'The Play's The Thing'

In the past six weeks, I've seen three interesting productions for my drama courses. Here are my thoughts on them.

Decade, Director -Rupert Goold, Headlong, St Katherine’s Dock

I went to see this for my Theatre, Performance and Ethics course at Uni. My tutor told us it was going to be three hours long and, despite myself, I inwardly groaned. I love a good show as much as the next person but, for some unknown reason, when I go to see a play knowing it’s going to be a long one, I expect to get bored for the majority of it. Maybe this is because, I must admit, I do have a poor attention span at times. However, despite my expectations, I was enthralled for pretty much its entirety. Made up of about twenty short plays written for the production, Decade looks at the ten years that followed the attack on The Twin Towers on September 11^th 2001 from the rise in islamaphobia to conspiracy theories to the guilt and grief of those that were left behind. These short plays were split up and mixed together so that some of the longer ones were dispersed throughout and were linked together with songs and dances. Now, I hate musicals with a passion and if I had been told there would be singing and dancing I would have been incredibly reluctant to go. But somehow these moments just worked. The dances weren’t like those in musicals and were made up of moments such as the escape from the tower. I didn’t always understand the meaning behind the dance moves but they still connected on an emotional level, perhaps due to the songs they chose like Simon and Garfunkel’s The Only Living Boy in New York. The one song that was actually written for the show wasn’t cheesy and didn’t lack self-awareness which is what I hate about songs in musicals. Instead, it was made up of texts sent on 9/11 from mundane things like ‘the furniture has arrived, it looks great’ to ‘I love you’. Repeating these texts meant they took on new meaning as the song progressed. The words ‘I love you’ didn’t hold any particular meaning until you began to think about when this message could have been sent.  The twelve actors played multiple roles and switched from each so well, showing you just how well they could act. Upon entrance, we were greeted by some of them as if we were going through security at an airport. The space the production was held meant the audience sat around tables as if in a restaurant with views of New York from the ‘windows’ at the side. There were also windows that overlooked the space and at moments throughout the play the actors looked down upon us as if looking out from the tower, sometimes running from side to side as if trying to find a means of escape. All of this I loved but, while I haven’t admitted this yet, the production was not flawless. There were a few short plays I felt were unnecessary and one of which I found the dialogue clunky and too obvious however these flaws were relatively minor compared to the overall triumph of the production. As an actor, I judge the quality of a production by whether or not I want to take part in it. It only took about five or ten minutes before I wished I could get up and be part of what was overall a wonderfully well-made, slick, well-acted and meaningful production. Any play centring on 9/11 runs the risk of being too obvious and make you feel something but, perhaps down to the breaking of the fourth wall thanks to the dances or the performance space that meant the actors acted around you, Decade did not force emotion down your throat, allowing you to feel it for yourself. It was this, more than anything, that made it such a success. As a site-specific production, it is incredibly unlikely to tour outside of London and the run is now over, but in the unlikely event it does return or tour it is well worth seeing. I’d give it five stars out of five for enjoyment and four and half for whether or not it’s good.

Saved, Director-Sean Holmes, Lyric Hammersmith

This was another production I went to go see for my Theatre, Performance and Ethics course. Saved by Edward Bond is such a controversial play that when it was published in 1965, it was banned as a play and had to be performed under ‘club’ auspices. When it was performed to larger audiences, the Lord Chamberlain decided to prosecute those involved. After censorship was lifted, it was performed to larger audiences in 1969 however it is still rarely performed and this production is the first time it has been on stage in 27 years. Its controversy surrounds a scene in which a baby is stoned to death. I had been made aware of this scene before I saw the play and so didn’t find it as shocking as I might have done. I had also been made aware that the characters take the baby’s soiled nappy off and put his face in it so, again, this was not as shocking as it might have been for me. I wasn’t, however, made aware that they then try to set the pram on fire and did find this quite shocking. Had I not been aware of the controversial acts beforehand, I would have found them shocking also, I am sure. However, just because the play contained shocking moments, it does not make it a good play. Sometimes, I feel shocking acts are kept in performances for no good reason. I did not feel that with this scene, however. Bond had quite clearly and starkly isolated the anger and feeling of powerlessness held by the young men committing the crime as they became more and more excited the further they attacked the baby. But this act stood apart from the mundane and frustrating nature of the rest of the play. Possibly, and probably, quite deliberately, allowing the audience to build up similar feelings to the characters. Yet this doesn’t make for great viewing. The comic moments were very funny at times but still this didn’t make up for the more boring moments of the rest of the play. There were so many extraneous characters I got confused who was who at times and there were jumps in the timeline of the play and gaps in events that weren’t properly explained, perhaps deliberately, perhaps not. But whether or not it was deliberate, it was really irritating and didn’t allow to you understand some the characters progression. The acting was pretty good though the lead actress playing Pam was a bit weak at times and had an annoying voice (again probably deliberately). The set was stark and the actors were also stagehands, making the stage up in front of you while some transitional sound similar to white noise played. I didn’t particularly like that either, the noise is unpleasant in the everyday, putting it in a production makes it more so. Overall, I didn’t feel this was an afternoon massively well spent. The copious amount of school groups there didn’t help my enjoyment of the play though in their defence they would have been much more poorly behaved. The incessant shushing as each half began was very annoying though. If you like Edward Bond, you’ll probably enjoy this production but if you’re indifferent or more a fan of naturalism you probably won’t. It was by no means rubbish just really not my kind of thing. I’d give it two stars out of five for enjoyment and probably three for whether or not it’s ‘good’ as the latter is very much down to what you like or don’t.

13, a new play by Mike Bartlett, Director- Thea Sharrock, National Theatre

I went to go see this for my Making Theatre Politically course at Uni. I didn’t really know what to expect nor, I think, did anybody else; somebody on my course told me the NT has tried to keep this shrouded in mystery. My friend who’s producing my play described 13 on Twitter as having ‘tried to do too much and as a result said very little’. I think I would agree with this. The plot centres on characters that range from an unhappy student to a trapped American diplomat’s wife to the Prime Minister, all of whom are suffering from bad dreams. When the friend of one of the characters returns seemingly from the dead and starts preaching in the park, many people, including many of these characters, rally behind him and speak out against impending war with Iran. Alongside this, the diplomat’s wife struggles to cope with her precocious young daughter and the stroppy girl she seems to be becoming. As a play, it was rather unsubtle when looking at the issue of disbelief, the sense of hopelessness in current society and anger against the governing forces. All of the characters had something to complain about and not in brief and while, the shared dream was never properly discussed, it was brought up in conversation with such lack of subtly it was frustrating and far too apparent to be anywhere near natural. There were some moments when a little suspense was built up and I wondered how events would progress but I wasn’t actually bothered what would happen, more just keen for the end to come. I wasn’t bored but that’s because I was far too tired to be bored, had I had any energy, it’s incredibly likely every fibre of my being would have been screaming for me to leave the theatre. Clearly others felt the same as there were seats in my row emptied during the interval. I would be lying if I didn’t confess there were a few comic moments such as an elderly lady playing The Only Girl In The World by Rihanna on the piano but there weren’t enough of them to override the sanctimonious nature of the rest of the play. The acting was quite good though one woman who was a central figure in the first half was awful, thank God she finally shut up for the second half. To be balanced, I must admit the character she was playing was very annoying but it doesn’t make up for bad acting, just adds to how unenjoyable her performance was. There was an overlap in the scenes where the actors for the next would walk on stage and in between the actors performing before their scene ended. It was interesting, not really my style but it’s good to see something new and I’ve not seen many plays that splice together scenes in such a manner. It must have been quite strange for the actors finishing the scene to have other actors walk right through their sightline. The set was ambitious with a huge black box about the size of a house. At the start of the production, it revolved round and showed people inside, as if trapped. There were huge digital numbers on the side like an alarm clock. This made for interesting viewing but didn’t really make up for the play itself. I was glad when it ended as were, I think, the rest of my class, if not the rest of the audience. I really wouldn’t recommend seeing this and give it one star out of five for enjoyment and two for whether or not it is ‘good’.