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Showing posts with label esme patey-ford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label esme patey-ford. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
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Reviewed by David James
Rating: 
You should hope you never have to grapple with mental health law and the rules and regulations governing treatment without consent. While it's never personally affected me, I frequently encounter it in my professional life and I've seen the emotional burden it places on families and individuals. All this made Paper Creature's Section 2 an equally moving and instructive theatrical experience.
Written by Peter Imms, and based on his own personal experiences of a friend being sectioned, Section 2 is a modest drama about a young man, Cam (Nathan Coenen) who, for no obvious reason, started behaving erratically. He is subsequently placed under a 'Section 2', which means you can be detained in a hospital for up to 28 days.
We open the play on the 28th day, on which it will be decided whether Cam can be released to his girlfriend Kay (Alexandra Da Silva). She has spent the last month slowly unravelling at the stress of visiting the clinic, observing Cam's behaviour and the uncertainty of the future. Evaluating whether he should be released is Cam's key worker Rachel (Esma Patey-Ford), balances sympathy with Cam and Kay against her medical impartiality.
Walking in the middle of this is Pete (Jon Tozzi). He's a school friend of Cam's who hasn't seen him in five years, yet recently received a call from him asking if he'd visit. He's essentially the audience viewpoint: a reason for the characters to explain the situation to the audience and react the way we're reacting.
Much of what makes Section 2 so effective is what it chooses not to do. This is a naturalistic, sensibly staged, linear human drama with a laser focus on its goals. I've seen theatre about mental health that seizes upon the idea of a disorganised mind and uses it as a springboard for a load of avant-garde wankery. Not here: Cam's condition isn't sensationalised at all, making it that much.
Imms wrote the play with input from the mental health charity Mind, who ensured that the technical and legal details of the story are accurate. This attention to detail is obvious in the final product, from Kay's slow-burning desperation at watching Cam appear to deteriorate the longer he's at the hospital, to the memory loss and slowness caused by his medication, down to the drab breezeblock walls punctuated by creased 'uplifting' posters.
In addition to a carefully written script and sensible staging, the performances are uniformly brill. Da Silva's Kay is believably frayed at the edges, trying and failing to suppress her frustrations and to do her best for her partner. A breakdown late in the show teeters on the edge of being too broad, but Da Silva has put in the performative legwork to make it come off. Meanwhile, Patey-Ford gives a masterclass in pragmatism, treating the situation with a tragic familiarity. You sense she has seen situations like this play out many times before and knows how long and painful the road ahead for Cam is going to be.
But it's Nathan Coenen's Cam at the centre of the play, and he delivers one of the most intensely realistic portrayals of a severe mental health condition I've seen in on stage in a very long time. In the most gut-wrenching moments, he plaintively explains that he knows something is wrong but has no idea what. This intense apologetic vulnerability is at odds with what we hear about his outgoing, rugby star past, making his confused diminishment and the brief moments the 'old' Cam surfaces into extremely powerful theatre.
This all adds up to an emotionally and intellectually satisfyingly three-dimensional drama that doesn't screw about. It's not the easiest play in the world to watch, but learning about this topic is important and I genuinely feel I've had a peek behind the curtain at the consequences of mental health law. Recommended.
Section 2 is at The Bunker until 7 July. Tickets here.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Saturday, June 27, 2015
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Set within fragments of a gigantic picture frame, lit with warm sepia-tinged light and spattered with long-dried paint, the set of Asking Rembrandt believably drags its audience back to well-used studio in 17th century Amsterdam. This is the setting for Steve Gooch's exploration of art vs commerce, told through a year or so in the life of Rembrandt.
We meet Rembrandt (Liam McKenna) at a difficult time. He's an established master craftsman producing a steady stream of work - every well-to-do mokummer wants a Rembrandt hanging above their fireplace. Problem is, they want a portrait as status symbol rather than to appreciate Rembrandt's artistry. As such they pepper him with demands and alterations - his experimental leanings squashed under the popular idea of what a Rembrandt painting is. Now he's got a reputation as difficult, when clients are splurging hundreds of gilders for a portrait, figuring 'the customer is always right'.
His personal situation only adds to his woes. Following the death of his wife Saskia he's taken up with former maid Henni (Esmé Patey-Ford), their unmarried status causing the disapproving church to publicly brand her as a "whore". The rest of his personal relationships are similarly rocky; his son Titus (Loz Keyston) bridling under his father's ego; and John Six (John Gorick) doing his best to keep their friendship sliding too far into business.
Asking Rembrandt's best quality is that it's straightforwardly interesting. Seeing Rembrandt, whose name has become is a byword for 'master painter', as a conflicted, indebted and stressed craftsman instantly humanises him. You might think that you'd struggle to relate to the interpersonal and financial worries of a 17th century Dutch painter, but very quickly we understand and empathise with him.
That's down to skilful writing, backed up with what I assume is an awful lot of careful research. It's also equally due to wonderfully earthy performance from Liam McKenna. This Rembrandt is a fleshy, sturdy, deeply proud character - almost Falstaffian in his body language and behaviour. Some of the finest moments are when he talks dirty, telling Henni that he'd like to "lick her like a bear with its tongue in a honeypot". Oh Mr Rembrandt, I've come over all a-flutter!
Rembrandt's sexual and artistic confidence goes some way to the art vs commerce debate at the centre of the play the much needed emotional dimension. We can see why his partner loves him, why his best friend wants the best for him and why his son (despite his protestations) craves his father's respect. By about the halfway point we're invested in what Rembrandt is doing, rooting for him to be able to express himself without financial and social shackles.
Despite those successes, there's a sense of slightness in Asking Rembrandt. Coming in at a svelte 75 minutes we whistle through time at breakneck speed. For example, at the close of one scene Henni informs Rembrandt that she's pregnant, the next scene she's 8 months in and a couple of minutes later the baby's arrived. This makes the secondary characters into satellites orbiting Rembrandt rather than people in their own right. Perhaps the biggest victim of this is his son Titus, who gets a few short scenes to define his character.
Similarly, though the emotional dimension is welcome, the play does eventually boil down to a slightly dry argument on the compromises an artist must make to put food on their table. As I said, this is definitely interesting, but it settles on massaging the brain rather than trying to whomping you in the heart.
Asking Rembrandt is (as is standard for the Old Red Lion) a technical success. The set oozes personality and the soft lighting subtly recalls Rembrandt's aesthetic. The cast are similarly top class: McKenna the obvious star attraction but Patey-Ford's Henni is impressively full of joie de vivre, managing the impressive feat of making a 17th century dutchwoman's costume rather coquettish. Despite these positives, I never quite felt involved in proceedings, admiring the play from a academic distance as opposed to losing myself in its rhythms and passions.
★★★
Asking Rembrandt is at the Old Red Lion until the 18th of July. Tickets here.
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