An ambitious project and also a very interesting one. Bypass is the culmination oif a new-writing experiment by Hung Theatre. Eight young and up-coming writers had been tasked with writing a short 10 minute play after having been given the word 'Bypass' and the stimulus..."The home you were raised in is being concreted over. Any parting words?" Armed with just this sentence and word, these playwrights went to work and came back with 8 very different plays.
And so, in just under 2 hours, these 8 plays were performed (with a short interval in the middle!), in the side room of Twenty Twenty-Two, Manchester, a completely new venue for me. It is a long and narrow performance space with only one entrance to the stage. Very minimal, and basic, with a rather derelict and dilapidated air to it. Perhaps, you might think, ideal, for a set of plays about the bulldozing of one's own family home.
The prodcution team was large. 9 actors / actresses were cast across the 8 plays, with 4 directors taking two plays each. Quite an extraordinary undertaking for a Fringe production.
The acting was of a high standard across the board as well as some very sensitive directing. The strongest and most impactful piece for me was easily the opening piece. This was also one of the strongest pieces of writing too. Death Sentence by Lewis Woodward saw two estate agents lose it after finding out a house they were pitching had been given a CPO to make way for a new bypass. Their central punk-rock-infused smashing session gave way to a surprising and well-measured end. Superbly acted by Adam Cryne and Alexi Papadopolous, and directed by Tom Durrant.
Nothing that came after ever quite managed to find the same strength and impetus as this, which was a real shame. The only other play which, for me at least, came close, was Anchorage by Cat Sharples. This was a monologue, performed with skill by Elinor Dixon. The pace was perfect and Dixon gave a hugely sympathetic performance of a young lady 'lost at sea'.
The other 6 plays were all interesting and were performed with real conviction. I have to admit though that I had varying amounts of difficulty in understanding a couple of them, and a couple more had the strangest of endings that made me wonder whether or not I had correctly understood what had gone before. And it wasn't just me who felt this either. Chatting to other audience members afterwards, it appeared I was not alone in this thinking. Perhaps this was due to my not hearing some of the dialogue - especially from Alexandra O'Neill who appeared in two of the plays and her voice was too quiet for me. Another contributory factor could well have been that the premise of these shorts had not been made clear and so it took too long for me to work out who the people were and what their connection between each other was.
In conclusion - a very mixed bag of diverse and interesting pieces of theatre. A noteworthy experiment and sensibly put together.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 31/7/19
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