A cast of 12 aspiring actors and actresses currently attending the Arden Theatre School's Theatre And Performance degree course had devised an hour-long homage to an influential and busy decade, the 1970s.
Starting with a funeral.... we mourned and celebrated the life and legacy of the 1970s. This hour was a tongue-in-cheek, comedic, but nostalgic look back at some of the best, and worst, that decade offered.
The production took the form of small vignettes or sketches which ended as it began, a funeral.... only this time it was for the 1980s and left the group scope to do a second act in similar vein for that decade. We learned that the 1970s heralded the start of the now famous Glastonbury Festival, it was the decade of The Berlin Wall, Thatcher, the romance between Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles, The Miners'strikes, our fascination with the moon, etc, but some of the things mentioned in this production were not true to the decade, such as the Gay Rights Act (1967), the first lunar landing (1969), AIDS crisis (1980s), and Chernobyl (1986). So perhaps it was a feeling of the era rather than being truly specific to ten years. The music was accurate, as was the zeitgeist.
Directed by Lauren Greer, not only the stage, but parts of the auditorium were used too, although perhaps throwing a weighted packet of cigarettes from one end to the other was not a particularly good idea, especially when the actress concerned had to come out of character to tell audience members to be careful as she was about to throw it over their heads!
Audibility was an issue sadly in the sections of letter writing, since these were done with the actresses backs to the audience with no vocal compensation made.
An interesting, if not wholly satisfying, look back at a decade that I and other audience members remember. I wonder how much of what was performed this afternoon though will be familiar and understandable to the performers' peers.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 3.5.24
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