The second year acting students of Arden Theatre School presented a double bill of complementary one act plays this afternoon in their home theatre within the bowels of Manchester's City College.
The afternoon started with 'DNA', written by Dennis Kelly and tells the story of a group of teenagers, whilst messing about in the woods, accidentally cause one of their group to fall into a ravine and die. The moral dilemma that ensues is a little contrived but very interesting and as they hatch a 'fail-safe' plan to cover their tracks and lead the police down a false trail to a made-up perpetrator, their group resolve cracks and two distinct camps are formed. It is only when the presumed dead classmate surfaces some moths later that they need to find an alternative solution...! If I am honest then I found the ending of this play a little unsatisfying, but that is a comment on the writing not on the directing or acting.
The directing and acting (as well as an evocative and nicely designed set and lighting plot) were first class. I would not be lying if I were to say that this is by far the most mature, most visceral, and most disciplined piece of theatre I have seen from The Arden students in a very long time, and I truly enjoyed watching these consummate performances. Perhaps because the actors portraying these characters were quite close to their playing ages, and were therefore able to bring more of their own experience and characters to the table than when being tasked to play adult roles, whilst the narrative and premise obviously gripped the cast just as much as it gripped me.
My only, and I mean my only negative comment, on this piece is that when Adam finally does make an appearance, he was positioned too far downstage, thus being blocked from sight by majority of the audience.
Following this and we were transported to the world of 'Lord Of The Flies' in an all-female version interpreted and rewitten by director James Mair, called, 'The Island'.
The narrative and the premise here are much weaker, and I left the theatre with far too many questions to unanswered questions about this piece. The acting from the ensemble cast was sincere and completely focussed, but I was not able to "buy-into" this story in the same way as with DNA.
The play started with pre-recorded speeches from the world wars and although it was obvious what this was representing, it did seem a little like buttering the bread on both sides. The lighting and effects in this play were not as successful either; seemingly too much emphasis was being placed on 'effect' and 'look' rather than letting the story tell itself. The performances were all truthful and en pointe, but they were working with a much weaker script and more arty direction, with too much girly screaming and screeching, making it rather predictable dynamically too.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 21.3.24
on - 21.3.24
No comments:
Post a Comment