This Sunday afternoon brought us the second weekly instalment of The Breakfast Club's #WeeklyWatch from Up ‘Ere Productions, a group Zoom call in which actors perform a script live with us as the silent spectators. This week was bigger and better than the first as it brought us two plays instead of one.
The first was titled ‘Chekhov’s Gun’. Chekhov was a Russian playwright, having famously written The Cherry Orchard and The Seagull, among others. The term Chekhov’s Gun is a dramatic principle which states that every element within a story must be necessary. The leading example, and where the phrase found its name, is never to show a loaded gun in the first act if you are not going to fire it by the end of the final act. The playwright, Anghus Houvouras, found humour in a dark subject matter here, using the play’s title as the opening gag. The play’s opening lines immediately introduced guns into the narrative that the characters intended to use. By Chekhov’s principle then, these must be fired before the play’s conclusion.
A wonderfully witty, poignant and amusing play from Houvouras; set in America in which two characters arrive separately, both intending to ‘shoot up a school’ for varying political and religious reasons. A third character is introduced soon after, along with a third gun, ready to shoot herself in the classroom to evoke guilt from her classmates for criticising her work. This play is written with humour at its surface and poignancy at its depths, reminding me a little of the television series ‘Inside No.9’.
The three performers here brought the script to life. Matthew Heywood, Alan Lewis and Olivia Rose Smith all played incredibly believable characters; not an easy feat via Zoom, I am sure. Their American accents were all very well honed and the chemistry between the three of them gripped me from the outset. All in all, an amazing 20 minute piece of theatre that I would love to see expanded into a full length production.
The second and final short play came from playwright Jim Spencer Broadbent, titled ‘Where The Time Went'. From the outset the audience are given a high stakes opening, with two strangers on top of a skyscraper-like building in the early morning, talking of jumping. Not only are these characters strangers to one another, but Broadbent also ensures they are strangers to us, naming them ‘one’ and ‘two’. Broadbent juxtaposes the high stakes setting with trivial small talk, evoking humour from an otherwise harrowing situation.
Again the two actors here, Ian Kay and Harry Burke, created great chemistry on screen, despite never physically being able to interact with one another. Similar to the first play, these are characters that would never normally meet if it weren’t for the given circumstances, making the narrative all the more interesting. One line within the play summed this meeting up perfectly; ‘like speed-dating on a rooftop’. Running for 30 minutes, this piece also has scope for being expanded into a full length performance.
The two directors from the first weekly watch this time swapped places, with Jordi Williams as the director of both pieces and John O’Neill as the assistant director. Zoom is a new medium of theatre, not yet fully explored, but both directors seem at ease with this new challenge, directing the pieces smoothly.
When will you get another chance to watch new, live theatre straight from your home? Next Sunday for the next #WeeklyWatch, that’s when. And similar to last week, all money raised from the pay-what-you-can ticket sales goes straight towards keeping theatre alive.
Reviewer - Megan Relph
on - 31/5/20
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