Whiplash - Drama Barn
In a student-written piece of theatre, what is more important: the writing or the production as a whole? Given that it's not part of the ODNs, it would suggest the production. And outside of university, in the professional theatre world, there's less of a stigma about new writing than there is within our University bubble. With that being said, I will try to engage a little bit more with the writing as separate from the production than I might normally.
Amy Milton's Whiplash is a play that explores the idea that we have a good (Gabriel Elston) and evil (Golfo Migos) side in our lives; it does this through the prism of a relationship between Maggie (Amelia Hamilton) and Cain (Sam Fallon). We see Maggie's journey as she deals with this relationship and her feelings. And potentially, this is the problem from which the others stem. The concept is nice, the personification of the voice/s in all our heads. But it's hard to attach any urgency to the main through-line, which is a Romeo and Juliet without any other characters. Even though (I think) they're supposed to be at university, the characters feel like they're roughly 15/16 and having their first relationship and for that reason, it can sometimes just feel like 'so what?'. From that, urgency is forced in with lots of shouting and constant movement round the space. The production never allows us to breathe, even though the play has scenes where the characters ostensibly do nothing but breathe.
The plot really becomes an issue during the monologue sections for me. It just feels like not enough has happened for the characters to get this angry so it's like watching overreactions on loop. Am I good enough for her? Am I good enough for him? I'm spoiling my hypothetical plans for him. I'm spoiling her hypothetical plans. I love him. I love her. While I understand that in a relationship these things feel enormous, put on stage, it can be hard to keep an audience's attention. Fortunately, Milton's writing is good enough that the introspective nature of the piece is eloquently conveyed to us. She has a poetic style that makes the play very listenable. Exposition is eked out slowly and the characters interact realistically with each other. These basic elements are strong and make Milton's future work an exciting prospect. With a better plot structure holding the play in place, this could well have been a really exciting piece.
My biggest issue with the production, as a whole, was that the staging seemed to conflict the writing. The strong poetic style of dialogue didn't sit well with the naturalistic acting styles. But then the over-characterised performances of Hope and Will didn't really sit well either. The styles needed to be merged more, to create a base level that was easier to engage with as an audience and that seemed to suit the tone of the language. I wanted more stylised, expressive forms of acting that could allow us to feel that maybe this wasn't set quite in everyday life but was somewhat separate and ethereal. On top of that, the play's violence and power was muted; constant pushing and shoving, as well as shouting, numbed me quickly so I could never really feel the reason behind them by the midway stage. After 45 minutes I was internally egging on the characters to punch each other.
The constant movement around the stage felt like it was trying to make up a little bit for so much talking but it was just a bit forced. Were they sat in someone's bedroom? Or in a park? Or just somewhere? It was often hard to tell, and when the characters are just sat together, chatting, it seemed extraneous to have them moving from one point to the next around the space, resting for a few seconds in each. What this did allow was for the audience to notice the very good set. Minimalistic (for a minimalistic play), there were lots of phrases or words written all over the floor, which really mirrored the kind of introspective, talky nature of the play itself.
It's an interesting debate about where student-written theatre sits in Dramasoc; whether it should all be confined to Monday ODNs or whether it is useful to move it to the weekend where it will get a bigger budget and hopefully a bigger audience. I really appreciated seeing this achieved in a more professional way than maybe an ODN might be and I'm sure Amy Milton will only get better and better as she continues writing but for me, the production somewhat let the play down, rather than the other way round.
