It’s interesting that Spymonkey, the theatre company presenting this play, have chosen a revival of their 2001 show Cooped to mark their 20th anniversary.
As an internationally recognised physical theatre company, the ensemble cast and crew bring their collective creative expertise to the Liverpool Playhouse theatre in their second stop on a tour that will take them to Tampa, USA. First seen here in their alternative take on A Christmas Carol in 2018, the Liverpool Playhouse audience have taken to Spymonkey’s irreverent style of theatre and this production pushes the boundaries to the extreme. Perhaps that is why they have chosen Cooped to showcase their undoubted performance talent. As a theatre group Spymonkey are tight-knit and display an intuitive sense of timing as they interact with each other on stage. They feel like old friends to the packed audience, eager to please and prepared to do almost anything to poke fun at established theatre. Their humour is as much a reflection of the company’s own harmony as their physicality. They are confident in each other and they take full advantage of their understanding of each other’s strengths to exploit the endless improvisational opportunities this affords. It gives the show a feeling of a uniquely special shared experience like going to a pop concert.
The debonair Forbes Murdston (Toby Park) addresses the audience, with an immediately engaging style, to set the scene; explaining that Cooped represents what happens when a group of performers are cooped up together. The actors are set to perform a Gothic romance that is set in the isolated and creepy Murdston ancestral home. The play opens with a young woman, Laura du Lay (Petra Massey) dressed all in white stepping from a train. Laura has been engaged by Parchment (Aitor Basauri), the family solicitor, to assist with orphan and heir, Forbes Murdston’s research into his family tree. Immediately smitten by her employer Murdston, Laura removes her coat to reveal a toned body in a micro mini dress and is also romantically pursued by the rotund and equally smitten Parchment. The contrasts continued as Murdston displayed a Jekyll and Hyde split personality that threw besotted but uptight convent girl Laura into a series of dream sequences facilitating a series of absurd religious fantasy scenes not restricted to flying nuns and a most irreverent Mother Theresa. Thankfully audience participation was restricted to laughter and there was much of it as the unforgettable Aitor Basauri playing self-obsessed Spanish soap star Alfredo Gravés turned solicitor, Roger Parchment, struggled to not be upstaged by his ever-moving hair piece. The performing quartet was completed by a German butler Klaus (Stephan Kreiss) who launched a one-man hate campaign on a continually startled Parchment/Gravés who bravely gives as good as he gets. Kreiss deserves recognition for his facial expressions alone with the addition of his creaky door sound effects and his hilarious use of a vacuum cleaner hose (one of the few props) he delivered a thoroughly entertaining performance.
Cal McCrystal directs the piece with unashamed fun at its heart. The contrasts are extreme with never a dull moment as the audience tried to keep up with the absurd plot that was interspersed with ridiculous dream sequences and the liberal use of clowning, fart gags (Laura had a gastric problem) and full-frontal nudity. The meta-theatrical production strips actors bare ending the first half in a glorious naked dancing romp. This was all in the spirit of taking nothing, including themselves seriously, and revealing Laura’s alter ego, albeit in a dream. Massey’s performance was outstanding in her sheer physicality. Her routine as a prone Laura, stiff as a board, and the choreographed attempt by Park as Murdston to stand her upright was a highlight of the show. It also served to emphasise the contrast between her rigid upbringing and her dream sequences fantasies. Indeed, the play deconstructs the idea of a restrictive middle-class system with well-placed hunting, shooting and fishing references throughout. It’s a hugely talented cast that appear to love what they do there’s even a little bit of magic thrown in.
The production design by Lucy Bradridge served as an hilarious platform for the actors who walked up a small staircase that suddenly dropped to the ground and appeared outside what turned out to be a third-floor window. Add in some low-flying pheasants and a horse’s head and you have all the elements for a play that goes wrong. It’s organised chaos at its best and although dated at twenty years old the performance elements are updated to provide a fitting showcase for this company’s anniversary tour. It will be interesting to see the effect of this madcap show in the USA, renamed 'Hysteria' for an American audience.
Reviewer - Barbara Sherlock
on - 6/6/19
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