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Showing posts with label theatro technis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theatro technis. Show all posts
Friday, December 8, 2017
Friday, December 8, 2017
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Rating: 
For large swathes of the population the very idea of prisoner's rights is a joke. As far as they're concerned, once you vanish behind the walls of some brick n' slate Victorian monstrosity you're a non-person, deserving of every injustice, indignity and cruelty you face. It's the kind of thinking that saw former justice secretary Chris Grayling ban prisoners from receiving books and guitars, that led David Cameron to say that the idea of giving prisoners the vote made him "physically sick".
Shadows, a new play by Carguil Lloyd George Webley, follows three inmates incarcerated in the notorious Winson Green Prison aka HMP Birmingham, recently described by its director as "dangerous, dirty and overrun with drugs". Things came to a head a year ago in a 15 hour riot kicked off by prisoners being unable to receive dental treatment.
Winson Green functions as an effective setting for a wide-ranging dissection of race, via three inmates each of whom has a unique perspective on what it means to be black in modern Britain. They are; Edmund (David Monteith), an old lag serving a long sentence who knows the ropes of the institute; Chase (David Ogechukwu Isiguzo), a still optimistic teenager eager to get back to his son and start a business and; Balak (Pharaon El-Nur) a middle class former teacher with a fierce sense of personal justice. On the other side of the bars we have Vince (Troy Richards), their guard.
Over a series of lengthy conversations, we gradually understand the divisions between the men. Despite being born and raised in Birmingham, Edmund feels a profound connection to both his Caribbean and African roots, eager to find the historic and cultural context for his life. Conversely, Balak was born in the US and subsequently adopted by a white British couple - his middle class upbringing leaving him somewhat divorced from what Edmund understands being black in Britain to be. In place of an ancestral connection, he has a political one, his circumstances borne of deep-seated cultural racism rooted in the slave trade. Chase, much younger than the other men, is caught in the middle and the two men essentially battle for his soul and future.
Shadows is smart as hell - Webley tackles a very big, very complicated issue with wit, pathos and a genuine emotional connection to his characters, who never feel like vehicles for viewpoints.
Sadly, despite the play's many positive aspects, it's let down by a rather lacklustre production. While David Monteith delivers some fantastic moments (my highlight his emotive realisation that the Birmingham of his memory does not match the Birmingham beyond the prison walls), Pharaon El-Nur's delivery is overly declamatory and artificial, he's never particularly convincing and it's difficult to get a handle on who Balak is.
In addition, the expansive set makes their cell feel bizarrely roomy - the characters have to walk across the room to talk to one another. Part of the tension of the play is that these characters are trapped in close quarters and the failure of the set to give us any sense of claustrophobia hurts that - not to mention that it singularly fails to capture the reality of the notoriously small cells at Winson Green / HMP Birmingham.
Finally, the finale doesn't really work. Without wanting to spoil anything, the show concludes with an act of violence that's obviously intended to be taken seriously, but instead receives muffled giggles. I can't pin down exactly why that happened, but perhaps the writing ladles on the pathos a little too thickly in the closing scenes.
Shadows is difficult to review. There's so many good ideas and thought packed into the script. Unfortunately this production doesn't quite do justice to them - this show needed more time in the oven.
Shadows was at Theatro Technis 5-7 December.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
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My Son's Husband is an amiable sort of show. Adapted from Daniele Falleri's 2012 Italian play Il Marito di Mio Figlio, Raffaele Cericola of Night Express Live brings a distinctly European brand of high-strung familial farce to the London stage. Translating comedy effectively is a tricky task, especially from Italy to Britain: two countries with distinctive ideas of what's funny and what's not.
The play centres around the impending marriage of George (James Pacileo) and Michael (Federico Moro), two besotted twenty-something Italians. We meet them as they nervously await the arrival of their respective parents. Waiting for the in-laws is a series of dramatic revelations: not just that their children are getting married but that, *gasp* they're gay!
George's parents are brusque, working class conservatives made good. His sturdily built father Ignacio (Tino Orsini) runs a successful tannery and his mother Maria (Yvonne Wickham) is a brassy housewife. Michael's parents tend to the neurotic; his Dad, Agostino (Roberto Benfenati) is a nervous wreck and his mother Amalia (Stefania Montesolaro) is a wistful 60s radical.
Each parent processes their sons' sexuality in different ways. George's burrow deeply into denial, frantically searching for ways to 'prove' he's not really gay and researching methods to convert him back to heterosexuality. Michael's are somewhat more supportive, but quickly discover that the situation shifts the ground under their own marriage. Tossed into the mix is waitress/psychology student/would be actor Laurie (Irene Possetto), a flirty ditz who George's parents see as the ideal decoy to lure their son back to straightness.
For the most part, My Son's Husband proceeds precisely how you'd expect. Farces tend to work in stereotypes, and this play is crammed with them: the gay men want to be fashion designers, the gruff vest n' chain wearing patriarch is a casually homophobic lothario, the mothers bitchily exchange remarks on each other's appearance and so on.
That archetypal nature, combined with an obvious reverence for La Cage Aux Folles and the films of Pedro Almodovar (who's name-dropped constantly) makes for a familiar experience. From the moment we meet these characters we know where they're going and have a pretty damn good idea what the final scene will involve. But, then this is a comedy - the narrative isn't half as important as whether it makes you laugh.
Mark Kermode, a critic who have an awful lot of respect for, has a 'six laugh' rule that I review by; i.e. if a film/show gets at least that amount of chuckles it can't be deemed a complete failure. My Son's Husband easily passes this test, wringing a moderate amount of genuine giggles out of me me. These gags aren't stretching the boundaries of comedy, but they are at least competent.
For example: George has prepared his father for some shocking news, then reveals that he and Michael are to be married. Ignacio reacts with delight, then eagerly asks where the brides are. Upon being told that there's something he doesn't understand about the situation, he runs through an extensive list of what could possibly be wrong with a woman. Eventually he's gently told that the last 30 years have seen a social revolution that's expanded the ways that two people can be joined in marriage. He sits on the sofa, face sagging with realisation. "Oh my god." he exclaims. "She's black."
This is just one of many solidly written and delivered gags sprinkled throughout the show. There's nothing here that's gut-bustingly funny, but this easy to tap into seam of mischievous, easy-to-digest humour runs through the play from beginning to end.
That it's funny is My Son's Husband's saving grace, as dramatically it's riddled with problems. The most glaring one is that George and Michael have absolutely no chemistry with one another. Their love is the fuel that's powering this plot, and though they explain that they're crazy about one another, I never once saw a flash of attraction in their eyes. Indeed, for most of the play Michael is rather unpleasant, making it difficult to see what the far nicer George sees this grumpy sadsack.
I suspect that this lack of chemistry is the result of some rather creaky performances, possibly exacerbated by actors not performing in their first languages. While the older members of the cast (playing the parents) all acquit themselves well, the performances of George, Michael and Laurie are flat and stilted.
I have sympathy for these actors; to act in a second language must be nerve-wracking, but often you can tell that they settle for reciting the lines rather than performing them. Even here they occasionally stumbles: some of the faster paced sections of dialogue are indecipherable.
Despite these flaws I can't bring myself to dislike My Son's Husband. As I stated at the outset it's a friendly, open and welcoming sort of show, one that's eager for the audience to have fun. It's got a good heart, and that goes a long way.
★★★
My Son's Husband is at Theatro Technis until 14th February. Tickets here.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Monday, June 22, 2015
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Something terrible has happened in central London. Shellshocked commuters stumble home, ears ringing from the crash of atrocity, eyes stinging from billowing clouds of disturbed dust. People stare glassily at one another, struggling to process the new world they find themselves in. Precisely what happened remains elusive, but we understand that London has suffered its own 9/11.
Jane Bodie's A Single Act treats the attack like a stone tossed into still waters, ripples reverberating through society. She zeroes in one two relationships: one steadily deteriorating from the moment of the attack, the other told in reverse, showing how a toxic, abusive relationship can stem from once promising beginnings. As the twin tales wind about one another we understand that violence isn't confined to the blast of the bomb or the leaden thump of fist on flesh, but in the lasting impact upon society at large.
Our couples are Michelle and Scott (Lucy Hirst and Tom Myles), and Clea and Neil (Katherine Stevens and Philippe Edwards). All four occupy the same dramatic space, taking turns to occupy a moodily lit Ikea furnished flat. Michelle and Scott are in an obviously poisonous relationship, Scott's affections having warped from romance to possessiveness and violent jealousy; leaving Michelle bruised, battered and with a fractured psyche. Meanwhile Clea and Neil drift inexorably apart, their cosily middle class existence disintegrating piece by piece.
First staged in spring 2005, A Single Act eerily presaged the London terror attacks of that summer - this production coming almost exactly a decade later. This lends it a contemplative mood: while the original text explored the hypothetical effects of such an attack, this production can work from historical perspective, picking at our collective societal scab.
Two particularly strong thematic strands are helplessness and frustration. Neil, a well-to-do artsy middle class photographer, finds himself twisting in the wind. Previously content to merely witness the world around him, his worldview crumbles as he watches the attack to the soundtrack of clicking cameraphones. He's disgusted at the people blithely snapping away, but soon turns that disgust inwards, resolving to do something - anything - to soothe his injured soul. This manifests in emotional distance from his partner and mysterious midnight excursions. Neil is suffering the nihilistic trauma of realising he's a mote of dust caught in the wind, buffeted by forces way beyond his comprehension.
A similar process happens to Scott, but here love has curdled into violence. It's as if the ever-present sight of destroyed buildings drives him towards violence as the solution to his problems. Here a chicken and egg scenario arises - is Scott an intrinsically violent man encouraged by what he sees in front of him, or a kind man infected by omnipresent destruction.
A Single Act never comes down on one side or another, teasing us with implications and gentle nudges. It's refusal to completely explain its argument can get a bit frustrating - especially given the opaque ending, chronologically jumbled ending. Then again, dealing with intense trauma isn't a process with a clearly delineated end, and it's refreshing to see a production that so obviously wants its audience to intellectually evaluate what they've seen.
Though A Single Act is purposefully vague, everything else in the production is honed to razor sharpness. My favourite visual flourish was dousing the actors in a thin layer of talcum powder, resulting in each hug, hit and kiss sending plumes of dust spiralling through the harsh stage lighting. This perfectly feeds into the wider themes of violence having invisible consequences - each interaction literally leaving a residue hanging in the air.
The individual performances are similarly on point, with Tom Myles' Scott drawing most attention. He's a fascinatingly intense actor, both terrifying as he beats and controls Michelle and bashfully sweet as he romances her. Something awful happens in his eyes when he cycles between the two, his gaze deadening like a shark as it moves in for the kill. This accentuates his ramrod straight physicality, imperceptible shifts in the way he holds himself leaving him looking as if he's possessed by some demonic spirit.
It's a damn fine piece of theatre, one that sent shivers up my spine on several occasions. Everyone in Duelling Productions, should be proud of staging a production with this much power and insight. I eagerly await whatever they're cooking up next.
★★★★
A Single Act was at Theatro Technis until the 20th. Production info here.
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