I’d never had the pleasure of this amazing theatre space in a Victorian Mill and what a treat it was! A beautiful, industrial building converted into a bare concrete-floored theatre. Seating was intimate with the performers on a open stage using minimal cloths and set for the whole play with the furniture for the different scenes which the cast rearranged as necessary: bed, chaise, desk and chairs.
Again, not familiar with this play I was mesmerised with the text. A tango of four characters’ relationships intertwining across a few years examining the nature of truth and love. Alice meets Dan when she walks in front of a taxi he’s travelling in, they couple, and her colourful life before their meeting makes her his muse for his book. Photographer Anna meets Dan at a photo shoot for the book where Dan makes moves on Anna. Alice is suspicious. The plot moves on deftly and at a pace. The scene where Dan is online pretending to be a sexually thirsty female called Anna and hooks in the lustful fake doctor arranging to meet 'Dr Larry’ was tremendously funny. Cyber space and the nature of online dating and meeting people who can pretend to be someone else was truly exploited using a projection of their online messenger conversations. Unbeknownst to Dr Larry, he’s been set up to meet Anna; object of Dan’s out of bounds desire at the aquarium where they actually do connect and so begins their relationship.
The remaining scenes traverse through the nature of duplicity and deceit and what truth is and isn’t in the game of love. One of my favourite lines was Anna’s when she said to Dan, ‘for goodness sake be bigger than being jealous’ to negate her sleeping with her almost ex husband, Larry. This reversal of blame and what is and isn’t ok and acceptable in modern relationships really resonated. Marber’s text although first performed in the 1990s, before a 2004 movie version, uses early technology including the huge desktop computers and dial-up internet which has evolved into what we now take for the norm as social code for relationships and connecting with other human beings.
Amazing performances from the ensemble of four. Alice (Nicole Evans) the young, damaged , primitive as she’s referred to by Anna - is such a beautiful character to watch. She is like a beautiful, languid painting with an open face which tugged at your heart when she realised Dan had made advances on Anna in the early scenes. As we watched her character move on, we could see she hadn’t moved on very much at all and was still a damaged, fragile flower. Her lap dancing scene was evocative and left me feeling chilled at the vacuous nature of the sex industry where she had changed her name to plain Jane hiding behind a futuristic wig and closing down to protect herself from feeling anything after being abandoned by Dan for Anna. A performance of stature and grace and very memorable.
Dan (Darren John Langford) perhaps had the biggest journey to travel, an unsuccessful obituary writer who meets a beguiling young woman who changes his mind. He has his head turned by Anna who he believes he should be with as Alice is just a child but ultimately he loses both Anna and Alice perhaps as a comeuppance for wanting and believing he was entitled to so much and being selfish and ruthless with the women he was with. Alice tells him that no-one will love him like she does and he complacently tells her he knows. A performance by an experienced actor who showed a massive range of emotions from his boyish flattery at the beginning to his jealousy towards Anna and his violence towards Alice as she tells him she no longer loves him. You could see Dan shrink as the light on his eyes faced with disbelief at what he’d had and lost. A lovely performance. The crisp eating, online chatting scene with Dr Larry as he was pretending to be a horny, lustful female whilst sat in his dressing gown, munching away had me in stitches.
Justine Elizabeth Bailey’s Anna was a contrast to Alice as she seemed that little bit more mature and worldly wise and sure of who she was which sucked Dan in to begin with. Later, as she cheats on her husband Larry with Dan we see her cowardice as she struggles to tell Larry she’s leaving him. When she appraised Larry’s sexual prowess at the end of act one as they end their relationship you could hear a pin drop. It had echoes for anyone who’d experienced marital strife the malice and vitriol that spews from people who once loved each other. Justine was very watchable and looked suitably uncomfortable when caught out with her dalliances with both Dan and Larry. I particularly enjoyed her scene with Alice when she photographs her uncomfortably knowing that Dan has just propositioned her and Alice knew showing her lack of respect.
The familiar face of Oliver Mellor (Coronation Street) playing Dr Larry was the "eye candy" for the evening. He sashayed through his scene with suave sophistication, movie star looks and a voice which would make chocolate melt and his character made me think of many men who get by on good looks but are morally bankrupt. Dr Larry enters into a relationship with Anna where both are singles and marry and are seemingly ‘happy’ whatever that might mean but he confesses to sleeping with a prostitute on a business trip to NY. He wasn’t completely green though as he smelt his wife’s indiscretions. His angry yelling at the end of Act 1 really showed a range of inner turmoil of ‘Pleases, whys, wheres and whens?‘ before raging at losing his prized possession. When he later meets Alice as a lap dancer in a London club he demands answers from her which are really his own unanswered questions. He pays for sex with her as a revenge to later tell Anna. All just a little too little a little too late. An enigmatic performance.
The play left me quite emotionally spent as I felt exhausted and exasperated with the sadness of the relationships and the unnecessary outcomes. All end up with nothing when all Alice wanted was someone to love her. A beautiful play, beautifully performed in a beautiful space.
Reviewer - Kathryn Gorton
on - 16/4/19
No comments:
Post a Comment