While still a relatively young production company, Salford Community Theatre’s second play (following their 2016 debut production of Love on the Dole), The Salford Docker, revives a style of theatre which came to prominence in the UK in the late 1960s through into the 1970s – that of the political-documentary play (such as Peter Flannery’s 'Our Friends In The North', David Edgar’s 'Maydays', and Howard Brenton and David Hare’s 'Brassneck'). The Salford Docker’s title is perhaps somewhat of a misnomer – this play is really focused on the Salford Dock itself and charts events in the Ordsall area of Salford from the 1950s in its first half before jumping to the late 1960s and 1970s as the more modern ‘containerised’ approached to shipping heralds the beginning of the end of dock work for the community of Ordsall.
The production’s sense of dramatic scale is brought to life by adopting a ‘promenade’ staging technique, whereby the audience is encouraged to move around as the action unfolds within the space, allowing for them to feel part of the action (particularly in the scenes set at union and political meetings). In the centre of the performance area was scaffolding which had been erected to symbolise the dock area and acted as a dividing line for the two acts of the play (each act was performed on either side of the scaffold). In the first act, photographs from 1950s Salford were projected onto sheets hung around the scaffold, showing the Hippodrome cinema and scenes from pubs (which really were the heart of the community back then, in a tradition which soap operas tightly cling onto today). At the back of the performance area was a table which symbolised a radio production office which provided the framing device for the play: in an office at Media City in 2019 – the site of the old docks – Anna wants to create a ‘radio ballad’ about the docks and her family who worked there for so many years. As Anna explains to her producer, a radio ballad is a radio play which uses songs and the actual voices of working people (‘actualities’), rather than actors, to tell a story about their community. Examples of actualities are read out by cast members as though they are in the radio studio in-between scene changes and are verbatim transcripts, complete with repetition and unfinished sentences. Behind the ‘radio studio’ was a projection screen which showed the year in which each scene was set. While not quite a full-on example of Brecht’s Epic Theatre, the theatrical style of The Salford Docker did use songs and a wide-ranging timeframe to tell its story and highlight its themes of the impact of change and gentrification upon the local community.
The play’s first half covers events from 1950 to 1951 and focuses primarily on the Ryan family: brothers John and Patrick and their daughters Clara (Anna’s grandmother) and Eleanor. Clara became engaged to local lad and dockworker Jack Burns but when the Foreman ordered John and Patrick to work overtime on a ship they hadn’t worked before on the eve of the wedding, they refused in accordance with union rules and were promptly dismissed from work. This then led to a strike on the docks which lasted two months and began to affect the fragile marriage of Clara and Jack, who even before the strike was struggling to be picked for jobs on the dock. Clara’s cousin Eleanor, meanwhile, rebelled against her family and strook up a friendship with Ayush, whose father sold hemp cigarettes from his café. The second act of the play moved the story on to 1968 and Clara has remarried in the intervening years to Tony Roberts and now has three children: Michael, who worked on the docks with Tony, scholarly Steven (Clara’s father), and the rebellious (‘just like your Aunt Eleanor’) Angie. As the community of Ordsall was hit by slum clearances, the old community of the 1950s became fragmented and another strike broke out in 1972 – this time in support of dockers in London who took a stand against the Conservative government’s introduction of The Employment Relations Act a year earlier.
Given its wide-ranging storyline, there was a large cast to match. The cast members who played more prominent roles in the first half took on supporting roles in the second half and vice versa. Notable performers in the first half include Kate Palmer and Paige Steers as Clara and Eleanor, Ashlee Cox, who brings a ‘northern matriarch’ approach to Eleanor’s mother, Rose Hardy who doubles up as neighbour Mrs Arkwright and the Foreman at the docks (and makes them very different). Zac Peach, meanwhile, acquitted himself admirably as he played multiple roles and made each character visibly different from the last. Ross Cathcart, too, did well as union boss George Norman and gave stirring speeches which would encourage anyone to revolt against the injustice meted out to the Ryan brothers. In its second half, Peach was given the central role of Tony Roberts and again delivered a strong performance. Tom Long was also superb as Michael, given more room to shine after being given the comic relief character of Eric in the first half. Beth Redmond brought a witty performance to schoolgirl Debra, a friend of Angie. The best performance of the evening, however, was that of the technical crew and credit must be given to production manager Samantha Lewis for keeping this epic story rolling along.
The play was well directed by Steph Green and Sarah Weston (especially given the epic scope of its narrative and cast) and Weston, as writer, has done an incredible job researching and writing The Salford Docker. It was encouraging to see theatre of this style brought back to life – political, community driven narratives are often interesting to watch and a lot of what is discussed within the play resonates today: lack of social housing in favour of private ownership, insecure work, community library closures. However, while the play has a long reach (and this is something which is to be commended), it exceeds its grasp and, at three hours length, feels a bit overlong. The second half, in particular, didn’t feel as tight at the first; the characters didn’t feel as well-written and its broader scope prevented the audience from feeling as much of a part of the community as the sharper focus of the first act did (although this may be intentional, given the themes of the play). The first half of the play felt like a complete play in itself and a couple of plot lines from that half were not carried over into the second act (for example, what happened to Eleanor? Did she maintain her friendship with Ayush?).
Overall, though, The Salford Docker is a fascinating and, in these fraught times, a vital piece of theatre. Its ambition is to be commended and, despite is length and less engaging second half, is highly recommended for daring to be bold in its storytelling and production. We need theatre like this now, more than ever.
Reviewer - Andrew Marsden
on - 8/7/19
No comments:
Post a Comment