July 2009 Archives

Twentieth century naturalism, when produced in this day and age, reminds me of watching Eastenders. This is especially true of Ibsen, though his soap operas conveniently have two characters who can argue out his political points -  which are often morally ambiguous at least. And like episodes of Eastenders, I just couldn't wait for Ghosts to end. At least the BBC has the good sense to make its soaps 30 minutes.

This isn't a bad play. Its well made, very tight in its plot progression and examines plenty of interesting and compelling themes about the sins of the father. A sort of Medea in Norway, we see how a father's actions have tainted the lives of many and it is the wife and children who must ultimately suffer. This reworking by Rebecca Lenkiewicz is good, the text feels alive and tight. But what cannot be escaped is that the moralizing is, generally, anachronistic. That sense of not belonging to this time was reinforced by this unimaginative production.

No doubt misogyny and hyper-conservative views of the place of women in society still exist, but the portrayal of Pastor Manders, played here by Paul Hickey, left for little more than a caricature of what is deadly serious. I have no doubt Ibsen was satirizing these views in the character of the pastor, but I also have no doubt that those views found some resonance for his audience, and would have been considered seriously.

Anyway, over the course of a night we find Oswald, ably played by Harry Lloyd, the centre of attention as he has returned to the family home, having been away for some years. His mother is finalising details of a memorial orphanage in honour of her dead husband, who we soon discover was not the angelic figure he is known as in the community. Secrets and invented pasts are returning, as ghosts, to haunt the house.

Oswald does stand out as the highlight of the evening. At first he appears a good attempt at a distant toff. In time we see he is a wound spring waiting to unravel. His mother, played by Suzanne Burden, unfortunately, never drew us in to her situation, never laid sufficient groundwork for the inevitable emotional turmoil we know must be waiting. In many cases - not just for Burden - there was a sense of having pauses without causes, which did elongate the evening.

The set is cleverly designed, with the corner on staging such that we are forever subtly aware of the other audience members, but never in a distracting way. While the leather shoes on wooden floor do make for a loud distraction, that could not take from a very complete and well-conceived design concept. It must, though, be noted that the period nature of both set and costume did lend to the general sense that this is a production out of place and out of time.

Some may remember the very successful outing observatory made to the Arcola some weeks ago. That  (Dr. Korczak's Example) was quite the mirror image - low, elderly audience, a piece dealing with the past but with its eye towards the present. Here we had a full house, nicely mixed audience but a play that never managed the subtlety of discourse that a play that is, essentially, both domestic and political, needs in this day. That's a shame.

I still like the Arcola, and I'm sure this play will do very well, but it has no sense of searching for something genuinely exciting. That's what theatres like the Arcola should be doing. Reviving good old plays is an essential part of our artistic and historical culture. But to live in such a time as ours, in a place such as Dalston, as London, and not speak to an audience in the twenty-first century, is unforgivable.

Until 22nd August. Tickets from Arcola box office at 020 7503 1646 or online

- James Grogan

Or nearest offer is a good example of a play where the form restrained the content greatly. The collaborative work of Young Friends of Almeida writer Tanya Ronder and director Vik Sivalingham this play sought to give voice to the teenage experience. The result, while clearly having its heart in the right place, was really quite poor. The half dozen or so intermingling stories had a few minutes each and we really only saw a Readers Digest, if even, of each one. Perhaps unleashed from a stage, we might have encountered a more honest portrayal.

The script - based on the words of the young people involved but "expertly crafted" by Ronder was, in fact, abysmal, by far the worst element of the show. Peppered with bits of non-philosophy and hyper-cliched dialogue there was precious little sense of craftmanship here. This, for me, was a simplified vision of teenagers, relying on hackneyed over mediatised stereotypes and a limp attempt to counter them. That being said there were some decently comic moments and an occasional hint of genuine text. I do not feel a "new writing" approach was ever going to work here.

Many of these young performers are going to drama school or have ambitions for the stage. On the evidence tonight some may well make it. Naomi Ackie has a gifted singing voice and one hopes that is a talent that is grown in the years to come. Plus Abitegeka has a very commanding stage presence and definitely has a watchable quality. Mollie Keane's quietly assured performance grew as the play progressed. It has to be said that everyone performed with commitment and energy, but usually lacked the clarity of moment or exactitude of speech to really make it work. The heavy handed traces of direction were present throughout and could have been done without.

Work of this nature is often not judged on its quality but rather on the context (young people giving live performance a good go). I think that does a disservice to the work and those who make it. However, even in my most dispassionate viewing I do believe that this show's faults lie with the adults involved. So many of the structural and conceptual frameworks simply didn't work and could not have worked. I applaud the intent of such work, but the process and the underlying creative vision must be rigorous if those voices that are supposedly being portrayed are to be heard.

Until tomorrow. Almeida box office 02073594404.

- James Grogan.

What is it about earnest political theatre? It is so hard to knock it and yet it often fails to strike a chord. Except when pulling emotive strings with revolutionary songs or exploring the darkly funny about an impossible existence under a dictatorship, Mad Forest fails to truly compel me. Churchill's mystical Brechtianism (where priests talk to the Angel Gabriel, replete in strap-on wings and dead grandmothers give political counsel) is curious when it is being elusive. Indeed, it can be truly fascinating when, in wordless constructions, it forms a playful response to oppression. When it points to its intended meaning it lacks the drama to grip. There was, alas, a little too much pointing.

The scenes (sort of glimpses of life under Nicolae Ceauscescu's Romania) worked best when conveyed with minimum speech. At these moments they opened a little space for ambiguity. I have to ask: is it, in fact, instructive to learn of the madness under a dictator? Do I not already have a good grasp of this twisted reality? Should performance be instructive? Was this trying to educate an audience about a forgotten history? Is this history really forgotten? Are these voices unheard? Yes. Maybe. I really do not know.

This play was commissioned by the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1990. Churchill went to Romania with students from the School and interviewed Romanians who had, until that year, lived in truly paradoxically impossible circumstances under an egomaniacal dictator (manic egos seem to complement autocracy). The play was later performed at Central's Embassy Theatre before transferring to The Royal Court and the Perry Street Theatre in New York. One can well imagine that in its day, Mad Forest was essential - it must have provided a platform for encountering a country and the voices of that country which had, in effect, been cut off by the Ceauscescu regime.

And yet I am at a loss with this play. At best it was perplexing - undoubtedly a good thing - and at worst it was infuriating - which, I suppose, is not a good thing. Yes, it was playing the Brechtian card (rats on strings, clearly plastic "gold" crowns, turning on the radio and the sound comes from the top right hand corner of the room, actors switching characters) but it was not doing anything particularly exciting with that card. Yes, there were moments of great emotional tension, but alas those moments were created through easy techniques (like the revolutionary song).  And yes, it was speaking to a western audience but in a way that sometimes felt a little manipulative (I do question the phrasebook moments of reading the Romanian title to a scene and the English translation - are we really tourists to all of this? Or is that the point?). Mostly, I just could not buy into it.

However, the acting was accomplished all round. In this small space (BAC's General Office) the actors gave us a range of characters, scenarios and emotions - they were strong and clear, their timings were crisp and their delivery unhurried, yet swift. I liked many of the accents - Angel Gabriel was Irish, a particular favourite. At times there were some troublesome ones (accents, that is) - generic broken English in generic Eastern European accents is not really on. When one of those generic Eastern European accents is closer to American you really have to wonder.

The direction was, on the whole, excellent. It had a great sense of structure that lent each scene a real balance - or useful imbalance. Caroline Steinbeis is clearly demonstrating why she deserved to win the JMK Trust Award here. Her scenes move at a good pace and she draws out some moments of narrative beauty and playful action. Alongside her Brechtian moments she does find space for emotion and the combination does generally work, although there are moments when you feel you do not know if this play wants to tell a good story or make us learn something. I am not sure which, in general, I dislike more, but I would have appreciated an adherence to one or the other.

Anyone who has read the reviews on this site in the past weeks will probably be aware that I am contradicting many things I have said before (since when does James Grogan demand coherence?) and I accept that. This play has really left me neither here nor there and the degree of uncertainty I feel about it is frustrating. I have asked more questions than I have answered and while I normally count that as a mark of a good piece of work, I just do not feel that here. It is a good play, it has been well acted and well directed. So what makes me not praise it? Somehow both anachronistic and claiming contemporality it has failed to find its reason for existence in this historical moment. There is a space between things that is very exciting to fill and explore, but on some occasions, and I fear this is one of them, the space between leaves you neither hot nor cold, just a tepid middle ground.

And yet, I fear, or hope even, that I wake up tomorrow and disagree with myself. Maybe you should just go and see it and disagree with me instead and we will see if we get anywhere.

At the BAC until 8th August - Tickets from the BAC Box Office on 020 7223 2223 or Online.

- James Grogan.

So, our residency at Underground Venues for the Buxton Fringe has ended. While the stay was short, lots of great shows were seen (and some not so great ones). It was a real pleasure to be around such an exciting venue for a whole week. Many of the shows reviewed will be taken to Edinburgh so if you missed them in Buxton, there will be another chance.

I'll be posting an interview with Three's Company (the same people as the management of Underground Venues) by the end of the week. They are another company who are up in Edinburgh and are producing some great work.

observatory might be a bit quiet for a while - a few shows in London this week only - but we'll be making the most of our time in Edinburgh and you can expect a bus load of reviews then.

- James Grogan

A pitch-perfect satire of the highest order, Bane is quite possibly the best show in Buxton Fringe 2009. A virtuoso performance by Joe Bone (also the writer), we see a host of characters appear before our eyes, all propelling us through the hilarious and hugely entertaining hour. Supported by a wonderful guitar performance by Ben Roe, this is a top class play.

Wonderfully playful, the performance is exact, uncluttered and absolutely hits the spot. Facial and bodily physicality is complemented by a range of note perfect accents. The succession of characters that passes before our eyes is created from nothing and shifts and changes flawlessly. Like the best satire, Bane subverts our expectations and then plays with the expectations we have built up from watching the show.

I must admit that I was not expecting anything too great from this show. The marketing material seemed to imply that it was a sincere rendition of a hard man action caper, something I feared greatly. This might also explain the very poor turn out for tonight's performance, something I hope will not be prolonged in the later Buxton shows and when the play goes to the Pleasance in Edinburgh.

It presents some very dark humour - at times edging towards the very uncomfortable. But it has to go there, it has to create a genuinely uncomfortable series of laughs to reach the peaks it does. In one grisly scene we see a family slaughtered for no reason. It's the outrageousness of the situation that truly makes the joke and it is revelled in by Bone (as Bane).

We follow Bane in his clash against the mysterious Shelby (have a close look at the flyer for the show, by the way...) who comes to resemble somewhere between the most ridiculous Bond villain and a Carry On character. The enjoyment in the knowing performance by Bone really does produce a great piece of theatre.

One may argue that the insertion of "The Man Comes Around" is a somewhat unnecessary and forced joke (even a tad predictable?) but that is the only hollow note in what is otherwise perfect. This is a very low-tech show - I counted two lighting cues - with the music played live on stage. Without relying on any props, set or technology, this play presents performance at its most raw. It was a refreshing and unexpected delight.

- James Grogan

It is a strange experience to enjoy so thoroughly one aspect of a play and be left so cold by another. This polarising rendition of The Tempest, undoubtedly one of Shakespeare's most unusual plays, presented the best and the worst of Black Box Theatre.

What worked extremely well were the performances by Prospero and Ariel. What the actors - Richard Sails and Rebecca Charnley respectively - managed to capture is the duality of these characters. Prospero is both the stern ruler of his land and a kind father. Ariel is the tired and over-worked servant of Prospero and yet takes joy in her (in this case) playful magic. These performances did raise the level of this play to something quite worth the enterprise.

However, the set design failed to do much to support these admirable performances. Based on Fred M. Wilcox's Forbidden Planet, this "space age" retelling of The Tempest looked like a parody but felt sincere. The glossy plastic back drop of moons and Saturn (I think) was laughable and the swooshing sound effects that, one supposes, stand in for laser beams and energy fields were really unnecessary. The opening graphic sequence of flying through an asteroid belt really did not hit the right note - even though I'm sure there had been plenty of work gone into it.

Another less than accomplished aspect of the play was the comedy. The Tempest has lots of moments of hilarity and while the interactions between Trincolo, Stephano and Caliban (Jenny Collins (also playing Miranda), Mike Lockley and Ellie Trevitt) were suitably absurd, they lacked a clarity of execution that would have allowed them to really spark. They were a little messy and never really took off. There was also zero humanity in Caliban, which will always leave that character as nothing but savage.

It is potentially possible that since Derek Jarman made his film of The Tempest, there will never be a version to rival it. What Jarman so wonderfully captured was the sense of sexual threat, heartless imperialism of the domestic space and casual hatred that many of the characters have for each other. Of course this production is making no attempt to supplant Jarman's The Tempest, but to understand the subtle menace that is subsumed within this play is to bring it to a more nuanced and detailed level.

While this performance has many elements that are excellently well put together, it never coheres well enough to hold together. Neither parody nor homage, it sits awkwardly between good performances and ill conceived design.

- James Grogan

It is a pleasure to see a confident and uncomplicated portrayal of timeless stories. This fine performance by the Con Ghiaccio ensemble was an unhurried and engagingly playful examination of some select tales of the Brother's Grimm. It was a reminder that if performers genuinely enjoy what they are doing and engage with it confidently and unfussily then you are always going to hit close to a great performance. The set design was simply a bed sheet (tea stained) that served as a rock, a bearskin coat and, well, a bed sheet. That simple versatility was useful and well observed.

Versatile, too, were the actors. Working at times as an ensemble and at times as solo characters, they were all switched on constantly and reacted well to the offers of those around them. While there was never any moments of great comedy, they were certainly entertaining, in particular the portrayals of the evil mother and kind father of Hansel and Gretel and the devil. There were some knowingly bawdy moments, notably between the Woodcutter and Little Red Cap, but it was all in good taste and appropriate for a young audience. There were some moments when the performers were close to being upstaged by a gregarious toddler in the front row, but that spoke more to her performer's sentiments than theirs.

There were moments when the images could have been allowed longer to form and settle before moving on. Indeed there were a few moments of unclear movement - most apparently in a scene with no speech - which was a shame and led to a few dropped moments. One or two performers were a little uncertain about the timings of lines and did not attack the action with confidence. The Hans and Gretel stories which were inserted between the other tales did get a little tiresome (despite having a decent punch line each time) and this was also a shame.

Having said that, on the whole this was an excellent performance allowing these mostly fine actors space to enjoy themselves. Clearly the whole company believes in what they were doing (some laughs were noted from the technicians box, which is always a good sign) and they make the most of keeping it simple.

- James Grogan

There is a trick to genre satires - like the wonderful 39 Steps in the West End - it generally involves making sure that there is a punch line at the end of every set-piece, playing on people's preconceptions of a form, including some contemporary jokes and generally moving things along at a breakneck pace. This performance made a good attempt at many of these criteria, but failed to pull it all together coherently enough for true success.

The chosen genre was children's crime adventure - specifically the Famous Five - and there were quite a few well-wrought jokes. Signs that turn from "Monster" to "Solomon's Temple" by moving some ivy, a man saying "Is that a bat?" while walking through a cave and then taking out his cricket bat. They are worthwhile jokes, but they were not given the space to breath. We rushed from one image to the next without lingering on the punch line. There is a difference with performing with energy and losing the point of a scene in noise and ill-conceived movements.

There were moments of textual hilarity and several pleasingly absurdist passages (to do with ketchup mainly) but usually they had little to do with the actual thing that was happening on stage, or in the narrative. The frenetic movements often hid a lack of precision in the enactment - essential for these jokes to land.

Some of the performances were well executed - notably by Steph Green as George, whose clarity of physicality served to highlight the messiness elsewhere. She also had a good sense of facial character that helps to lend her performance with some more detailed comedy. However, on the whole the timings were a little woolly and at times seemingly crucial lines were fluffed or mumbled. This situation was not helped by some lighting and sound cues that were all over the place - which at one point did seem to make the performers corpse and left us all wondering when the show had actually ended.

The script - by company member Ian Moore - had some decent jokes in it, but required us to have seen the past two shows (which happened at Buxton 08 and Buxton 07 - which I did not see) and did not find enough in the textual humour that would make the show interesting for parents and children. Also, some of the jokes were crude sexual humour (some of it mildly homophobic) that really was not appropriate for a young audience - there is a significant difference between clever double-entendres for the parents, and simply peddling crass sex jokes. Thankfully they did not come into the action too often.

Overall, the show made a good stab at living up to the best of the genre it was in, but fell short ultimately because it did not give itself space to let the jokes live and keep the performances crisp and to the point.

- James Grogan

Shifting from absurdist word play to fantasy characters sprinkling in some contemporary political references and having a coherent point to it all - this performance has all the constituent parts of a great show. So why is it that I couldn't sign up to what it offered? And why were there so few laughs in a decent sized audience? It is the late night slot - 11pm to midnight. Not so much the graveyard shift, more the headline act - a slot where people are ready for a big finish, rounding off a good festivalling day. So I have to imagine that it was not circumstance that hamstrung the humour.

The story, at its best, was a sort of Under Milk Wood (and that is not praise I give lightly) for Manchester in a consumerist age. I wish to avoid assigning such definite meaning to the metamorphasising story, but each character some how purchased and consumed - drugs, shampoo, bear, coffee - and so it is hard not to see this as some sort of obtuse societal satire. Certainly there were enough references to Boris Johnson to at least have a frisson of commentary. I do feel that to insult Boris in front of a theatre audience is like insulting George W Bush at a Democratic convention - just a little too easy.

There was much about this I really liked. Hinton has a great way with his limbs and hands, creating shifting and morphing physicalities at ease. His vocal work is accomplished and he does clearly enjoy his performances - that is important indeed. There was, however, a level of awareness about his jokes, a certain knowingness that he was being ridiculous and funny that made them hard to take. He willed us to laugh and so much less we did for it.

He jumps from image to image and does a good job at evoking the different spaces - indeed the different realities that his different characters exist in. All the protagonists are men, all have different circumstances that remove them from a normative reality - psychosis, drug induced (or at least drug supported) fantasy, visions of fathers interrupting physical intimacy. I will choose to believe that the self-aware depiction of women as highly sexualised objects of corrupting or corrupted fantasy is a satire on male views of women. There's no need for political correctness, but there is a level of humanity that one has to hope for.

It is very hard to judge this show as one feels that it is all intentional and have their place - the self-harm being done to Hurt (the Johnny Cash version), the self-aware performances, the slightly clunky philosophising bits ("The truth is..."). I respect a performer with the vision to present a show that will alienate traditionalists and potentially offend those not willing to go along with the absurdist humour. Still, it just did not sweep me along in the insanity - and that is exactly what it could have done.

- James Grogan

One takes solace in the knowledge that no matter how awful a production of any Shakespeare play is, especially a tragedy, one can fine refuge in the words. The Word of the Bard is sometimes unnecessarily treated like a rare and delicate orchid that much be preserved at all costs, paying with its worldly existence if need be. Shakespeare is performance text, whatever literature departments may (or, thankfully, may not) claim. That allows a performance maker to explore its potential to be changed.

And thus is this performance redeemed. There is some experimentation (and lots of editing, the text being reduced to a solid 50 minutes) and some very interesting structural ideas within this performance. There is a bed dominating the space in which Othello slumbers (or dozes, or lays) for the vast majority of the play. Desdemona joins him for some time. Iago hovers over him for some moments. Othello says nothing throughout and barely moves. Iago is constantly present, forever watching over the proceedings. These are good ideas - not mind-blowingly life changing, but perfectly valid experiments on a play much seen - presumably the good work of director Joshua Pink.

In some ways, though, these innovations become the play's greatest faults. The bed makes any movement next to impossible. The play have a great sense of stillness to it. It hovers above sleep, much like Othello in the middle of it all. Iago moves from one devious intention to the next, presents one face to one person and morphs in no time at all - well, he does in the text but not in the performance. He is stilled. There is little or no sense of rhythm or variance in pace. It is very structural but the structures allowing it to flow not.

One feels the meditative qualities could be an attempt, an admirable one, to present a subtle and understated rendition of a play, which could descend into melodrama without too much effort. Still, standing still and saying the words clearly makes Shakespeare a literary event once again when many indications suggested this could truly be Shakespeare as a performance event. Alas, the movement was not allow to move and when there were moments of kinetic action, they seemed awkward and unsupported by character. So at times we might have been seeing Carry On Othello. This is a pity as there were some exciting and potentially captivating ideas.

Still, the show has a life in Edinburgh and perhaps in another space, with more time to settle into its skin and more adventurous and brave characterisations might it spin in to life. Let's hope.

- James Grogan

This is Comedy Trio, the alter egos of Three's Company, at their very best. Revelling in puns, textual and visual humour, mixing realities and playing with overlapping storylines. This sold-out show was perfectly pitched in a late-evening slot, combining satisfying laughs and audience participation. That last quality, getting audiences involved, is fraught with dangers, usually resulting in bad comedy and uncomfortably audiences. Here it was wonderfully drawn out by the Trio - Jazz Carter, John Grimshaw and Martin Brady-Small - taking us through our paces and not demanding more than we were willing to offer.

There is a very particular characteristic about being "resident" at a venue during a festival in which there is a constant stream of audiences for different performances, many of whom stay for some time afterwards to digest the shows they have seen - you hear opinions from people you might never have otherwise engaged with. Some times, inevitably, these opinions contrast with your own. Such was the case here. One audience member, a festival regular, claimed that it was no more than your regular festival offering - cheap jokes and easy laughs. I do not think this is true - the textual and visual jokes were more of an effort than you might expect, but very much worth it. The subtleties of the jokes happening meant that many were hidden, giving more satisfaction in their discovery.

For the show to hit the heights it is capable of it probably will need to become more technologically advanced. The premise is that the Trio are doing a live radio drama for Radio 4 and things start going wrong. Having real-time interactions with the "studio" and hearing the performers as if through a studio sound system would help to secure the illusion - although they must have been doing pretty well as the volunteer performer believed it was for real apparently. Good for her, I say. It must also be said that the accents did go astray now and then, though this was made in to a decent joke at one point.

Still, it's a real shame this show is not going to Edinburgh and I have no doubt that it will have a life beyond the Buxton Fringe. I certainly hope so.

- James Grogan

There is a problem with comedies that take a dark turn. They are often unsupported at the crucial member and need strong performances throughout to keep them afloat. So while this well wrought script, with some moments of belly laugh brilliance, made a good attempt at examining some interesting ideas, it failed at the crucial moments to sparkle.

Examining what happens when an outsider infiltrates a stable setup, Butter Side Up introduces us to a guest house with its own problems. In some ways this play is about a few too many things. Parents giving up children; English reluctance to talking about personal "issues"; love after breakups, grief for loved ones passed. Still, I applaud a brave work that expands in themes and goes to places others may avoid.

While Bryony Harding and Sorrel Thomas both gave strong performances which kept their characters to-the-point without overly simplifying them. Elsewhere there was a lack of exactitude in the performances that did not allow them to be realised fully. One does have to wonder though: what is the limit of what a character can do? Characters often feel constricted by actors (never the other way around, oddly). The scope and breadth of what someone can do is immense. Here it is limited.

Still, the ideas about a "truth teller" entering a space where people do not so much lie as not identify the problems around them is an interesting one. The idea that when a crisis strikes people start revealing themselves and getting beyond the restrictions of "normal" social interactions is an interesting one. I am not convinced that such ideas are enough to support the whole enterprise. Some refining of the script so that it does not explain itself would be useful. Still, an admirable work with admirable ambitions.

- James Grogan

Good storytelling gives space for uncertainty and disunity. A sense that there is no one clear story that is being told. Stolen Voices, at its best, does just that. This simple and uncluttered performance, a one-woman show, is gently elaborated by Neyire Ashworth. It is an autobiographical piece, but focuses as much on the other figures in her life as on her own life. Never hurried, Stolen Voices offers a small encounter with figures and stories from Turkey and Turkish people living in Britain.

We see glimpses of the past, of a people. The performer interacts with her clarinet, speaking and playing intermittently, making the instrument an extension of her voice. It creates a sort of echo of the stories we are hearing, the voices we encounter. Morphing from one character to the next, Ashworth clearly examines each player in her life, drawing them out with generosity. "I don't know the answers", she says, "but I think it is worth asking the questions" - a fine sentiment indeed. And this is, thankfully, a performance that does not provide too many answers at all, rather allowing the questions to hang over us.

There are moments when perhaps too much is explained, pointed out to us, and these moments would be best left silent. Is there, perhaps, a little too much of the political context, not allowing the personal stories to stand out? Only a touch if at all. Movement wise the performance was not as strong as in the vocal or textual areas, Ashworth lacking a little confidence perhaps to claim the physicality of the piece in the way she can clearly claim the musicality of it. As a professional clarinettist, this is hardly surprising, but more work needs to be done to address the balance.

This show does remind me of Veronica Needa's performance, Face. This also uses curious storytelling techniques to examine ideas about identity and a culturally awkward position between sometimes contradictory backgrounds. Both performance raise interesting questions for audiences of all cultures.

Perhaps my only major criticism is of this show is the title. "Stolen Voices" seems so very emotive and exploiting a simple, eye-catching claim on political justice. This performance is so much more than that - if anything it allows those voices to be heard, gives them space to speak and be celebrated. It eschews political simplicity for cultural complexity and deserves a stronger and more honest title.

Still, it is a fine performance and deserves much more attention. I hope that the half-empty venue is not repeated elsewhere on this show's journey through Edinburgh and at the Arcola as part of Grimeborn 2009.

A good start, then, to the observatory's stay at the Buxton Fringe. We are mainly resident in Underground Venues, and will be reviewing from here for the next week or so. Many of these shows will be in Edinburgh, so for a preview of some of the best (we hope) Fringe shows, keep watching.

- James Grogan

On occasions one does come across a company who would seem to be on the cusp of mainstream success doing something a little different. Slung Low are surely one such company. Winners of the Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust award - which bagged them a slot in The Pit at the Barbican around this time last year with Helium - Slung Low will be back at the Barbican in the Autumn season of BITE09. This performance does bode well for them - it is compelling and innovative while still accessible. While it is far from perfect, this is a different type of theatrical experience and one that seems to advance the site-specific centric innovations in contemporary British theatre.

They claim to be driven by "the intention to use all the technology and resources available to a 21st Century artist to achieve that oldest of artistic aims: to tell a good story". You cannot claim that they do not fulfil either element of this goal, but you do feel there are improvements to be made.

We enter the auditorium of the Almeida Theatre. We are asked if we have a preference. We sit in one of three designated areas, where there are headphones waiting for us. A rather chipper usher named Jeff introduced himself and got us up to speed with the health and safety of the event. We then sit through by far the least interesting element of the evening. They explain every thing at the beginning far too thoroughly. Some rather amateurish graphics (which do not seem to be processing fast enough on the flat screen TVs) roll over while we are very condescendingly introduced to the concept and told not to disrupt the story. There does need, I feel, to be some element of communal trust that we all want the story to succeed and I resented being told to behave myself. I also felt it was unnecessary to be told when the other groups left "This is not your story, wait here and your story will start soon". There are surely more interesting and structural ways to encourage this.

Anyhow, Lolita Chakrabarti in her self-composed monologue held our attention admirably, though it was a slightly breathless performance, and the writing a little expositional and heavy handed. I should at this point make it clear that I saw only one of three stories - Joy - rather than Reason Season Life Time or The Great Bear so some of my observations may be particular to the story I ended up following.

Work like this is not unique. Parrot {in the} Tank, a wonderful young company who may well be in the position Slung Low are in at the moment, held Excursions at the Roundhouse as part of The Accidental Festival 2009. That performance brought you around the central hub of the Roundhouse with a really fun and insightful play on what is happening in front of you and what is happening on the camcorder you are carrying around. That show, while short, played with the form of live and recorded performance in a much more exciting way.

Still, it does have a powerful effect. I was once privileged to attend a silent walk through southeast London. It was fascinatingly powerful to meditate on the city in silence, as a group, seeing things you would normally overlook. It was a three-hour walk that left me feeling invigorated and excited about an area I had found alienating and unpleasant. This performance, at its best, did just that. It also had the added joy of not always knowing what was real and what now (the golden apple core, yes, that must have been part of the performance; the boys on bikes, yes, them too; the couple making out beside our performer, probably part of the performance, but I'm not sure; the girl having a smoke in the park, probably not; the three cans of Stella in the park, maybe; the surprised woman in the Church, I really don't know).

Most of the time it was not so much that we saw the city differently but rather that the city saw us differently. My personal favourite moment was when the Chakrabarti was outside a restaurant with big glass windows. We, across the street, looked and listened intently. Everyone in the restaurant did too. It was a real moment of connection through the glass.

I do feel, though, that these events need to be more poetry than prose. To create a true experience we need to be uncertain of what we are seeing, not always process the symbolism, sometimes fail to understand. The story was incredibly textual and the other sonic and visual elements did support it but did not stand alone. I was not always convinced that the headphones were essential or made us listen differently.

Still, this was a little gem of a performance. Not fully subscribed, which is a real shame, there was a sense of a small community being formed for a short while. We never spoke to one another (the headphones saw to that) but we were connected by a shared experience, and that really does get to the heart of performance.

If you can, get to it tomorrow (12th of July) for performances at 4 and 6pm. Otherwise, watch out for Slung Low in the Autumn at the Barbican. They are definitely worth the look.

- James Grogan

Dalston is a funny place. One of my favourite funny places in London. Home to London'sTurkish community (the best kebabs, humus and falafel this side of Tel Aviv - Israelis rivalling the Turkish in snacks wrapped in pita bread). It is also the home of jazz in London with the very pleasant Vortex Jazz Club, outside of which the Barbican had organised Dancing in the Square. Never have I seen such a large multi-ethnic crowd enjoying contemporary dance in public. On a rainy Saturday. As I left - I had a show to see, after all - the giant headed puppets were just getting started up. Sorry I missed it, really. Only in Dalston. This is London at its grimy, culturally rich, urban sprawling, strong community best. I love it.

The Arcola is a large part of that community. Often putting on plays that would not get a showing elsewhere, supporting young actors - and many old ones - this is very much off West End, and all the better for it.

Dr. Korczak's Example (by David Greig, in a production by Tangram Theatre) is the sort of performance that I should hate. It is earnestly political, educationally historical and aimed at a younger (middle teen) audience. And yet it was a revelation. In a terribly empty Studio 1, with a decidedly old audience - I do believe I was the youngest audience member and I am hardly an example of vernal poultry - this play hosted a trio of wonderful actors, a strong script and an economic and well-used stage design.

The play presents some impossible paradoxes - how to maintain compassion, joy and justice in the savagery of the Warsaw Ghetto? How to raise children in a society put into insane circumstances of war and the vicious execution of power? These are questions for us all, and there are no easy answers provided here.

The performances, by Philip Rham (as Dr. Korczak himself), Amaka Okafor (his assistant of sorts, Stephanie) and Craig Vye (as wild child of the Warsaw Ghetto, Adzio), were all very strong. At their best they demonstrated a great enjoyment in the action, offering it as a sort of gift to one another and to their audience. They were fully committed to their task and appeared to be truly earnest in their message. You could see a belief in the whole enterprise. They worked together selflessly and willed each other to succeed. They did.

The play had the good sense to recognise its basis in a lie. "We're going to lie", Vye points out. Later, Rham sensibly claims that "If you tell it exactly, you tell a lie". They give themselves license to invent, to create characters, while cleaving to a truth without forcing it to be the truth. Along with all the morally awkward situations we are presented with, this is perhaps the most valuable lesson. Before the start of the play we were welcomed to the studio by the actors, advised where we would get the best view, asked to add our shoes to the prop ones on the stage. It all set us up to be part of the events, the discussion, without forced "participation".

Design wise, Miriam Nabarro's set was very versatile, very well thought through. It weighed heavily in symbolism (sun flowers, old fashioned suit cases, used shoes) which we might be a little overly familiar with from Holocaust films and plays of the past. But thankfully these symbols were not overly laboured in the play and so gave us the space to make the connections. There was good use of synecdoche, again, leaving us a bit of work to do. Richard Owen's lighting design used virtually no coloured gels at all and the different shades and warmth of different white light was effective and evocative which remaining subtle. The sound design by Gerry Marsden was solid and effective, perhaps not reaching the artistry of the other design elements.

The only criticism I can make is that some of the moments of heightened emotion were not supported sufficiently. This is a sacrifice of theatre that accepts and highlights the simulation it is creating. You may not appreciate such a thing in theatre, but you cannot deny that this performance achieves exactly what it sets out to do.

Until 18th July. www.arcolatheatre.com. Box Office: 020 7503 1646

- James Grogan

For a performance to break new ground, seemingly, is admirable. For it to do so not very well is a real shame. It must be said, though, that this is what Rough Cuts is for and the Royal Court should be applauded for it, even if it produces work that one hopes is not the future of theatre. Here is a show - The Spiral - that really wears its politics on its sleeve. And then proceed to push that sleeve in your face so you can smell every last particle of politics there is in it. Such a thing generally makes me come out in a rash, but at least this performance knew what it was doing and did it very comprehensively.

A new work by Michael Bhim, and directed by Dominic Cooke (the thankfully hands on but a little unguided artistic director of the old building), this play presents what feels like scripted verbatim realism. It is taken from interviews. This is a shame. I would have greater respect for this endeavour if it had been the creation of the playwright. Be that as it may, it was a well crafted, multi-voiced performance that did something slightly novel with verbatim. It worked best when characters were speaking over each other, a sort of multi-layered verbal score where the individual words were not entirely audible. It did not work when there were set piece conflicts and clear moments of "real" interaction. At least it was a reading that did not require the actors to sit on plastic chairs for an hour, but gave them the freedom to walk around and knock into each other. It was the true version of the staged reading.

It does, however, lack some artistry - although, given that the circumstance is a debate on Islam in Britain, you can forgive some (but only some) of the expositional text. It did, thankfully, have the good sense to undermine statistics with comedy. Inevitably there are some false starts. Some characters are drawn in heavy lines. In plays like this the only response to "That's not what that character would say" is "It's not a character, it's a real person". Theatre is not about taking the conconsidered statements people makes and putting them on stage. Show we characters you have created. Be an artist and not an editor. Mind you, as usual for a piece of verbatim, this play could have benfitted from some stronger editied ("hey, we have a lot in common" is the awful lesson for the day thrown at us in the end.) It also could have had a good ten minutes lobbed off the end.

At least it had a strong vision of the many voices of Muslim Britain and did not feel it had to hold itself together with a narrative or dramaturgical coherence. So, while this is a form of theatre I really do not enjoy (with some exceptions), I applaud its strong rendition.

Behind the Image by Alia Bano and directed by Nina Raine, unfortunately, failed to provide so strong a follow up. Set up like a conversation, this play also claimed to represent the differening sides of being a Muslim in Britain, specifically a female Muslim. It had a decidedly liberal viewpoint (you know, just for once it would be interesting to have a verbatim piece of theatre where the implied politics of the maker was slightly different to the political correct orthodoxy...it all seems so limited in scope on the political spectrum and given the fact that most of the audience read the Guardian anyway, do we really need to hear the same sermon again? I'd rather stick to the newspaper myself). Anyway. This conversation was one of those in which everyone is waiting for their turn to speak rather than actually listening to one another, which would have seemed a much more compassionate approach. I hate conversations like that in life and seeing it on stage did not do much for my opinion of them.

Unlike The Spiral, here we did see some attempts at cloaking the political affiliations in some unsubtle ways. But as we went through discussion about identity, alcohol, arranged marraiges and head scarfs (all examining the place of women in Islam and Muslim women in Britain) it was pretty clear where the playwright stood (with us, holding a copy of the Guardian). One of the characters at one point says "Let me explain", which is what the playwright wanted to do - and succeeded in doing - throughout.

I will point out fine performances from Loo Brealey and Naomi Bentley who really captured a playfulness and enjoyment which brought the text alive. They were excellent and Brealey especially is one to look out for.

That does point to something about this play - it could be pretty good. It needs to cut out the exposition, stop being so earnestly political, and find a way of staging the event that brings these words to life. In fairness, a staged reading is not the best platform for this work. It would work better probably off stage altogether, as a documentary perhaps.

Am I simply going to have to accept verbatim for the beast that it is? I only hope more people remember, as DV8 did with To Be Straight With You, that even when you are dealing with words from "real" people, that does not stop you being an artist.

- James Grogan.

 

Some performances need to be performances. This performance needed to be a lecture. Held in 1980. So painfully old fashioned (and yet so clearly yearning to be "cutting edge"), this deep well of pretension may be a misunderstood piece of satire. If that is the case, it was entirely lost in the rendition. Everything is a symbol for Dylan Tighe, the director. This might be vaguely interesting except that it is all flagged, pointed out to us again and again. Tighe makes himself a presence at the edges of this interminable play, appearing as a meta-theatrical figure to quote Roland Barthes (and himself) or make some pseudo-profound statement about myths or the nature of "drama", whatever that is. This director-ex-machina inclusion is both pretentious and unnecessary - an unforgivable combination in performance.

What frustrates so terribly is how textual it all is. It is not text used as evocation of something beyond the word itself, rather it reduces words to mere signifiers dispossessed of any greater meaning. Which is exactly what this show was trying to do. And, it must be said, it achieved its goals of exploring structure and symbols, but revealed that that exploration is, essentially, nonsense.

Barthes has some very stimulating things to say about myths and language, about symbols and cultural codes. The fact is he said it in Mythologies and said it better than this performance ever could. If one wanted to find out about Barthes ideas one would be better set to read his writings rather than engage with these banal reflections on how we look at performance.

That goal, to make the audience re-view theatre and performance, has been done, better and more intelligently, by Brecht and many others, generations ago. I do not think that people see theatre in the way Tighe imagines they do. Brecht was pushing against a theatrical context that valued melodrama and stock characters and could (attempt to) demonstrate that this influenced the way we saw people in society. We are not in such a context anymore. We possess a more critical view of cultural representations and a nuanced understanding of how normative behaviours are passed to us (well, I hope we do). And so to challenge the way people look at theatre is not an action worth taking. To undermine how people see - anything, everything - is perhaps worth the effort, but this work never ventures into this more subtle and tricky waters..

The single saving grace of it all was the performance by the children. They were the only people doing things without making it seem as though they believed they were doing something profound.

Tighe claims that drama is created in structure. It would appear he spent 76 minutes proving it is not. Performance should create and present experiences and if he had moved on in his critical thinking for beginners book from deconstructionism to phenomenology, he might have been on to something. At the minute this feels like student performance (no offence to students) in the sense that it has identifiable themes that can be discussed in essays and assessed in end-of-term performances. This is not what performance for audiences is about.

There is, for all the bile I generated during the course of this performance, the core of a good piece of work. Take out all text that can be understood, take out the heavy handed symbolism of flags and dolls and hobby horses and gun shots, use the gauze in front of the stage properly, enjoy the jokes that are there, stop thinking that you are saying something profound and, as always, hire a dramaturg. This show does provoke and I would not be surprised if the negative reactions they have been getting is not in some way pleasing, but the reaction is not because we fail to understand some underlying profundity, but rather because we understand all too easily that there is little more here than could be found in another form, said better.

- James Grogan

The observatory at National Art Service will be perusing and reviewing the good, bad and mildly amusing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009. If you would like us to review your show, please do get in touch. We are interested in anything performative - straight plays, dance, performance art, caberet, flash mobs and opera. And anything else you can think to review. We'll be up at least for the first two weeks of August. Get your requests into james.grogan@nationalartservice.org.uk by the start of the festival and we'll see what we can do.

Also, check out our preview reviews at the Buxton Fringe Festival as we (and the theatre companies) gear up for Edinburgh 2009.

Best,

James Grogan.

Sorry that this has been posted so long after the show took place. This is due, as usual, to a combination of communication issues and technological issues. Alas, we do what we can...

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Feels like the time for a good romp on the Southbank, on a sticky mid-summer's night. Indeed, as summer peaks in late June humidity, we are reminded The Globe has opened its doors, nearly two months ago, once again for Shakespeare in the open-air. Drawn into the vacuous centre of London's tourist fare, we find Shakespeare the way many believe it should be - without much of an angle or message, a production that centres The Word Of The Bard in all its bawdy glory. As midnight draws near London's Southbank, the bleary drunks and forlorn tourists potter about their journeys to temporary homes. The city itself felt drunk. Yet, here we are, theatre-goers all, sober mostly.

Standing still for prolonged periods is used as an effective form of torture. Indeed, one is held in tension between competing forces - sore feet, aching back, worry that you are blocking the view of those behind you, being entertained, enjoying the novelty of it. Luckily, despite the best efforts of my back and the general irritant that is late night London, The Globe still manages to charm and subdue. It is intensely romantic to attend late night, open-air comedic Shakespeare, even when one joins the groundlings alone.

The show? As You Like It. Romping nonsense and a little artful philosophy. The Globe - here led in a production by Thea Sharrock - does always do a good job at both drawing out the text (so that it might be followed even when it feels interminable) and the spaces in between - amply demonstrated here with songs, wrestling, the scaling of walls and actors mingling amongst the groundlings. Of course it is here in the audience where the best of the performance happens - whether it's a character speaking from the audience, or to the audience, or indeed a fawning (or quarrelling) couple a few paces ahead. Of course there are also those who have learned passages by rote and start reciting "All the world's a stage..." before trailing off in scholastic remembrance. At one point towards the end a rather enigmatic and striking looking man who appeared in front of me and stood for a good 30 minutes suddenly revealed himself (in rather shimmering and flamboyant gold hot pants and see-through golden gauze) to be a character.

As for performances, they were generally excellent - or at least they excellently achieved what they set out to, which appears to be to wring every joke from the text. Of particular note for the extremity of his mania was Dominic Rowan as Touchstone. He never failed to energise the stage with his ridiculousness and sharp wits. Laura Rogers as Celia had a particularly modern way of moving which was somehow very unsettling in period costume and received pronunciation. Still, it does make for some very comic set-pieces. Of hollower note, Brendan Hughes as Duke Frederick used his voice in such a clearly trained way, his Bs and Ps becoming so plosive as to lend an air of Blackadder-like lispishness, which did not sit well at all with his supposedly ruthless character (though perhaps this was some attempt to justify the outrageous conversion and reformation after meeting a "religious man" in the forest right at the end, a handy tying up the last remaining tricky storyline). Jack Laskey was a fine Orlando and joined well by Naomi Frederick as Rosalind. It is also worth noting that at 2.30am the actors were as spritely and energised as they had been from the beginning (indeed, some more so), which is an achievement in itself. They really did seem to be having a lot of fun.

And a lot of fun it was. You could see Shakespeare jumping from edifying speeches about the nature of love, the nature of women, the nature of men, the nature of nature, but he would consistently undermine any casual philosophising with slapstic. I did feel there was an area the production could have asked more probing questions - the constantly shifting gender of Rosalind, how different men and women fall in love with different men and women, offers some interesting areas for exploration. And in one moment, when Orlando kisses Rosalind (who at this time was a man), you feel something somewhat different might be achieved. Alas, it lasts some three seconds before the carpet is pulled from under it and the theatre descends, once again, to laughter. It would be a mistake to turn a comedy into a meditation on gender and homosexual love, but still some questions must be asked.

All in all it was a romping comedy that hit all the right buttons and created more than a small feeling of magic in the late night romance of the famous theatre. It will not change your life, but the novelty of the situation, the laughs and the general release of nonsense probably makes it worth it.

And then all in a sudden we were jettisoned onto the desolate Southbank. Only off-duty bar staff and those unwilling to accept the night was over were left. And The Globe crowd. No matter the experience within the hallowed round, it could not avoid the debris - including bottles launched from London bridge to shatter on the cobbles around me below - of a London Saturday night.

- James Grogan

Surely there must be something in a performance that is beyond words. The presence of the ineffable is what demands something be performed rather than written on a piece of paper and handed out before the audience take their seats (though many directors fall foul of that temptation). Thus is mused over a sweet pint of larger in a Tottenham Court Road pub, some hour or so after Rashomon at RADA, part of their director showcase. If only the practice lived up to the theory.

As a director showcase, one must place responsibility for a show's success (or otherwise) on the shoulders of the director. While they may be working with a limited cast, budget and equipment, it is they alone who made the choices they made given the circumstances they were under. If you have 20 minutes to make a performance, you do what you can with that time, and if you do it well it will be recognised. There are no excuses, only reasons.

Anyhow, with that in mind....The play examines an event - involving rape and murder in a Japanese forest - told from four different characters' view points. It is a re-working of a Kurosawa film, generally considered a masterpiece. There are inevitably questions about the validity of each telling, reflections on the nature of truth and what can be believed about things that happen and of those who make them happen. By being involved in an event, one is cleaved to a certain subjectivity that will render any re-telling an inherent lie. There is no absolute truth. Thus ends the philosophising. No further questions are probed and it would appear that no more detailed questions were probed in the process by which it got to this performance.

One element that left a particular sour taste was the portrayal of the female character. She appeared in the first three tellings as a hysterical creature, shifting wildly from intense sexual desire (despite having been raped only moments previously) to screaming and flailing about without any anchor in an honest character development. She is a function of a male re-telling. I can accept that this is perhaps a comment on that re-telling and I applaud any performance that provokes a reflection in the audience of how a particular person is portrayed. But I suspect that, in fact, this is a reiteration of a very old fashioned way of viewing female sexuality and a woman's place within a male society. The performance pushed all of the emotion outward, and contained none of it within. If the shrillness could have been turned to steeliness one feels that that same character, with the same words emerging from her mouth, could have been a strongly and honestly rendered woman.

In the final telling, in which we are led to believe that perhaps the characters are behaving how they actually did, the woman is still a caricature of herself - a sort of Eastenders-style "angry female lover" that one can imagine seeing outside that same pub earlier mentioned later on in the night shouting at a brutish boyfriend. It is not good enough to make this your definitive version of a strong woman.

There was little or no sense of variation in the pacing or tone throughout. The clearly noted jokes within the play are not drawn out or utilised. The lack of reaction may have had something to do with a small (less than half full) audience - a shame as in a different atmosphere this performance might have sparkled a lot more. The (male) director, Minjae Kang, does show some initiative in using the space interestingly, making use of a sense of height and making the most of a theatre-in-the-round formation of the GBS Theatre downstairs at RADA. What he has failed to do is to develop a real sense of who these characters are or to develop more seeking questions raised by this play. One does sense the lack of a dramaturg in the process, someone to ask the most difficult but important question: why?

Still, there is no doubt that these showcases are useful vehicles for exploring what it is like for these directors to enter full professional practice. However, it has demonstrated a failing that many in professional practice also fall victim to: it never sought to explore ideas that cannot be put into words. Perhaps we all could have saved the effort and read a synopsis instead.

- James Grogan

The Royal Court flaunts much its legacy as London's premier venue for new writing. While the Court may not be able to reach the vaunted heights of yesteryear it does continually try to capture the spirit of the times. Why is it that one feels as though they are always looking at a space where something just was, but has left only a moment ago. As when you enter a room that has just been left, there is a trace of life in the works the Court showcases, but never in their full flush of vitality. Still, works in progress are incredible at helping a playwright to learn what is wrong with a show. Thus, no doubt Mike Bartlett (here both director and playwright) will be happy of having the opportunity. The staged reading, as part of the Rough Cuts programme at the Royal Court, was well acted and entertaining, but never got away from the sense that the script has a long way to go.

The acting really was excellent - quite a thrillingly refreshing change from the usual stock of under-rehearsed and ill thought-through characterisations that readings feature. Of particular note was Owen Teale as Philip. Teale commanded the space from the moment he entered, and even when sitting in neutral drew the eye to him. The wonderfully named Lex Shrapnel as David was also compelling and portrayed the uncouth casual arrogance of his "I work in the City" character. Myanna Buring as Steph and Sian Brooke as Jules are solid and more than adequate, with Brooke especially showing a lot of promise, though they never really rival their male colleagues.

So, the play follows a series of familiar (but supposedly current) themes - the dark-side of the information age (where an anonymous Big Brother system is following your every move); some nods to Kafka in the middle section of the play; and finally an uncertainty of who is what and who is telling the truth. It sort of goes from 1984 to The Trial to A Beautiful Mind. There are some moments of exposition that are not necessary. At other times the script remains satisfyingly elusive and it is in these moments, where one is really not sure which twist it is taking, that the play is at its best.

The undisputed highlight of the evening had to be the musicians, performing live on stage, expertly led by Nick Gill on saw - an instrument which is, in itself, worthy of note. There is something intensely enrapturing about a cello (Nina Plapp) and a double bass (Ben Summers) playing side-by-side. Their evocative resonance drawing us into a spirit, a sense of something beyond the mere words. The shriller violin (Rhiannon Armstrong) does serve well to offset the deep drill of the larger instruments. The haunting whine of the saw tempered what might otherwise have been a relatively recognisable musical quartet. There was a suggestion, not fully fleshed out, that the instruments represented the characters that sat in front of them. If this was the case then the playwright has (at this moment in his career) more to offer as a director than a wordsmith. Indeed, one must imagine that the aforementioned quality of the acting is in many ways down to good preparation and guidance from the writer-director.

Arguably a great ending to a play or film is one that is unpredictable but (retrospectively) inevitable. This play covered the former but not the later. Perhaps the pieces were there, but there was not that question-mark placed early enough for things to add up at the end. That wouldn't bother me if the play avoided locking in its meaning so clearly, but it does. What it does do, however, is pose an interesting question: Are we who we think we are, or what people say we are? But in this case, the question is answered and a little too easily.
There is a core of a good play here. It is sufficiently entertaining to begin with to flush us through to the end. Indeed, the moments of comedy hold a lot stronger than the moments of (supposed) tragedy. But then, that's hardly a unique turn of events, is it?

There was no time for feedback, which is a blessing for the audience as those sessions are inevitably inane and tiresome, but one does hope that Bartlett will be supported in this project. It would be worth it. Ruth Little introduced the performances (see Article 19, below) and her good work and support of new writing is to be commended.

As for The Royal Court...well, one feels they are still not hitting the holy grail of in-the-moment-cultural-movement. I don't think that they will. Whatever that movement is, it probably does not belong to a playwright slugging away in studio sessions and showing new-writing works in progress. Oh well.

===

Article 19, by Anthony Neilson.

This short piece, one of four written in response to Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that which refers to freedom of expression, was neither offensive or inspiring. Neither acted nor danced, it hung as an un-fleshed out idea. What can one do in 10 minutes? Well, more than this. Two characters, one male, one female. The woman (Ruth Lass) is distressed. The man (Justin Shevlin) appears concerned. He holds up signs saying things such as "Why are you angry?" and "You can stop this". They turn to watch the audience. Cue nervous and self-aware twittering from the audience. They continue to look at us, as people, not characters. Eventually, in a clearly staged moment, someone tells them to "Get the fuck off the stage" and they do. Cue more laughter and applause. It was well performed, Ruth Lass particularly did much with her limited pallet of expression. The idea was just a little lazy though. A shame.

- James Grogan