On Ego - TFTV
Every now and again, you get to see a play that feels like a whole thing. On Ego was the first time I've seen this at the University of York. There's no point in breaking it down and ranking or judging the various elements that make it theatre, you just have to let yourself watch it. But there is something within this piece that makes you leave feeling very different from when you walked in.
I think it is the way that the production takes something big and scary and makes it seem accessible; it gives the audience an entry point into a subject that we all know everything and nothing about. From the opening monologue to the closing image, everything that happens works towards the premise of the play: who, or what, are we?
I don't feel any closer to an answer, except that maybe my 'ego' has moved from my chest to my head and this play really did give me the first good headache I've had in a while. I felt both empty and alive. There was no cliched "LIVE LIFE TO THE FULL" or "YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE", just that niggling thought, who am I?
IF you choose not to heed this warning and don't run to TFTV right now and queue up until someone shows up on Saturday and sells you a ticket, then you will probably miss out on that rare thing, a student piece that really is interested in bringing something new (or at least contemporary) to theatre right now. Like RIGHT NOW. I don't know what people think anymore about bundle theories or ego theories or whatever else science has decided exists BUT why not go and let yourself be shown a different way of thinking, a different avenue into yourself?
This isn't the perfect production. But On Ego tells you that you are both unique and un-unique; both here and there; simultaneously conscious and unconscious. I left having learnt something, having felt something and wanting to do something. I'd say you can't ask much more from theatre.
On Ego
Directors: Jason Ryall and Lauren Moakes
Producer: Katie Barclay
Movement Director: Amy Warren
Actors: Oliver-Patrick Henn, Yoshika Colwell, Harry Whittaker
Filming: Tom Leatherbarrow
Marketing: Rose Copland-Mann
Sound designer: Scott Hurley
Lighting: Ella Dixon
Friday, 6 February 2015
Sunday, 1 February 2015
Woman in Mind - Drama Barn, York
Woman in Mind
Three/Five
Is there such a thing as too good a play? Alan Ayckbourn has certainly had a bloody good go at it. Woman in Mind is a staggering play, expertly staging a woman suffering a breakdown brought on by a blow to the head and a calamitous personal life. We watch her lose control of her own subconscious and her day-to-day life, while the play gets on with being bitingly funny. And he also manages to make the internal...external.
Is this a problem for a director? Well yes and no. It is always nice not to have to worry about the lines you are trying to bring to life. Characters that have a range of acting possibilities help too. But it is daunting in that it faces you with a big question - 'what can you bring to this play?'. Eleanor Kiff decides on stage and lights (the second in collaboration with Sam Hunt, lighting designer). She brings to life the Rose Garden in Susan's mind with giant, over-sized flowers and empty flowerpots dotted about and the lights change every time Susan's mind shifts from conscious to sub-conscious.
The problem is that these two (for ease, let's call them) "big ideas" are potentially the weakest things about this play. Firstly, Ayckbourn didn't write a play about a subconscious in which, 20 minutes in, it wasn't painfully clear who is real and who is not. Aside from the pain it causes on the eyes every time the lights change so brutally, it patronises an audience in suggesting that we might not be able to read the play well enough to understand.
Secondly, the flowers are a lovely idea, they look great, and you sense that the wooden gate is hinting subtly to something. The problem is that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't work out what it was hinting towards. Was it the gate to subconscious? Well no, because characters haphazardly entered through there, no pattern really emerging. Or maybe it did because the gates were opened and shut a couple of times. But it didn't feel thought through, it felt random rather than by design.
The basic plot is that an unhappy woman, Susan, hits her head and begins to imagine her life in a better way. Almost everything is the opposite - she has a daughter, instead of a disappointing son; she has a brother, rather than a sister-in-law and so on. Bill Windsor, a clumsy doctor, is the only person who tries to understand these hallucinations and in between this, Susan's son returns home from his time away in a cult and she questions her marriage to Gerald.
There are some good elements to the production that really help with the evening moving along nicely. As ever, the characters are well written but it is easy to fumble around the jokes in this play and not really hit any punchlines: no problem in this production. The characters' arcs are mapped out and everybody knows their roles. You completely understand Susan's (Clare Duffy) frustration with Lucy (Leigh Douglas) as she becomes shriller and meaner throughout the second Act. Gerald's (Will Heyes) reaction to his deteriorating relationship is funny for 90% of the time and for the other 10, purposefully sad as we are reminded of the reality of the revelations in the play. My personal favourite was Muriel, handled superbly by Vanessa Ostick, walking a tightrope line between cartoon and plausibility, bringing life to every scene she walked into.
The other staging, a couple of chairs and some dangerously wobbly tables, is simple and gives the actors a base that stops the play being static. The sound is subtle, giving us both Susan's subconscious hearing and the sounds of reality. There are also some genuinely brilliant scenes. Watching Bill (David Bolwell) talk to Susan's imaginary daughter, Lucy, who he imagines to be 5 years old, when in reality she is 20-odd, is genius and is handled brilliantly. The same can be said of the scene in which Muriel interrupts Gerald and Susan's discussion of their sex life and provides a range of reactions to their bickering.
An interesting offering nonetheless, this is a solid production from Drama Soc but it lacks the flair that is needed to really take it from being a good staging of an Ayckbourn to a brilliant production.
Three/Five
Is there such a thing as too good a play? Alan Ayckbourn has certainly had a bloody good go at it. Woman in Mind is a staggering play, expertly staging a woman suffering a breakdown brought on by a blow to the head and a calamitous personal life. We watch her lose control of her own subconscious and her day-to-day life, while the play gets on with being bitingly funny. And he also manages to make the internal...external.
Is this a problem for a director? Well yes and no. It is always nice not to have to worry about the lines you are trying to bring to life. Characters that have a range of acting possibilities help too. But it is daunting in that it faces you with a big question - 'what can you bring to this play?'. Eleanor Kiff decides on stage and lights (the second in collaboration with Sam Hunt, lighting designer). She brings to life the Rose Garden in Susan's mind with giant, over-sized flowers and empty flowerpots dotted about and the lights change every time Susan's mind shifts from conscious to sub-conscious.
The problem is that these two (for ease, let's call them) "big ideas" are potentially the weakest things about this play. Firstly, Ayckbourn didn't write a play about a subconscious in which, 20 minutes in, it wasn't painfully clear who is real and who is not. Aside from the pain it causes on the eyes every time the lights change so brutally, it patronises an audience in suggesting that we might not be able to read the play well enough to understand.
Secondly, the flowers are a lovely idea, they look great, and you sense that the wooden gate is hinting subtly to something. The problem is that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't work out what it was hinting towards. Was it the gate to subconscious? Well no, because characters haphazardly entered through there, no pattern really emerging. Or maybe it did because the gates were opened and shut a couple of times. But it didn't feel thought through, it felt random rather than by design.
The basic plot is that an unhappy woman, Susan, hits her head and begins to imagine her life in a better way. Almost everything is the opposite - she has a daughter, instead of a disappointing son; she has a brother, rather than a sister-in-law and so on. Bill Windsor, a clumsy doctor, is the only person who tries to understand these hallucinations and in between this, Susan's son returns home from his time away in a cult and she questions her marriage to Gerald.
There are some good elements to the production that really help with the evening moving along nicely. As ever, the characters are well written but it is easy to fumble around the jokes in this play and not really hit any punchlines: no problem in this production. The characters' arcs are mapped out and everybody knows their roles. You completely understand Susan's (Clare Duffy) frustration with Lucy (Leigh Douglas) as she becomes shriller and meaner throughout the second Act. Gerald's (Will Heyes) reaction to his deteriorating relationship is funny for 90% of the time and for the other 10, purposefully sad as we are reminded of the reality of the revelations in the play. My personal favourite was Muriel, handled superbly by Vanessa Ostick, walking a tightrope line between cartoon and plausibility, bringing life to every scene she walked into.
The other staging, a couple of chairs and some dangerously wobbly tables, is simple and gives the actors a base that stops the play being static. The sound is subtle, giving us both Susan's subconscious hearing and the sounds of reality. There are also some genuinely brilliant scenes. Watching Bill (David Bolwell) talk to Susan's imaginary daughter, Lucy, who he imagines to be 5 years old, when in reality she is 20-odd, is genius and is handled brilliantly. The same can be said of the scene in which Muriel interrupts Gerald and Susan's discussion of their sex life and provides a range of reactions to their bickering.
An interesting offering nonetheless, this is a solid production from Drama Soc but it lacks the flair that is needed to really take it from being a good staging of an Ayckbourn to a brilliant production.
Wednesday, 10 December 2014
Alice ; Theatre in the Quarter
Alice - Theatre in the Quarter
I had mixed feelings leading up to this production. Alice in Wonderland is in my top five all-time favourite stories. So I'm biased. Both for and against a staging of it. I will love it because I love the story and I will hate it because it's not the book and never can be. So there's a conundrum before it starts. But then Stephanie Dale, Alice's writer, throws in a whole lot more to the problem. Because this isn't a production of Alice in Wonderland. This is a production about the telling of the story of Alice in Wonderland. Which is pretty brilliant actually (thus in bold AND italics).
The play opens with Lewis Carroll (Duncan MacInnes) writing a letter to a now-married Alice Hargreaves, née Liddell. Before he can finish and send it, however, a boy arrives and Carroll begins to tell the story of creating Wonderland for Alice (Anne O’Riordan); this involves him becoming the White Rabbit (an important doubling) and leading her to the world we are more familiar with. Once we drop down, we meet the characters we are used to - the Caterpillar, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter - plus a couple not always brought in - the Duchess and the Cook, for example.
So far, fairly standard fare for plot expectations. This is where Dale takes us off the beaten path. We crack through Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the first Act and then start on Through the Looking Glass for the second. The benefit of this is that themes come through so much more strongly for the change. Carroll's dependency on, and enjoyment of, the stories he tells overshadow Alice's participation by far and the characters begin to link, not only to Alice, but to Lewis himself. The need to tell stories and create worlds begins to show in Act II as cracks appear and everything feels a bit more grown-up than it did in Act I.
The staging, in the round, is fairly open - all the props and costumes are laid bare around the edges of the building - and it is a credit to Peter Leslie Wild's direction that you don't find anybody with their eyes wandering off the stage. The set itself (Dawn Allsopp) was brilliant, all the set pieces mirroring the actors in doubling as several items (eg chairs into ladders) and Stuart Harrison's lighting does a great job of highlighting all these. And composer Matt Baker's music does a great job throughout but is often at its best when the song comes out of the scene rather than as an aid for the transitions.
The production doesn't always hit it for me. The transitions can be confusing or feel a bit forced - the imposing of *this is Lewis telling a story* gets in the way of the appealingly bonkers logic of the story at times. I can also imagine that it's a bit grown-up at times, lacking in real out-and-out craziness, the Hatter's tea party hitting me as tame. For one, every switching of places was identical and the actors seemed to be playing to the same rhythm rather than just used to the routine. I also never felt threatened (which seems like an odd complaint) but I rarely see something where I am so close to the actors and feel so safe. There was just so much going on that I didn't think the actors would find time to engage with me, pick on me, reference me etc. Not all plays have this, of course, but a play in the round, set mainly on floor level (or thereabout), about creating worlds and leading people through stories?
I've left the actors until last through choice rather than convention. Mainly because they are the strength of this production. Of course they've got there through brilliant writing, inventive staging and direction, great music etc but still, they're top. Ann O'Riordan and Duncan MacInnes are essentially the straight characters in the play but holding together a fairly complex concept is no mean feat and they do it superbly, particularly the developments from beginning to end of the play. Quickly becoming TITQ stalwarts, Ben Tolley and David Edwards have raised their game again this year, Tolley's Duchess and Edward's White Knight the respective highlights for me. However, my standouts have to be Sophia Hatfield and Andrew Roberts-Palmer. They don't disappoint as some of the biggest characters in the story - The Queen of Hearts, the Dormouse; the Caterpillar, the Cook, Humpty Dumpty - and their ability to wildly differentiate characters, at speed, is excellent.
Generally speaking, in a actor-musician, multiroling play like this you need to have a tight knit group and Theatre in the Quarter has done very well to assemble one. The play isn't your average telling of a well-known story. It's inventive, witty and will only get better from here on.
And if at Christmas, you like to see a play with a message, I think there are several here. That nobody stays the same. That we're never too old for stories. But I think the main one is that we just need to accept everyone, including ourselves, as they are.
Oh and there are puns. There are so many puns. It's great.
I had mixed feelings leading up to this production. Alice in Wonderland is in my top five all-time favourite stories. So I'm biased. Both for and against a staging of it. I will love it because I love the story and I will hate it because it's not the book and never can be. So there's a conundrum before it starts. But then Stephanie Dale, Alice's writer, throws in a whole lot more to the problem. Because this isn't a production of Alice in Wonderland. This is a production about the telling of the story of Alice in Wonderland. Which is pretty brilliant actually (thus in bold AND italics).
The play opens with Lewis Carroll (Duncan MacInnes) writing a letter to a now-married Alice Hargreaves, née Liddell. Before he can finish and send it, however, a boy arrives and Carroll begins to tell the story of creating Wonderland for Alice (Anne O’Riordan); this involves him becoming the White Rabbit (an important doubling) and leading her to the world we are more familiar with. Once we drop down, we meet the characters we are used to - the Caterpillar, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter - plus a couple not always brought in - the Duchess and the Cook, for example.
So far, fairly standard fare for plot expectations. This is where Dale takes us off the beaten path. We crack through Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the first Act and then start on Through the Looking Glass for the second. The benefit of this is that themes come through so much more strongly for the change. Carroll's dependency on, and enjoyment of, the stories he tells overshadow Alice's participation by far and the characters begin to link, not only to Alice, but to Lewis himself. The need to tell stories and create worlds begins to show in Act II as cracks appear and everything feels a bit more grown-up than it did in Act I.
The staging, in the round, is fairly open - all the props and costumes are laid bare around the edges of the building - and it is a credit to Peter Leslie Wild's direction that you don't find anybody with their eyes wandering off the stage. The set itself (Dawn Allsopp) was brilliant, all the set pieces mirroring the actors in doubling as several items (eg chairs into ladders) and Stuart Harrison's lighting does a great job of highlighting all these. And composer Matt Baker's music does a great job throughout but is often at its best when the song comes out of the scene rather than as an aid for the transitions.
The production doesn't always hit it for me. The transitions can be confusing or feel a bit forced - the imposing of *this is Lewis telling a story* gets in the way of the appealingly bonkers logic of the story at times. I can also imagine that it's a bit grown-up at times, lacking in real out-and-out craziness, the Hatter's tea party hitting me as tame. For one, every switching of places was identical and the actors seemed to be playing to the same rhythm rather than just used to the routine. I also never felt threatened (which seems like an odd complaint) but I rarely see something where I am so close to the actors and feel so safe. There was just so much going on that I didn't think the actors would find time to engage with me, pick on me, reference me etc. Not all plays have this, of course, but a play in the round, set mainly on floor level (or thereabout), about creating worlds and leading people through stories?
I've left the actors until last through choice rather than convention. Mainly because they are the strength of this production. Of course they've got there through brilliant writing, inventive staging and direction, great music etc but still, they're top. Ann O'Riordan and Duncan MacInnes are essentially the straight characters in the play but holding together a fairly complex concept is no mean feat and they do it superbly, particularly the developments from beginning to end of the play. Quickly becoming TITQ stalwarts, Ben Tolley and David Edwards have raised their game again this year, Tolley's Duchess and Edward's White Knight the respective highlights for me. However, my standouts have to be Sophia Hatfield and Andrew Roberts-Palmer. They don't disappoint as some of the biggest characters in the story - The Queen of Hearts, the Dormouse; the Caterpillar, the Cook, Humpty Dumpty - and their ability to wildly differentiate characters, at speed, is excellent.
Generally speaking, in a actor-musician, multiroling play like this you need to have a tight knit group and Theatre in the Quarter has done very well to assemble one. The play isn't your average telling of a well-known story. It's inventive, witty and will only get better from here on.
And if at Christmas, you like to see a play with a message, I think there are several here. That nobody stays the same. That we're never too old for stories. But I think the main one is that we just need to accept everyone, including ourselves, as they are.
Oh and there are puns. There are so many puns. It's great.
Friday, 26 September 2014
Regeneration - York Theatre Royal
Regeneration – York Theatre Royal
Three/Five
First off, as a disclaimer, any knowledge I have of the
First World War comes pretty much from primary school History and History Boys by Alan Bennett. We always
studied Europe up until WWI and mainly dismantled Nazi Germany each year I did
History GCSE and A-Level (so maybe I’d be better off with Albert Speer). Fortunately, a play about Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred
Owen seemed within my reach – although I spent the whole thing waiting for
Little Drummer Boy so clearly I didn’t pay much attention to History Boys.
Secondly, I find that, when it comes to History, I follow in
Irwin’s footsteps and am peculiarly detached. World War I is a senseless loss
of life but it’s hard to get your head round that amount of (seemingly)
needless death. So sentimental performances seem more like moving tributes
rather than theatre per se.
The play itself, then, begins with Sassoon reading his
‘Declaration’ to the board – denouncing military conflict – after serving in
the Army and discovering his poetic voice. He is then moved to a War hospital
(specialising in shell-shocked soldiers) where he meets several other patients,
and eventually, Wilfred Owen, a promising young poet with a hero-worship love
of Sassoon. His doctor, Rivers, is a neurologist, interested in rehabilitation and treating men like human beings and they bond over their disillusionment with the current war.
Regeneration captures the anti-war feeling of Sassoon and I guessed early on that War would come out badly in the whole thing. There were not two sides to this play; we are told exactly where we are heading and I found myself wanting a bit more ‘grey’. After seeing 1984 last week, I realised how important subtlety can be to an argument. In Regeneration, the dialogue between the characters often leant towards being speech-y and lacked any nuances. It’s not that I personally feel pro-War, it’s just that the best discussions are often two-sided.
What I loved about Regeneration
was that it pushed to the forefront a couple of important issues that felt
relevant today: mental illness and the ‘war’ effect. I think that the line is
thin between being a historical, sentiment play and presenting us with relevant
themes but, on the whole, I found myself thinking a lot more about the
impending vote on troops in Iraq and airstrikes on ISIS than I did about
Sassoon’s tragedy.
The people the play shows us, all officers, are scarred from
their experiences of war. Owen, who is pitched perfectly by Garmon Rhys by the
by, spent three days lying amongst the dead bodies of his friends. Sassoon and
Prior also struggle with the guilt of surviving the war so far – that Sassoon’s
nickname was ‘Mad Jack’, because of his reckless feats of bravery, shows his
mental state towards the end of the war. The scenes that show other types of
‘cures’ at the time are particularly shocking, both in their brutality and
their lack of empathy for the patients.
While some of the themes were explored thoroughly and presented very well, some of the themes that I find myself interested in were
missing or under-explored: lions led by donkeys, class inequality, xenophobia
etc. Sassoon was placed on a bit of a pedestal for me, his flaws being the type
of flaws that you don’t really care about. Similarly, I found the acting to be very mixed; there were some really
great performances but any scene with more than two characters in felt stilted,
and very unnatural. I wanted to believe it was a directorial choice but there
seemed no evidence of that. Dinnertime at the Ward, for example, was devoid of
the warmth you might expect to accompany the dialogue.
I thought Simon Godwin’s direction was good, though I wasn’t
too keen on the War flashbacks that seemed intent on making an audience jump
rather than being insightful to the plight of these men – see Peaky Blinders’
version of the same idea with Danny Whizz Bang. The lighting and set (Lee
Curran and Alex Eales) were simple and did the job they were intended to,
mixing together the often short scenes with speed and ease, and Godwin’s
transitions managed to keep the atmosphere of the scenes that preceded them – a
nice touch I thought.
Overall, a nice piece but I found myself wondering if a
piece about war should ever just be entertainment. The effect on the soldiers
is clear but the production lacked the bite I would have hoped for, in order to
make its point more effectively.
Thursday, 18 September 2014
The aftermath of 1984
After seeing 1984, the themes have really been running round my head. Do we bury our heads in the sand when it comes to the media? How much do we ignore the government's hand in hand relationship with the media? Why on earth are we letting government's pass agendas like TTIP, giving multinational corporations the power to sue our country and leaving the NHS further open to privatisation threats?
****
For me, one of the trippiest ideas that came out of 1984 was the idea that (*deep breath*) censorship was overthrown by the government to lull ourselves into thinking that we have free speech when actually the opposite is true.
Woah. Bit paranoid isn't that?
Governments don't still torture people, do they?
Armies in Iraq: LOL, no, course not
The media can't print its own agenda under the guise of free speech, can it?
Daily Mail: LOL, no, what are we - gay? God forbid that - am I right Jan Moir?
The government doesn't censor anything unless it's harming though, does it?
DC (and the lads): LOL, as if we would! We've blocked 20% of the most 100,000 viewed sites to HELP you parent your children.
Gee, thanks, I was having a real hard time indoctrinating them myself, there's only so many bedtime stories you can get out of The Mail Online. (For my money, my favourite bedtime story would be "Woman goes to gym" dailym.ai/1wtQpR2 < I'm still waiting for part 2)
****
While I'm glad that there is theatre which blends big, modern questions with entertaining and engaging storytelling, something about the performance left me thinking that maybe it's not always the best thing for an audience. Yeah, I felt that way after it, but did everybody else get that? Because surely Orwell wanted his message heard and discussed.
If you confront somebody with a truth, particularly one they don't really want to hear, then they will always look for a way out. Out of the people who see the performance each night, how many leave talking about the issues it raises? More likely, how many people see 1984 and go out discussing Orwell and his merits - or the wonders of multimedia in theatre?
In a theatre like York, which takes a lot of touring theatre, where are the difficult questions coming from? Repeated productions of Shakespeare and Ibsen? Who is feeding the collective theatregoers of York's ability to be questioned by theatre? Or to have society probed? Maybe we only enjoy looking at things once everyone's agreed they're right.
Oh yes, I see the merits of allowing theatre to produce what it wants without being controlled by a central authority. Bravo censorship-challenging 60's plays!
Spoiler: the government still doesn't. If you don't control it, don't feed it #artscuts
As a final note, there is provoking theatre going on. The reaction to Little Revolutions at the Almeida has been mixed but it has sparked discussion at least. Privacy at Donmar did the same.
Which is great for London.
But I'm studying in York.
And I want some pressing, shit-my-pants theatre, dammit.
****
For me, one of the trippiest ideas that came out of 1984 was the idea that (*deep breath*) censorship was overthrown by the government to lull ourselves into thinking that we have free speech when actually the opposite is true.
Woah. Bit paranoid isn't that?
Governments don't still torture people, do they?
Armies in Iraq: LOL, no, course not
The media can't print its own agenda under the guise of free speech, can it?
Daily Mail: LOL, no, what are we - gay? God forbid that - am I right Jan Moir?
The government doesn't censor anything unless it's harming though, does it?
DC (and the lads): LOL, as if we would! We've blocked 20% of the most 100,000 viewed sites to HELP you parent your children.
Gee, thanks, I was having a real hard time indoctrinating them myself, there's only so many bedtime stories you can get out of The Mail Online. (For my money, my favourite bedtime story would be "Woman goes to gym" dailym.ai/1wtQpR2 < I'm still waiting for part 2)
****
While I'm glad that there is theatre which blends big, modern questions with entertaining and engaging storytelling, something about the performance left me thinking that maybe it's not always the best thing for an audience. Yeah, I felt that way after it, but did everybody else get that? Because surely Orwell wanted his message heard and discussed.
If you confront somebody with a truth, particularly one they don't really want to hear, then they will always look for a way out. Out of the people who see the performance each night, how many leave talking about the issues it raises? More likely, how many people see 1984 and go out discussing Orwell and his merits - or the wonders of multimedia in theatre?
In a theatre like York, which takes a lot of touring theatre, where are the difficult questions coming from? Repeated productions of Shakespeare and Ibsen? Who is feeding the collective theatregoers of York's ability to be questioned by theatre? Or to have society probed? Maybe we only enjoy looking at things once everyone's agreed they're right.
Oh yes, I see the merits of allowing theatre to produce what it wants without being controlled by a central authority. Bravo censorship-challenging 60's plays!
Spoiler: the government still doesn't. If you don't control it, don't feed it #artscuts
As a final note, there is provoking theatre going on. The reaction to Little Revolutions at the Almeida has been mixed but it has sparked discussion at least. Privacy at Donmar did the same.
Which is great for London.
But I'm studying in York.
And I want some pressing, shit-my-pants theatre, dammit.
1984 - Headlong Theatre (tour)
Headlong Theatre’s 1984 - York Theatre Royal
Four/Five
When a production opens with a voiceover, a large screen using live
camera and the actor acknowledging both the voice and the audience, I always
try to decide whether or not the balance will be right. Too much going on to
really understand the plot, use of set and technology rather than any
connection to the characters. What followed the first few minutes of 1984 was,
however, as thought-provoking, intelligently staged and enlightening as
anything I’ve seen this year.
Headlong’s dive into George Orwell’s world tackles the main difference
between the novel and other art forms - that the novel is an individual
experience that gives you an insight into a single character’s life. The
production does this, using lights and sound effects to confuse and
disorientate the audience (and the lead character, Winston). For those
unfamiliar with the novel, the script takes the time to reveal gradually
throughout the play, rather than fit ten minutes of exposition at the start.
Starting out in a book club discussing the novel, the play twists and turns,
each time letting you think that you have finally realised the truth before
turning the world upside down.
What I rated most highly about the production was the way in which
comparisons to modern life were eked out. At no point were direct influences
mentioned but little jibes (“What year is it?” “I don’t know, 19…2000….?”) and
character’s opinions (“it can be applied to any period”) reminded the audience
that this play is definitely as relevant now as it was when first published.
The highly-effective multimedia placed the audience as Big Brother; the live
camera stream showing us the “safe place” of Walter and Julia.
Excellent paced throughout, the last 20-25 minutes of the production
absolutely roared through, leaving questions and ideas with no real answers, as
well as the doctrines of the Party (“War is Peace” “Ignorance is Strength”),
firmly in the audience’s mind. As Winston, the man who’s story is unfolding
before us, Matthew Spencer was superb, excelling in the early scenes, as well
as the more gruelling torture scenes. Martin (Andre Flynn) and O’Brien (Tim
Dutton) were also excellent in their respective roles, Flynn in particular
showing great characterisation throughout. The outstanding set design by Chloe
Lamford was the first aspect mentioned by the people I saw the play with but
Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillian (joint direction and adaptation) have blended
so many visuals and ideas together that I had to marvel at how well they
succeeded in executing the entire piece.
Though it never quite gets you poised on the edge of your seat, 1984 is
an engaging production that almost clarifies some of Orwell’s subtler ideas and
leaves audiences in no doubt as to its relevance in today’s society. 1984 can
as easily be 2014 as it can be the near-future and Headlong gives no answers
for the problems it suggests but guarantees everybody will be discussing the
issues of censorship, power and indoctrination as they leave this piece.
Headlong’s 1984 is currently at York Theatre Royal,
the first stop on its nationwide tour.
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