Sunday 22 November 2020

THEATRE REVIEW: Poltergeist - The Southwark Playhouse, London.


Throughout Lockdown #1, Tramp Theatre Company, in association with The Southwark Playhouse premiered a whole series of World Premiere Monologues online penned by Philip Ridley. His play, 'The Beast Of Blue Yonder' was stopped in its tracks sadly due to the government restrictions and closing of theatres back in March. We may not have seen that particular world premiere just yet, but Ridley has definitely not been idle, writing a full length monologue to be performed live on stage at the Southwark Playhouse. Once again though a second lockdown hit, and once again, performances were cancelled or postponed and once again the theatres who had taken away their ghost light found that all too soon they were putting it back on their stages again. Did this deter Ridley and Tramp? Of course not! The show went ahead in any case, the only difference being that it was live-streamed to our computer screens instead of having a physical audience. 

'Poltergeist' (another World Premiere) is a frenetic rollercoaster of a monologue, in pure Ridley style, delivered with speed, split-second timing, skill and passion by a young actor who deserves laudation beyond the usual for this performance. Acting ability aside, to be able to hold a virtual audience's attention for such a long time and then to acknowledge their silent applause (I clapped long and hard on his bow) walking off into the empty backstage from an empty and silent auditorium was heartbreaking but hugely commendable. 

The story tells itself; he, Sasha, narrates his own story, whilst punctuating it with all the other characters that fill his narrative, changing from one to the other sometimes with just a subtle move of the head, other times with a vocal change, or small but significant body language change. Sasha is an artist; or should we say, was. He was a prodigy, a genius, street art and pop art being his genre. This however, is the story of how he faded from the top of the pile, of his family, and how his family have treated him, and continue to do so. It's meticulously written with one small crescendo after another leading ultimately to the molto sforzando fortissimo towards the end of the piece. His life, it is fair to say, has been ruined, and he is angry.. and that pent up anger just has to explode eventually.

He, and his partner, Chet drive to his neice's birthday party. Sasha is high on painkillers - he relies on them these days to get by... All is false smiles and politeness, but with pure Ridely twists, the inner monologue of Sasha is spoken alongside and it is darkly humorous, sardonic in its intent and placing. 

Sasha is played by Joseph Potter, who with direction by Wiebke Green, has created a character which will live long in my memory; a damaged, passionate, creative, loving, caring, artsitic, needy, honest, resentful young man, whose family and friends - as portrayed by him - are clearly defined, each one given their own special twist; all culminating in a denouement which is incredibly moving, heartwrenchingly real. I don't use this word often or lightly, but Potter gave a truly 'tour-de-force' performance.

With this play being performed on a real stage, I had thought perhaps that there would be some semblance of set, or changes with lighting etc to denote different times, places, spaces etc.... but it was all black and bare. However, in retrospect I believe this worked in the piece's favour. An intimate piece such as this needed only one focus, and the camera gave us that; anything more would have dissipated his performance, and that would have been a shame. 

An amazing piece of writing given the ultimate treatment by a talented actor and a sympathetic director. 

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 20/11/20

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