‘Port’ by Simon Stephens first premiered at The Royal Exchange in 2002. It is set entirely in Stephens’s hometown of Stockport which is also the location of NK Theatre Arts Forum Theatre, who produced and performed this version.
The play's protagonist is Rachel Keats who we first see as a ten year old in the car outside their flats on ‘Lancy Hill’ with her Mum and younger brother Billy, it is the early hours of the morning and they have taken refuge as their father has “kicked off”. Throughout the course of the play we skip through some of the defining moments in Rachel’s life taking us all the way from 1988 to 2002. NK Theatre Arts chose to set these scenes in different areas of their large auditorium with some on the raised proscenium arch stage and some at floor level. Significant props were suspended from the rigging on wires which was a nice idea and worked well for the most part with the exception of the scenes in the car when their ‘Magic Tree’ air freshener cast a shadow on the actor's face and distracted from their dialogue. Had the tree been just inches higher it would have had the desired effect without the problematic shadow. I don’t really understand why this was not picked up in the technical rehearsal.
The scene changes were fairly slick for the most part and the company worked well to execute these. News clips and music from the era were shown whilst these took place which gave us some context and conveyed the moving of time nicely. Some scenes were oddly placed though with the scene between Rachel and her husband being placed extremely close to the audience and the scene with her other love interest Danny being placed on the stage completely in profile which alienated us from the intimacy of what should be a very poignant moment in her life.
Sadly there was no programme to reference specific actors and so I will have to mention them as the characters they play. It was a young cast who mainly take part in the productions as a hobby and as such it is reviewed accordingly. The actress playing Rachel Keats had a very natural quality to her performance and was clearly working hard to connect with her fellow scene partners. It is not an easy role to play as there as so many demands, the developing age of the character, her conflicted nature and complex objectives but she did very well. Her energy wasn’t always matched but this did not impact her performance at any time.
The actor playing her brother had some nuances which worked well and showed some depth of characterisation but at times fell in to generalisation rather than really understanding the subtext of the piece. Again, he worked hard to convey the varying ages of the role but I feel a little more observation would help him portray his role more truthfully instead of conveying a stereotypical representation of a child.
There were some lovely moments of connection between Danny and Rachel, and Rachel and Kevin, though there was some deviations from the text at times which would probably not have been picked up by someone who didn’t know the text and didn’t massively impact the scene but for me did affect the pace and flow. Given that this was a youth theatre production I actually felt overall it was pretty well done and that some of the young people displayed a huge amount of potential as actors should they wish to pursue it beyond being a hobby.
Reviewer - Stacey Young
on -21/11/18
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