LONDON CITY NIGHTS: cockpit theatre

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Review: 'The Female Gaze & Other Stories' at The Cockpit, 12th December 2017

Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

2017 saw The Cockpit host The Female Gaze, a series of scratch nights curated by Emily Renée and Annabelle Rich (of Rich Creative) that showcased short works focusing on female experiences. The Sexual Odyssey delivered various perspectives on eroticism and intimacy; Written on the Body was about the treatment of the female body; and the third, Spellbound, delved into feminine ritual and magic. Now, with 2018 waiting in the wings, we have The Collection, bringing together four tweaked and redeveloped pieces from these shows.

First up is Sophie Ablett's A-Sexual Being, in which two women, Alia (Catherine Nix-Collins) and Bea (Sophie Ablett) navigate the choppy waters of sexual compatibility. We open with them happily beginning a relationship, though this is quickly thrown into confusion when Alia awkwardly broaches the topic of an open relationship. Bea is, understandably, freaked out.

From here we diagram out their sexualities, helped along by chalk circles on the floor and scrawled labels: 'bisexual', 'hetero-romantic' and 'gray-asexual'. The division between the pair stems from Alia's instinctive embracing of her sexuality, while Bea needs to find her 'category'. I think people are way too quick to find a particular niche for themselves and stick to it. So, I had a huge amount of sympathy with Alia when Bea says she's 'on the spectrum' of asexuality - because what the fuck does that even mean?

In its focus on labels and identity A-Sexual Being has gotten hold of something both fascinating and unique about modern sex, and while it doesn't quite stick the landing, it at least provides some good brain food.

Next is Annabelle Rich's It, which is kind of like Drop Dead Fred if Rik Mayall were an eating disorder. Rich plays Allie, currently recovering from something unspecified yet serious enough that her friend Alex (Josie Connor) handles her with kid gloves. Similar pressure comes from her boyfriend Tommy (Elliot Janks), who reacts with suspicion when she starts requesting toast without butter.

These are just one of many symptoms of the titular It (Emma-May Uden), a personification of self-loathing that urges Allie to avoid meals, to exercise to exhaustion and to snap defensively at her friends. Easily the best bits of this short are when Allie and It are in open conflict - whether Allie is urging herself through a frantic, punishing workout or trying to work up the courage to eat some toast without puking it all up.

Uden's smug, apparently all-powerful disorder is a great bit of performance, on the surface cute and pixie-ish but with a palpably evil core. There's some great layering as she begins to talk 'for' Allie, as if she's beginning to over-ride her personality. Sadly the peripheral characters, especially Tommy, are a bit too thinly sketched, but y'know, flies and ointments and all that.

After the interval comes Emily Renée's The Circle, which I simultaneously enjoyed the most and understood the least. After a drug-fuelled nightclub yell-meet-hookup, K (Renée) and L (Ryan Woodcock) end up in bed. Though they clearly have the hots for each other, can their relationship survive a next day comedown?

The Circle felt spookily relevant to my own relationship experiences; puzzling over whether you love someone and struggling to say the words 'I love you', probing each other's limits through sex and attempting to understand how a person's past influences their present life. What I also had in common with it is that a lot of this stuff completely flies over my head. So, I found myself primarily identifying with Woodcock's 'L' as he figures out K. At times Renée's character seemed to be an unsolvable (and volatile) puzzlebox, and I felt a shiver of recognition when L was reduced to saying "Just tell me what to do!"

Though I didn't understand K, Emily Renée's performance was the best thing I saw all night - a cocktail of confidence, vulnerability, sexiness and intelligence that quickly and efficiently sketches out someone who is viscerally 'real' in a way that characters in the other pieces never quite manage. Awesome stuff.

Finally we have Chitta Vritti by Francesca Tennant. After three pieces that are largely serious, this has a refreshingly comedic tinge. Nat (Tracey Lee Sharples) is trying to do some yoga, aiming to clear her head and tone up her body. In her way is a ghoul's gallery of worries - personified by a cruel boss, a waspy mother, bitchy co-workers and so on. Despite her goal of a clear, tranquil mind she's assailed by endless interruptions that drag her down.

I don't particularly have much to say about Chitta Vritti other than that it absolutely achieves what it sets out to do and makes a series of dead-on observations about the pressures of contemporary life. My favourite moment comes when Nat is obsessing about her 'back rolls', feverishly trying to be body positive about herself even as she wallows in self-disgust. It's the cherry on a nicely constructed, complex and visually satisfying pie.

The Female Gaze covers a lot of ground over these four plays and each approaches its chosen subject with intelligence and insight. Despite billing itself as a scratch night, a hell of a lot of prep has obviously gone into each piece and while there may be the odd dramatic anticlimax or stereotyped supporting character, it's obvious why these plays were chosen to show off a year of experimentation.

Roll on The Female Gaze 2018.

Friday, May 5, 2017

Review: 'Cosmic Trigger' at the Cockpit Theatre, 4th May 2017

Friday, May 5, 2017 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

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Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Review: '27: The Rise of a Falling Star' at the Cockpit Theatre, 12th September 2016

Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

27: The Rise of a Falling Star feels like the kind of musical an evangelical baptist church might put on to scare the kids away from sex, drugs and rock n' roll. It is a rare and fascinating brand of dreadful: as badly conceived and written as it is performed.

Now trust me, I don't take that much pleasure in coming at a show with teeth bared. Think of me as an experienced rural vet that's been called to attend to a horse with a broken leg. I look down at the stricken beast: foam flecks its mouth, flanks are wet with sweat and it wheezes horrifically. As I gaze into the panicked brown wetness of its eye I solemnly remove my pistol from its holster, aim it at the centre of its skull and blow the poor bastard's brains out.

It may look cruel, but it's necessary. This godforsaken rock musical deserves the same treatment.

Named for the '27 Club' of dead musicians, the show follows the fortunes of Orpheus (Greg Oliver), lead singer of The Argonauts, a band hungry for megastardom. Thanks to a deal with the devil, they get it. Orpheus then becomes a screwed up drug addict, alienates his bandmates and his nice girlfriend Amy (Cassie Compton) overdoses. He then takes a quest through the underworld to retrieve her and... Ah bollocks to it, I'm almost as tired of typing up this garbled gaggle of cliches as I was watching the damn thing.

The core of the show is the romance between Orpheus and Amy, which they warble about at length to each other. It's brutally hamstrung by a number of simple factors. The prime one is that Orpheus is an unlikeable, uncharismatic and apparently talentless dick. Even before his ego swells it's a mystery what Amy sees in him. Then again, Amy isn't really a character at all, she's an anonymous feminine prize for the men in the play to moon after. Having your female lead entirely defined in terms of her relationships with men is really disappointing these days (not to mention unceremoniously killing her off during the interval, further literalising her as a prize to be won).

The rest of it feels exceedingly over-familiar. The satanic record exec thing is played out, the intra-band conflicts are dull and the eventual supernatural trek through the underworld is both visually naff and mythologically jumbled. As if to rub salt into the wound, in the final scenes one of the characters reflects "well, it's a good story". Mate. It really wasn't.

Musically, 27 wouldn't know rock n' roll if it bit it in the arse. I've heard episodes of The Archers with more of a rebellious streak and sense of devil-may-care danger than this. Much of this is down to a songbook liberally strewn with mushy ballads where the characters wail their little hearts out about their feelings, while demonstrating none of them in their performances. I feel duty bound to point out that there's also a bit where the show mangles its way through a rap number, which smashes traditional standards of good and bad so thoroughly that it ends up feeling like a Dadaist experiment in music.

Perhaps most emblematic is that this is a rock musical about a band making it to the heights of stardom AND WE NEVER HEAR THEM PLAY A FUCKING SONG. I mean... did no-one notice this in rehearsals? Granted, given the musical standards of the rest of the show I have no doubt that if they did play a song it'd be awful, but dammit, at least try.

This extends right into the ridiculous way in which the show treats drugs use. The characters talk about drug use in terms of: "one bad trip, that's all it takes...", sounding like a vicar solemnly warning a Sunday school about the dangers of getting high. By the mid-way point, our lead character is frantically sniffing, rubbing his nose and generally acting like someone who's only heard about drug use through an elaborate game of Chinese whispers.

Enduring this while dancers wave plates of mind-altering substances in front of you is like taunting a dying man in the desert with an ice-cold glass of water. I found myself lost in hazy fantasies of solidly packing my sinuses with the finest uncut cocaine, a glassy smile on my face as I imagined that one perfect smack spike, all cued up to wrap me up in a blissy/fuzzy duvet and send me far far away from the Cockpit Theatre.

Sadly it was not to be. I watched two and a half painful hours of this shite. The mind boggles when you imagine how much time, money and talent has been squandered bringing this garbage to life. 27: The Rise of a Falling Star might be the most dispiriting theatrical experience I've had in four years of theatre criticism.

★

27: The Rise of a Falling Star is at the Cockpit Theatre until 22nd October. Tickets here.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

'Dark Vanilla Jungle' at the Cockpit Theatre, 10th August 2016

Thursday, August 11, 2016 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

The Cockpit Theatre seats 420 people. Last night's production had an attendance of 9. But, curiously, Burning Coal's production of Philip Ridley's Dark Vanilla Jungle is only amplified by the vast empty space that greets actor Lexie Braverman as she enters.

Philip Ridley is a playwright notorious for grappling with subjects most would rather sweep under the rug. His work covers the gamut of extreme violence, sexual perversion and psychological oppressiveness, all slathered with pitch black humour and an obsessive attention to detail. But, even amongst his atrocity-studded bibliography, Vanilla Dark Jungle has a certain notoriety.

Part confessional/part autobiography, Ridley introduces us to Andrea, a young girl. All she wants is to love, and to be loved in return. Yet life can't stop kicking her in the teeth: her father disappeared soon after she was born, leaving her to be raised by her couldn't-give-a-shit Mum, who callously and suddenly disappears upon his return. Abandoned in a grotty flat, she tiptoes along the borders of mental illness until she's 'rescued' by her never before seen grandmother, referred to only as 'Mrs V'.

The proceeding 75 minutes are a symphony of horribleness: neglect, delusion, paedophilia, gang-rape, manipulation, paranoia, self-loathing, fear, abuse, miscarriage and complete and abject humiliation. But hey, that's Ridley for 'ya.

All that's conveyed through a jumbled up narrative through. Andrea talks as if we're interviewing her on her life to date, guiding us through a roughly chronological story with constant detours into apparently trivial minutia. Tiny anecdotes and observations pile up on top of the core narrative, forcing the audience to play detective as they sift through the story and work out what's driving this mysterious, enigmatic, disturbing girl.

The monologue is filled with typical Ridleyian down-at-heel motifs, for example, an early profession of love for the soft pastry in a McDonalds' Apple Pie later echoes in the description of an amputee's sutured stump, or the way her father takes a big scoop of ice-cream repeats in an uneasily fetishistic description of a scoop taken out of man's skull by a landmine. Things eventually come full circle in a wonderfully ambiguous ending that marks the point where the subtle tendrils of fantasy that've nibbled at the corners Dark Vanilla Jungle finally envelope it.

It all adds up to a vivid and bleak snapshot of modern femininity. Girls grow up in a society that teaches them that they're there to provide. Andrea constantly delineates the sexes: "women suggest, men decide" and "women suck, men spit" taking an increasingly warped pleasure in being submissive and accommodating to men. Ridley being Ridley, Andrea's submissiveness goes to some really fucked up places.

Dark Vanilla Jungle is not an easy piece to perform. Andrea is all over the emotional spectrum and constantly toys with audience sympathies. That said, Lexie Braverman knocks it out of the goddamn park from minute one. Making lemonade from lemons, she seizes on the diminished audience as an opportunity to interrogate individuals during the monologue - shooting accusatory gazes and questions into the audience that make you shrink back in your seat when you're targeted

During one emotional high-point, two hooray-Henrys loudly blunder into the theatre by mistake, not having realised there's a play on. One of them (called Rupert, natch) loudly chats behind the curtain, throwing it open and recoiling in shock when he realises there's a show on. Braverman doesn't flinch, instantly (and quite brilliantly) incorporating this intrusion into her performance.

That's just one example of the many micro-moments that combine to make a gripping performative tapestry. Braverman's Andrea is somehow girlish/mature, sexy/ugly, manipulative/manipulated etc all at once. Being able to tease out a crystal clear character through this is partly down to Ridley's evocative writing, but also down to Braverman's viscerally palpable, real Andrea.

My only slight criticisms land with the writing. There's a change in plot midway through that feels suspiciously like two separate but similar monologues have been awkwardly welded together and the rough edges smoothed out as best as possible. Plot elements from the first are suddenly abandoned, to be replaced with a whole new set of characters and situations. Still, the themes, symbols and character remain consistent throughout, so it's not too jarring.

Though poorly attended, Burning Coal's Dark Vanilla Jungle knocked my socks off. It's an ambitious, beautifully performed and smartly directed gem of a production that deserves much more of an audience than it had last night. Make a beeline for the Cockpit!

★★★★

Dark Vanilla Jungle is at the Cockpit until 13th August. Tickets here.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

'Hamlet' at the Cockpit Theatre, 18th February 2015

Thursday, February 19, 2015 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

It's unanimously agreed that Bill Shakespeare knew how to put a play together. You don't climb to the top of the English literary canon without a few hits under your belt, and who can argue with crackers like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and King Lear? And at the tip-toppermost of the pile the downright delightful Hamlet, a badass revenge thriller with ghosts, stabbings, skeletons, poisonings and multiple counts of regicide. It contains all the ingredients of a seat-of-your-pants grindhouse stunner, only to be let down by a butt-numbing unabridged four hour run time.

English Repertory Theatre obviously recognise that shortcoming, and have gone at Hamlet with pruning shears, taming it into a lean 90 minute thriller that condenses the play down to its fundamentals. Their tagline: "There is no ghost. There is no equivocation. Only revenge." Or, as I prefer to put it: "Less talky talky, more stabby stabby".

Ditching the 'been there, done that' medieval trappings of the traditional staging, director Gavin Davis reimagines Elsinore is an exclusive boarding school. Our action centres around Horatio's (David Alwyn) "modern Danish history" study group, attended by the young Laertes (Alexander Neal), his sister Ophelia (Nina Bright), goody goody Rosencrantz (Charlotte Ellen) and moody eyeliner aficionado Hamlet (Rachel Waring).

Hamlet isn't happy. A letter from his dead Dad explains that Uncle Claudius (Jon House) bumped him off, and to rub salt into the wound he's only gone and married Hamlet's Mum Gertrude (Helen Bang). This injustice will not stand, and a murderous Hamlet sets out on a roaring rampage of revenge. No gut will go unpunctured! No poison undrunk! No blade unbloodied! You might say... DEATH COMES TO ELSINORE!

Reducing Hamlet into a fast-paced, action-packed extravaganza is dramatic blasphemy, but I've always enjoyed shows that go out of their way to tweak stuffy purist's noses. But is it actually any good? Well, in this condensed form a whole bunch goes out of the window: the militaristic background hum beyond the walls of Elsinore is relegated to a history lesson, the travelling players and their play-within-a-play is now a ropey school production courtesy of the four pupils and even poor Guildenstern is subsumed into the expanded role of Rosencrantz.

The most obvious consequence of this reduction of the text is that Waring's Hamlet has no time for procrastination. Given that fannying about and looking for ways to put off avenging his Dad is an enormous part of the traditional Hamlet, this is a pretty big shift in personality. This makes some plot elements a bit confusing. For example, when Hamlet hovers over the praying Claudius it's all too easy to understand Shakespeare's vacillating Prince putting off the deed for fear of sending Claudius to heaven, but somewhat less believable for English Rep's bloody-minded revenge seeker.

Throughout there's the sense that the play has been forcefully crowbarred into too small a space; soliloquys becoming performances to others and characters condensed to slightly confusing effect. The upshot is that were this anyone's first Hamlet they'd be pretty damn confused. As we rocket through the text at breakneck speed we zip through immortal lines, iconic lines and character development, the production feeling in danger of tripping over its own feet.

Horatio (David Alywn) catches Hamlet (Rachel Waring) and Ophelia (Nina Bright) drinking rum and cokes in a pub.

It never does, largely thanks to the excellent cast, neat staging and a careful eye for physical theatre. Played in the round, the centre of the aptly named Cockpit becomes a classroom, the set composed of a series of white tables, chairs and a model skeleton with two rapiers perched in its chest. This malleable set is constantly being reconfigured by the cast, becoming variously a classroom, a stage or graveyard. It's most effective moment comes during Claudius' soliliquy. With the tables arranged into one block, a terrified Hamlet hides underneath as Claudius furiously tosses table after table away. The prince scurries into the ever-decreasing hiding spaces, the tension palpable.

There's no weak spots in the cast but my standouts were: Oliver Hume's waffly, puffed up Polonius, appropriately played as man who's not half as intelligent and quick-thinking as he thinks he is; Charlotte Ellen's Rosencrantz, a goody two-shoes who drastically underestimates the seriousness of the situation; and Nina Bright's Ophelia, her believable adolescence making her suicide that much more tragic.

But let's face it, all eyes are on Rachel Waring's Hamlet. Somewhat overshadowed in the 'female Hamlet' stakes by Maxine Peake, the programme quickly reminds us that Waring is the "youngest woman ever to play Hamlet". In practice its her youthful looks rather than her gender that proves more crucial. Waring's Hamlet is more punk-rock-fuck-you than reserved regal dignity. Full of energy, we hear her the lead other characters on a manic backstage chase, muffled yells of "VENGEANCE!" heard from the direction of the bar. Fun as she is to watch, her Hamlet is also layered with faintly disturbing sadism. Rarely have I seen someone take so much pleasure in dispatching Polonius, the obvious glee making the line "I'll lug his guts into the next room" quite disturbing.

The sheer energy of the cast, guided by Gavin Davis' steady direction, make this Hamlet a successful piece of theatre. It's arguable whether this is good Shakespeare; so much is peeled away that we're left with the skeleton of the text, chewy fat and emotional texture discarded in favour of streamlined sinew and muscularity. If this were the only Hamlet in town I'd be disappointed, but among umpteen other adaptations it stands out by virtue of its boldness. Messy, chaotic and hot-blooded, but fun as hell.