. In between scenes the lights dim as they change clothes on stage, tenderly helping to dress each other and paint on their wounds and scars. I don’t think I have ever seen such emotive scene changes. The suggestion is that love often takes root in life’s quieter moments.

Remarkably, Joseph has not been produced in Britain before now. Justin Audibert is this year’s recipient of the Leverhulme Bursary for Emerging Directors. It is a fruitful pairing of talents. Not to be missed.

Gate Theatre until 16 February

Originally published by Theatreworld

 

Theatre review – A Clockwork Orange

 

Anthony Burgess had several reservations about Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of his 1962 dystopian novella, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, not least that it crucially ignored the main character’s rejection of violence as he enters adulthood. To deter any future mangling of his work, in 1986 Burgess wrote his own stage version with music.

Alexandra Spencer-Jones’ high-octane production breathes fresh fire into this seminal tale of disaffected youth. Alex and his savage gang of “droogs” terrorise their local streets. They use a particular Russian-influenced slang called Nadsat as they carry out their acts of brutality, muggings and gang rape. After a burglary goes wrong, Alex winds up with a prison sentence for murder. Here, he is offered early release if he undergoes an experimental behaviour-modification treatment which reconditions him to feel physically sick at the thought of violence.

It may be fifty years old, but A CLOCKWORK ORANGE has lost none of it power. Burgess perfectly captures the chaos of adolescence; the simmering resentments that could erupt at any moment into mindless violence. Given Britain’s riots last year, this theme of teenage alienation is particularly resonant. The questions Burgess raised about free will, state control and “governmental retribution”, are as relevant as ever.

Spencer-Jones adds her own innovations to the mix. Her fast-paced production uses a range of music from the 1960s to the present day, including such club classics as Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax. The all-male cast strut around in tight black trousers and vests adding a layer of homoeroticism. The action is played out on an almost bare stage, allowing for highly stylised, physical performances.

Martin McCreadie gives an award-winning turn as Alex. His eyes glitter with psychopathic fervour, his veins stand out and his sinews visibly throb during moments of acute emotion.

Astonishingly, this marks both McCreadie and Spencer-Jones’s professional London debuts.

Do not miss.

Running at Soho Theatre until Saturday 05 January 2013

 

 

Theatre Review – The Trojan Women

In her brilliant adaptation of Euripides’s classic tragedy, Caroline Bird updates the language for a contemporary audience but retains its timeless quality as a theatrical response to war – the action could be situated in any number of present-day conflict zones.

Iona Firouzabadi’s pre-recorded video, a work of art in itself, creates atmosphere and a palpable sense of menace before the play even begins. Blurred images suggest bombs falling, black clouds, army vehicles, crowds, beatings, figures fleeing, and are accompanied by shouts, screams and the sound of explosions that evoke the chaos of war. Then Tamsin Greig and Roger Lloyd Pack appear on the TV monitors, as Athena and Poseidon, to give us the background to the Trojan War and explain their involvement.

Three beds dominate the stage. A hospital has been transformed into a prison. Troy has fallen and its war widows are captive, waiting to learn their fate. Cassandra is in the psychiatric wing and Helen is kept in isolation. But the main focus is Dearbhla Molloy’s cool, dignified Hecuba, the fallen Trojan queen, who is held in the hospital’s maternity ward. She shares her “cell” with Lucy Ellinson’s wide-eyed Chorus, a heavily pregnant “Everywoman”, handcuffed to her bed.

As they wait for news, Hecuba rails against her fate, the death of her sons, the loss of her daughter Polyxena (who she exchanged for the corpse of her son, Hector) and curses Helen, that “bitch on heat”, as the cause of the war. She is interrupted, encouraged and disparaged by the Chorus who is more concerned about her own fate and that of her unborn baby.

Louise Brealey gives a finely nuanced performance, portraying the three women, Cassandra, Andromache and Helen, who are all celebrated and cursed for their beauty.  Hecuba’s own failings as a mother are brought to the fore when Cassandra comes to bid her farewell before she is shipped off to become Agamemnon’s concubine. Although acknowledging Apollo’s curse, Bird suggests that Cassandra’s madness (here translated as adolescent hyper-activity, a surfeit of love and a tendency to cut herself) is as much a result of Hecuba’s neglect.

The victors’ lust for vengeance is underlined when Hector’s widow, Andromache, arrives nursing her baby and Jon Foster’s messenger, Talthybius, tells her to prepare for her infant son’s death.

Jason Southgate’s detailed design is impressive — the cartoon animals stencilled on the walls, the teddy bears and board games deliberately jar with the recent murder and mayhem (and the violence that is to follow).

In Christopher Haydon’s gloriously ambitious and stunningly realised production, the full horror of war is brought home in the play’s shocking conclusion, reminding us that the real victims are the women and children left behind.

Running at the Gate Theatre until 15 December 2012

Originally published in Theatreworld

Theatre Review – Khadija is 18

Most of the refugee stories we read about in the media are negative. But many asylum seekers are torture survivors who have fled to the UK and live in a terrifying limbo – acutely aware that each morning they wake up could be their last day in safety. For some, if they are sent back they face the prospect of further torture and even death.

Khadija is 18 focuses on two teenage girls, living as refugees in east London. Khaidija (Aysha Kala) is originally from Afghanistan, although so Anglicised that she speaks like any other streetwise teenager in London and has adopted many of the mannerisms and cultural codes of her Nigerian boyfriend Ade (Victor Alli). She lives in a hostel with Liza (Katherine Rose Morley), a young eastern European, and her baby who, we learn, is actually her sister.

The two girls await their eighteenth birthdays with trepidation. They arrived in the UK as children and were classified as “unaccompanied” by the state. On reaching adulthood they will receive a decision on their residence claims and both are terrified of being returned to their native countries.

Shamser Sinha writes from experience – he is a lecturer in Sociology and Youth Studies, and has spent the past ten years working with young asylum seekers and vulnerable teenagers in London. His play is also hugely topical. According to the Refugee Council, in 2011 17,700 children applied for asylum having arrived in the country of refuge alone, with no parent or guardian. 1,277 of these applications were made in the UK.

Rather than focus on the girls’ past and what led them to seek asylum, Sinha portrays their life in London. The two girls go to college, and Khaidija works, illegally as a cleaner to supplement her meagre benefits. Liza has to look after the baby and struggles to find the time to learn English. Both are desperate to assimilate and both bear the brunt of casual racism. They are often derided as “refs” and snide comments are made about Liza’s ability to attract council housing because of her baby, despite the fact that she is living in a hostel.

Given Sinha’s admirable credentials, I was surprised that he didn’t paint a more positive portrait of asylum seekers. He concentrates instead on the girls’ petty rivalries, their sexual experiences and their betrayals of one another. It is only in the play’s heart-breaking and powerful ending that Sinha demonstrates Khadija’s very real terror at the thought of being returned.

Nevertheless, there is much to recommend Khadija is 18. It raises important issues and Sinha has an excellent ear for teenagers’ street-slang. Fly Davis’s set – slate blocks and concrete slabs – gives a palpable sense of the bleaker side of London. Tim Stark gets the most out of his young cast, the performances are pitch-perfect, and his imaginative staging makes effective use of the Finborough’s tiny space.
Khadija is 18 is running at the Finborough Theatre until 24 November 2012

Originally published by HuffingtonPost.co.uk

 

Theatre review – The Kingdom

Three men face the audience, surrounded by huge piles of rubble and rough-hewn rocks. They are clutching shovels and a pick-axe – the tools of their trade. They are nameless, distinguished only by age. There is a Young Man (Anthony Delaney), a middle-aged Man (Owen O’Neill) and an Old Man (Gary Lilburn) and they all have the same story to tell.

Drawing on the experiences of Irish migrant workers in 1950s Britain and threading the Greek myth of Oedipus into their tales, Colin Teevan has fashioned an intriguing play around big subjects: love, loss, violence, incest and betrayal.

THE KINGDOM begins at a crossroads and ends at a metaphorical junction. A young Irishman flees the brutal industrial school where he was raised. But en route to finding work as a navvy in England, he kills a man. He escapes punishment, marries, makes his fortune and builds his “kingdom”, but years later he discovers that the man he murdered was the father he never knew and his wife is also his mother. An old tinker’s curse has come true and is to be his ruin.

As this convoluted tragedy unfolds, the men continue to dig. The audience has to concentrate because the three actors share multiple parts. It is not immediately obvious, for example, that Delaney is playing a younger incarnation of O Neill’s character.

Teevan’s script has all the makings of great drama, but something gets lost in the transition to stage. Despite sterling performances, it is not always easy to follow the complex and multi-layered plot. Lucy Pitman-Wallace’s 75-minute production has plenty of atmosphere but we also need enough space to digest Teevan’s wonderfully lyrical dialogue, whether he’s evoking life in England for Irish immigrants, in particular the hard graft and casual racism that they endured, or the doomed marriage at the play’s heart.

Nevertheless, THE KINGDOM is an inventive take on the Oedipus myth and if you enjoy provocative theatre that rewards close attention this production hits the mark.

The Kingdom runs at Soho Theatre until 17 November 2012

Review originally published by Theatreworld