If there was ever a time I wished I was <25 years of age again, it was last night! The Young Everyman Playhouse is a fantastic initiative with an excellent theatre company.
‘Crowd’ was the title of the piece, dealing with difficult themes and ‘imagines where things can end up if not checked or thought out’. I’m lucky enough to work with young Liverpudlian actors every day, so know just how passionate they are to put the world to rights and present the vox pop! These young people came true to form and presented an impassioned and impressive performance. I believe it was preview evening, and that the Press Night will actually be tomorrow – you couldn’t tell! The show was slick, polished, and seemed like it was at the end of a run not the beginning.
With a strong Brechtian feel, this production was challenging, alienating and managed to force the audience to think critically upon the ‘morally deficient and dangerously efficient’. We saw the paradigm of theatre deconstructed with effective use of breaking the forth wall, and a wonderful splicing of non-naturalism with really powerful cathartic moments. Directed by Nicole Behan, Matt Rutter and Chris Tomlinson, there was a serious amount of diversity and craft on show.
The acting presented was superb across the piece, and I felt like I was in the audience of a Third Year Degree Show. I loved the miscellany of performers and styles on offer and felt in the presence of some future luminaries of the stage. The cast was huge and not even the full extent of the company I believe; it would be impossible to mention them all but there were some outstanding characterisation and stage dexterity that I must.
Aimee Marnell in the role of the mother was stunning. An old student of mine, she handled the complexity of her role with ease, and had an incredible presence and skill. Her, like the rest of her on-stage family, employed a superb level of maturity with the sensitive subject matter of population control - I loved the rapport created on stage and this extension of praise must reach to Will Flush in the role of the father who was excellent alongside their two children, Joe Owens and Laura Tyra.
The play was framed with a trio of narrators who acted as the audience surrogates, as well as the purveyors of didactic thought. They spoke in verse with some excellently written urban poetry, and their characterisation was vivid and remarkable. I must make personal reference to Niamh McCarthy who was confident, accomplished and stimulating.
Interwoven between each episode was the work of the Radio Presenters played by Phil Rayner and Jack Molloy. They were funny, confident, charismatic and would be extremely well placed on the circuit in a few years! This stuff usually becomes quickly cringeworthy, but I loved it all… Also on the mic was Leo Bertamini playing the role of the Dictator… Here we had evidence of excellent acting with powerful and commanding characterisation.
The performance also saw some softer portrayal of character with the forbidden love affair of two men played by Luke Logan and Joe Edwards. This pairing was fantastic and created comedy, chemistry and anguish.
The production also hosted effective technical theatre and though there were some minor glitches with the microphones at one point, the LXF/DFS/SFX was effective and suitable to the style. That should be extended to set designers who created effective scenography that allowed for this large cast to excel.
My only negative criticism is blighted by my biggest praise which relates to the size of the cast. It’s always very difficult to devise with a huge cast and a lot of the episodes, though suitable to the form of the production, became a little piecemeal with about 3 shows' worth of narrative going on. That said, I still loved the work going on here and understand that there wasn’t a single performer on that stage that was out of place or undeserving of their time on there.
Reviewer - Nick Hill
on - 27/2/19
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