Pests – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 28/05/2014

Co-produced with Manchester Royal Exchange and London’s Royal Court, Pests is presented by Clean Break Theatre, whose work focuses on women writers and actors. Clean Break provide theatre opportunities to women both in and out of custody.

Vivienne Franzmann developed the play as a result of time spent working with women in prisons. She was deeply affected by the lives of the people she met and was moved to tell their story. Pests examines the damaged lives that emerge from childhood neglect and abuse through the eyes of two young women who are fighting to survive.

From the bag she carries we can see that a heavily pregnant Rolly has just been released from prison and she descends on her sister for a place to stay. Pink’s flat, in Joanna Scotcher’s design, resembles landfill nestling in a maze of plumbing. Grubby mattresses with their stuffing spilling out across the floor are strewn with the detritus of a disordered life – food cartons, bottles and cans and bits of leftover pizza. The walls have been pared away to a skeleton of plumbing and wiring.

As they describe it Rolly and Pink don’t live here, they nest, and there is something in the way they clamber about the disarray that transforms them into nesting rodents – suggestive of the pests of the title.

Rolly was fostered as a child while Pink remained in care, but despite this separation the siblings have remained interdependent. They have also developed their own language that is both aggressively defiant and strangely childlike. As well as the horrors of the past that haunt them are flashes of something that seem like happy childhood memories of the Wizard of Oz.

Whilst inside, Rolly has swapped her old drug addiction for a dependency on prescriptions meds and she has aspirations of finding “jobbage” and turning her life around. Pink, meanwhile, is still stuck in a cycle of abusive relationships and her own addiction. In her lucid moments she joins her sister in looking to a better future but withdrawal, alternating with chemically-induced oblivion, drag her back to darker places and threaten to take Rolly with her.

Fabiana Piccioli’s lighting, combined with video projections by Kim Beveridge and sound design from Emma Laxton, periodically immerse the set in a psychedelic haze that reflect Pink’s altered states of mind.

Ellie Kendrick and Sinéad Matthews as Rollie and Pink deliver a mesmerising double act. In the post-show discussion they spoke about the language of the play which they had to get to grips with in the early stages of rehearsal. There is certainly a distinct rhythm and poetry in the dialect that Franzmann has invented for her characters and once you get used to it (it takes a few minutes) it defines both their individuality and the bond between them. This is a very physical piece and apparently they have sensibly avoided scheduling more than one performance each day.

This sort of material running at 100 minutes with no interval sounds like a heavy evening, but with writing and performances like these it is compelling viewing and perfectly suited to the intimacy of the Studio space.

Last year, in Melody Loses her Mojo from 20 Stories High, we were introduced to some teenagers leaving care, one separated from her younger sister who found foster parents. We were left there with hopes that they would go on to find a happier life, while Pests shows us the fallout when young people don’t get the right kind of support and encouragement.
Clean Break use their work with those at risk of stumbling into a life of offending and dependency to help them build more positive futures. Anyone in need of convincing that society needs theatre should look at this and see just how powerful it can be.

Pests is at Liverpool Playhouse Studio till Saturday 31st May.

It will continue to The Drum, Plymouth 3rd to 7th June and Birmingham Rep 11th to 14th June.

For further details, see http://www.cleanbreak.org.uk

Catch 22 – Liverpool Playhouse – 27/05/2014

“Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for.”

Another great example, like 1984's room 101, of a novel from which the precept has transcended the work itself and even become part of our language.

Everybody knows a Catch 22 situation when they find one - I recall once trying to help someone get a Council Tax exemption on the grounds of severe mental impairment. The thing was that, at the time, if you were able to complete the form then you automatically disqualified yourself.

This is parallel to (if less life-threatening than) the situation that Bombardier John Yossarian finds himself in as he tries to get himself sent home before being ordered on yet another flight. Trouble is, if he has the presence of mind to ask for it he’s clearly quite sane, unlike the unhinged Colonel Cathcart, the neurotic Chaplain Tappman and the completely certifiable flight surgeon Doctor Daneeka.

Cathcart keeps increasing the number of flights each member of the squadron must undertake and Yossarian’s efforts to remain grounded become ever more desperate.

Joseph Heller adapted his novel for theatre in 1971, a decade after the book’s publication, but productions have been few and far between. While the difficulties of bringing the problematic timeline to the stage remain clear, this new production from Northern Stage makes a good fist of it. There are still difficulties in keeping a hold of the narrative threads, but characterful performances from a great cast and fast-paced direction from Rachel Chavkin do manage to hold us with them throughout – no mean feat, as the play runs for over three hours.

The cast of nine actors all play multiple roles with the exception of Philip Arditti, who is outstanding in the role of Yossarian. There are times when we think he may have lost his marbles but for the most part he appears the sanest of them all. With huge amounts of dialogue to deliver but the most continuous narrative line, he holds the show together.

Impossible to mention them all, but highlights of characterisation have to be Michael Hodgson as Cathcart, David Webber’s Major Major and Doc Daneeka and Geoff Arnold’s Chaplain. Daniel Ainsworth and Victoria Bewick also deliver some strong emotional scenes.

The timing is excellent and it needs to be; there are some comic exchanges that could almost come from Sgt. Bilko and even a couple of surreal dance episodes, all of which intercut seamlessly with the darker and more sinister material.

The set for the production is by Jon Bausor and lit by Charles Balfour. A cut open shell of a bomber aircraft appears almost to have crash-landed in the corrugated steel hangar that fills the stage and vegetation and debris sprout out from under its wings and fuselage. From a high viewpoint you see the scale and detail of the set, while from stalls level it becomes a more enclosed space. It affords a variety of performing levels, including a representation of a treetop eerie for Yossarian to perch and contemplate – and possibly cool off.

This is undeniably a very awkward work to dramatise, but Chavkin’s approach to Heller’s troublesome adaptation makes it work, and it proves to be both a thought provoking and entertaining evening.

Catch 22 from Northern Stage is at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 31st May.

The production continues touring via Southampton, Oxford and Derby, closing in Richmond on 28th June.

Catch 22 - Photo, Northern Stage

 

Vera Vera Vera – Lantern Theatre Liverpool – 24/05/2014

‘Bobby’s dead and you’re still breathing. That’s a fucking walking talking tragedy that is.’

Hayley Squires’ first play was written for the Royal Court (Jerwood Upstairs) and premiered in March 2012 as part of the Young Writers Festival.

Whilst the play focused topically on a family who had lost one of their number in the conflict in Afghanistan, the themes it explores could apply to the fallout from any war in any era. Although director Chantell Walker didn’t plan the performance for this reason, it sits well among the canon of work that is appearing in this WWI centenary year. In her programme note she says she fell in love with the piece for its true grit and honesty and for the pain and hope it displays.

Pain and hope are in abundance in the text, and in the truly gritty and honest delivery from her team of actors. The writing is uncompromising but above all it is believable and sharply observed and the young cast, drawn mostly from Liverpool John Moores University, have clearly got under the skin of their characters.

Bobby has been killed in war and brought home to be buried. The narrative switches back and forth between the immediate time of the funeral, set in the family home, and on a park bench some months later, which is where we begin.

Mother is an invisible presence who doesn’t attend the funeral – she can’t face it and is sedated upstairs - while Bobby’s brother and sister prepare themselves. Danny rebukes Emily for being over made-up and underdressed, but she just wanted to look right in case she gets interviewed by the press. Family rivalries emerge and we begin to learn of the jealousies and hatred that lie just beneath the surface. Bobby’s best friend Lee tries to pour oil on the waters but soon becomes embroiled in the argument.

Matt Tyler as Danny towers above the rest in stature and is a brooding presence on stage. This is the most one-dimensional character in the writing, having very little in the way of redeeming characteristics, but Tyler carries it off well. His sister Emily is a better written role, and Jade Thomson makes the most of the twists and turns, having us lose patience with her one moment and sympathise the next. Robert Moore is superb as Lee. Bobby’s mate wants to keep the peace on this of all days but he is angry too, and he won’t allow Danny to blacken his friend’s memory.

It is in the alternating scenes interwoven between all this that we find redemption in an unlikely place. Two of the most compelling performances in the production are from Cristina Carter as Charlie and Rory Kelly as Sam. Cristina is Bobby’s cousin and looks back on the day of the funeral in her mind as she revises Romeo and Juliet for an exam. She has unresolved questions about it all, including the absence of her aunt at the funeral and the upsetting things Bobby’s brother and sister have said. Her saviour comes in the shape of Sam, soon to be her boyfriend if they ever get around to it. She is terrified that he will get hurt in a fight, not realising at first that he is fighting for her honour – echoes of Sam’s description of the Romeo and Juliet plot, which he condenses with flair from the movie version. There are some really tender scenes on and around this park bench, which Carter and Kelly play rather beautifully. There might be some doubts remaining in her mind over her cousin’s bravery, but she has found her hero.

And who, I hear you cry, is Vera? The answer is in the songs from the forces’ sweetheart of an earlier war that link the scenes together.

Rough and Ready Theatre was formed earlier this year by a group of Liverpool JMU graduates. They have plans for their next work in the autumn and you can find them on Facebook: www.facebook.com/roughandreadytc and Twitter: @RoughandReadyTC 

Cover illustration from the Methuen play text for Vera Vera Vera

 

Scene Change – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 22/05/2014

Scene Change is a recent innovation from Young Everyman Playhouse Producers, in which the Studio offers a bi-monthly showcase for, in the words of the group’s web page, “...the very best of Liverpool’s freshest creative talent. From writers to artists, magicians to musicians - we’ve got every scene covered. Scene Change aims to raise awareness of Liverpool’s newest arts contributors, providing a platform for those just starting out and those developing an existing reputation”.

On this occasion an hour or so was filled by four segments; a piece for four actors followed by three solo performances.

Introduced as an acting masterclass, the Greg Bike Show brought us a comedy in which a father and son (Liam Hale and Dom Davies), sparring with each other in their championing of different acting techniques and abetted by two colleagues, demonstrate the principle with “Dead Dog on the Pavement”. Sharply witty and played with great timing, this was both well written and presented. Follow @GregBikeShow on twitter for details of them heading to Edinburgh Fringe. 

Second was a segment from stand-up comedian Mike Osbourne, who has a keen ear for word-play and irony. Comedy is a particularly subjective thing, but this brand of humour went down well with the audience and it certainly worked for me.

Next up was Lewis Bray. He is working on a full length play called Cartoonopolis that will be presented later in the year at the Studio. Here he gave us an scene from the piece, in which he plays various members of his family including himself. The play tells the true, touching and often funny story of his own brother and the cartoon world he inhabits within his imagination. Based on this extract, here will be one for the diary when it appears in full.

Finally came a dark, almost sinister short work by past YEP writer Sarah Tarbit, in which a wheelchair-bound man reflected on his life. It is sadly true that, faced with a person in a wheelchair, we often see a disability rather than an individual. Despite how far we have come, taboos still remain and many people fail to consider that someone with a physical disability has the same capacity for desires and frustrations as everyone else. This piece challenged that misconception head on and raised some uncomfortable but important questions. Daniel Murphy gave a poweful delivery and was directed by YEP young director Rio Matchet.

Scene Change is not widely publicised and its audience is largely made up of members of Young Everyman Playhouse, but tickets are available at a bargain price and a follow for @YoungEveryPlay on Twitter will keep you posted on upcoming dates.

Many thanks to the YEP members who kindly supplied me with the names of the artists involved!

Under Milk Wood – Liverpool Playhouse – 20/05/2014

Llareggub is the capital of dusk.

An eleven-strong cast make their way onto the dimly lit set where they all remain (apart from an interval) throughout the entirety of this new production by Clwyd Theatr Cymru, staged to celebrate Dylan Thomas’s centenary and the 60th anniversary of the work’s British premiere.

Thomas’s sleepy, fictional fishing village was named with a deft reversal of bugger-all, and this gives us more than a clue to what happens in the play. The comprehensive programme notes tell us that Thomas himself was “stumped by the lack of plot” but when the BBC commissioned him to complete the writing for radio they reassured him that they had no problem with that.

So a play with no narrative opens with two narrators, in an extended introduction to the location and its people. Before sunrise we are introduced to the villagers one by one as they reveal their dreaming thoughts to us. Once the sun is up they wake and play out the ordinariness of their daily lives, but the knowledge we have gained from their dreaming illuminates these episodes with additional depth of meaning, as we understand the innermost thoughts that mould and shape everything they do.

Experiencing this production is more like listening to music than watching a play, as the rhythm and colour of the words ebb and flow in the pastoral landscape. The cast not only each play multiple characters, but they also provide every other sound, from flocks of chickens and assorted other animals to the steam from a kettle, used by Willy Nilly the postman and his wife to open the mail, so that they can tell its recipients what’s inside.

Terry Hands makes a welcome return to Liverpool directing and lighting the production, and he maintains a smooth flow of syllable-perfect delivery from his team of vocally gymnastic actors. Owen Teale and Christian Patterson are the two voices that guide us from scene to scene. Other highlights are the many voices of Richard Elfyn, Sarah Harris-Davies as, among others, Rosie Probert, and Steven Meo’s mischievous milkman, postman and Organ Morgan to name but three.

Then there is Ifan Huw Dafydd, whose Captain Cat perches precariously in his rocking chair balanced high on a ledge, overlooking Martin Bainbridge’s set. An almost circular, raked platform has two curved ramps encircling it, the highest of which provides the captain’s vantage point. This enables the whole cast to remain visible on differing levels. Behind them is an upturned three dimensional representation of the village, whose cottages, terraces and fishing boats are reminiscent of the childlike sketched map that Thomas drew of Llareggub, but curled up into a circular form around which the sun slowly revolves as the dawn progresses through to dusk.

This production is a hugely affectionate and warm-hearted tribute to Dylan Thomas and it sings a love song to the land that inspired its writing. It has a dreamlike quality throughout to match its opening exposition and it is often coloured with a sharp and occasionally bawdy wit. An almost entirely Welsh cast (with just one adopted Welshman in a cover role) give an added authenticity to the music of the dialogue that rises and falls like the Welsh countryside.

This Dylan Thomas Centenary production of Under Milk Wood opened at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in February 2014 and has already played at ten other venues prior to this week’s visit to Liverpool Playhouse, where it runs until Saturday 24th May.
The tour then continues to Plymouth, Birmingham, Croyden, Cheltenham, Brighton and Richmond, where it closes on 12th July.
For more details go to http://undermilkwoodtour.com

Production photograph (c) Catherine Ashmore

Spring Awakening – Liverpool Playhouse – 13/05/2014

Following their success with last year’s adaptation of 1984, Headlong have been characteristically uncompromising in bringing another classic to the stage in a new version.

Here Anja Reiss has taken Frank Wedekind’s controversial and often problematic play and given it a 21st century makeover. In doing so she and director Ben Kidd prove that, while the world might look very different and we may use new tools to communicate, the problems of being human remain very much unchanged.

This has been a week of teenage angst for me. In the cinema on Sunday I saw the 1955 Rebel Without a Cause, and in that the filmmakers went easy on their audience by sticking to one or two aspects of the trouble with adolescence. Wedekind liked to provoke, and he seems to have gone for the jugular with a full catalogue of issues – little wonder that in 1906 it caused something of a stir in the theatre. Sexual awakening and exploration, pornography, masturbation, lust, parental abuse, rape, pregnancy, botched abortion, suicide and homosexuality, with a side order of religion and the supernatural thrown in for good measure.

Find a way of making that into an appealing evening of theatre…

Reiss and Kidd have used two clever tricks in the adaptation that achieve this. Firstly, the play now has an element of metatheatre – the cast all appear as teenagers, and where there is an adult part they resort to dressing up to play a role within a role. Thus Wendla’s friend Thea becomes her mother, and they argue together over the reality of the portrayal, while Ernst plays Melchior’s father and Hans and Ilse are schoolteachers. This not only adds another layer of depth the performances but reinforces the idea that these young people rely on each other for their understanding of life, being unable to get answers from their repressed elders.

Secondly, the production makes use of technology to bring the piece right up to date. The cast use laptops and smartphones and we find them skyping, searching the internet and sending each other links to online porn.

This brings me to Colin Richmond’s set. Those who saw his design for last year’s Crime and Punishment at the Playhouse will recognise the stripped down stage and minimalist style, and there are some similar elements in the construction too, with industrial steel fabrication and translucent curtains. This enables rapid scene changes and provides surfaces on which projection effects show us what characters are seeing on their laptops and phones. As with 1984, there is use of both recorded and seemingly live video. The action opens on a school playground, complete with swings and floodlighting, and we are moved effortlessly to other locations including bedrooms, an art gallery, a school hall and more.

The narrative effectively follows the same route as Wedekind’s original but the scenery is different, with updated dialogue and settings that reflect the new ways we communicate. Moritz’s suicide is now a hanging and somehow this better reflects the ultimate spontaneity of the act, which is portrayed in a dreamlike fashion with the character effectively splitting in two on stage.

Aside from the writing, where this production really hits its target is in the casting. The actors are older than they appear on stage, ranging from early twenties to thirtyish, but all have been selected for their ability to be believable fourteen year olds. Aoife Duffin is an affecting Wendla, confused and naïve, and Oliver Johnstone is superb as the savvy but aloof Melchior, full of confidence at first but ultimately crushed by the fate of Wendla and Moritz. His character both drives much of the storyline and gives it many of its darkest moments, and his rape of Wendla and subsequent rage on his expulsion from school leave the theatre in stunned silence This is a performance with great commitment and sensitivity. On a par is Bradley Hall’s Moritz. He is altogether a gentler and more contemplative character, and Hall very subtly handles the descent into despair. His suicide is depicted with subtlety too – great use of a slammed shut laptop – and his reappearance in the coda gives us a very moving scene along with Johnstone’s Melchior.

Claudia Grant, Ruby Thomas and Daisy Whalley complete the female cast as both the three school friends and as three of the adults. Some great acting here as they pull back and forth between ages.

Ekow Quartey and Adam Welsh similarly transform into adults from time to time and it is they, as Hans and Ernst, who finally declare their love for each other. The writing at this point almost swallows up the significance of this moment. Having given little or no preamble in earlier scenes, it allows it to pass without further comment or event and maybe even Wedekind was reluctant to overplay this aspect of the story in 1891. I feel that Anja Reiss may have been able to include some earlier dialogue in her version that would have allowed us to read this as less impulsive. Despite its brevity, Quartey and Welsh achieve a poignant and refreshingly stereotype-free scene.

This production plays 90+ minutes without a break, and the absence of an interval helps to maintain the tension in the theatre.

Spring Awakening is co-produced by Headlong, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Nuffield Southampton. It runs at Liverpool Playhouse until 17th May and then continues its tour at Northern Stage Newcastle (20th – 24th May) and Derby Theatre (28th – 31st May).

Hope Place – Liverpool Everyman – 09/05/2014

We were fine until he came along. With his history this and history that.

Note: As this posting was written following the first preview of this new play, some scenes referred to may have subseqeuntly changed.

The first thing that strikes you as you walk into the Everyman auditorium is Peter McKintosh’s immense set. Every square inch of the stage floor and the walls covered in detail and the frontage of a Georgian house to the rear, reaching upward out of sight behind the technical grid. Before the opening much of what is on the forestage is partially obscured by projection effects but scene by scene we find that the house is effectively turned inside out on itself, so that we can see a series of interiors as well as the comings and goings in the street.

While much of the action takes place in the basement kitchen of number 8 Hope Place and in the street outside, other scenes take us round the corner to the very spot on which the present Everyman Theatre stands and it is here that the play begins in the year 1699. While the main characters are living in the present day, intermittent flashbacks evoke memories – both theirs and those of others – and it is this sense of a shared history that holds the story together.

Maggie lives alone in the house, her family having moved away. None of them far, but they’ve all gone off and had lives while she has stayed home to care for her parents until they had both gone. But families usually come together for a funeral and it’s their mother’s that brings Maggie’s sister Veronica, her brothers Eric and Jack and her niece Josie back to Hope Place.

Along with Josie is her new boyfriend Simon, the posh one from Birkenhead, and he decides that as this family have lived for generations in the same house they’ll provide a rich source of material for his PhD thesis, which is to be based on oral history. This is the simple premise for unfolding the lives and memories of the characters and blending them with the history of the locality. A portrait of ordinary local people of Liverpool and the Hope Street area they live in. How could anything have been more appropriate for a first new commission for the new Everyman?

Delving into the past often wakes up its ghosts and soon we’re aware of the secrets and lies that lie in the family’s history. Rage, reverie, resentment and reconciliation follow in the next couple of hours as the tales of the past are told. Sometimes the truth blurs with oft told stories and reality is hard to pin down.

Hugely effective are passages where children appear playing out the adult’s memories. There is a double cast of children in these roles who are alternating performances, and the team on stage for yesterday’s first night were superb.

Along the way, through Simon’s interviews for his thesis, we meet other local residents - a bar owner, an incomer from London a sex worker, and we also catch glimpses of residents from the past as we drift back and forth through the decades.

This play is both poignant and witty. It has a great sense of structure too – with a conclusion that feels as though we’ve reached a safe place to stop on the ongoing journey. There are no tidy endings but there is a resolution. Michael Wynne has succeeded in celebrating the locality, its past, its present and its people, without ever losing sight of what a play needs for longevity.

Lighting and sound design from Tim Lutkin and Fergus O’Hare, with music by Isobel Waller-Bridge, create the atmosphere on set and the slick scene transitions.

Director Rachel Kavanaugh has assembled a great cast, many of them familiar local faces. Neil Caple and Joe McGann play brothers Eric and Jack and Tricia Kelly their sister Veronica. Josie is played by Emma Lisi and her boyfriend Simon by Ciaran Kellgren. Michelle Butterly not only evokes the ghost of the mother but also performs six other characters including a music hall singer who opens the second act. Alan Stocks also has seven characters, from a 17th century farmer to the family’s late father. On Friday evening Freya Barnes, Rumah Norton, Harry Turpin and Sam Vaughan played the children’s roles, while on other nights they alternate with Julia Carlyle, Kaitlyn Hogg, Frank Turpin and George Turpin.

I have left one person till last because, while the entire cast are excellent, it is Eileen O’Brien’s tremendous performance as Maggie that really stands out for the huge range of emotion that she finds in her multifaceted character.

Hats off to the cast and creative team of Hope Place for scoring another bull’s-eye for the Everyman.

I saw the first preview performance yesterday and Hope Place plays Liverpool Everyman until Saturday 31st May – full details available at www.everymanplayhouse.com or click here

Author and Director were in the house gauging audience reaction and scribbling notes, so some scenes may be modified.

Artwork by Bolland & Lowe for production publicity and playtext