Saturday 14 August 2021

THEATRE REVIEW: Anna X - The Lowry Theatre, Salford.


Daniel Raggett brilliantly brought to life Joseph Charlton’s exploration of Anna X. at the Lowry Theatre, Salford for one week only. Raggett worked with a brilliant creative team to put this modern masterpiece on stage. 

Sitting in the Lyric theatre, I wondered how two actors could fill this amount of space and would they keep an audience of this size engaged throughout a 95 minute performance with no interval. However, Netflix’s The Crown's, Emma Corrin and BBCs Informer, Nabhaan Rizwan proved me perfectly wrong until the very last second.

When interviewed, director Daniel Raggett, mentioned that both Ariel and Anna, are “in the ascendancy, driven by a shared aspiration to join the elite world of celebrity, money and power that we’re all accustomed to leering at on our phones”. This comes across from the first moments we meet these characters on stage. The backdrop projects their conversation as the music is blasting in the club. The audience can barely hear the actors talking and so are reliant on the projections on stage. Paired beautifully with Raggett's crisp direction, Mikaela Liakata and Tal Yarden’s set and video designs make the show. They are incredible and the detail phenomenal. 'Anna X' wouldn’t be what it is, without them. Video projections transform each of the scenes throughout, moving from New York skylines, to grungy back alleyways, woodland parks to fast-moving glass elevators! The details on set were incredible using only 5 boxes in a cluster along the left side of the stage, a smaller box central, and one singular rectangular box on the right hand side of the stand. Each of these boxes had a purpose. They were decorated visually with Jeff Koons's balloon art and beautiful aquariums throughout, all giving the audience the visual details to buy-into a scene without the busy-ness of a set change. These projections together with Mike Winship's adrenaline-filled sound, kept the illusion of an elite side of life I’ll probably never know and that to me is intriguing. Nearing the end when Corrin and Rizwan are sat having their final conversation I found it beautifully pleasing that the sound was stripped away from this almighty production. It felt like both characters were lost in a vulnerability that the audience could sense and I absolutely loved it. 

From their initial conversation we see Ariel and Anna have a connection; they discuss financial prospects, drugs and New York cliches. Corrin and Rizwan make you want to be a part of Ariel and Anna’s elite world, they make doing drugs and sitting in dingy back allies cool. Anna (Corrin) projects a calm, controlled, fierce woman playing a con-trick on the predictable (Rizwan) Ariel who is a lovable and gullible tech designer who had a slight midlife crisis at 30, which thrust him into an aristocracy of wealth. Throughout the play these interpretations of each character only become stronger and stronger until eventually Corrin's portrayal of Anna is giving me Jodie Comers - Villanelle vibes and Rizwan's Ariel is breaking my heart. Now it is something to note that Ariel isn’t always the naïve, sensitive man that he has been made out to be, he is intrepid, hilariously funny and has a tenacity for life! It’s a beautiful partnership between both characters, especially nearing the end when we see Anna’s vulnerability or what the audience is believed to be vulnerability. Corrin's off-stage live-recording of her standing alone after being caught out, left my mind curious as to whether the character was unremorseful or whether she was genuinely petrified about what was to come.

Altogether the projection, sound and lighting experience throughout this production really cemented the modern love story that was being told, however I found myself interested in the story but not invested. I was interested in the characters' lives but not invested and at times this felt like Charlton’s intentions.

The performance ended and I turned to my friend and couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t realised how fast the time would go in this 95 minutes love story, and it then made a lot of sense to not have an interval when your performance is that well paced thoughtout. A break in the script would have lost the emotions and tension that had been built up throughout!  

Reviewer - Caroline Bleakley
on - 12.8.21


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