Month: October 2015

Joanne, Soho Theatre

Joanne2We never meet Joanne. We do however, meet four women who encounter her at different points over a crucial 24-hour period of her life, and one that remembers her as a child. We learn that she cuts a tall, striking figure, makes immediate impact on those she meets and she doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere the world. Joanne is homeless and has just been released from prison. Production company Clean Break, founded by 2 female prisoners in 1979 and still producing, recognizes the importance of sharing stories from vulnerable women prone to falling through society’s cracks. Joanne, written by five female playwrights, has some wonderful writing and is skillfully performed in an intimate space but the brevity of the monologues and talking around Joanne distances rather than fully engages.

Tanya Moodie first plays a key worker, then easily slips into a police officer, an NHS receptionist, a hostel cleaner and a teacher. All were moved by Joanne’s plight and wanted to help her, innately sensing her need for support. These women related to something within Joanne, humanizing her and the thousands of other female prisoners like her. Moodie captures the genuine care these women feel, as well as their conflict – police officer Grace isn’t supposed to get attached to her cases, but alludes to her own struggle with finding a place in the world for her and her daughter. I am particularly touched by Kathleen, on the front line of an NHS hospital for 28 years. She makes some pointed critiques of government legislation’s effects on her workplace and its effects on those most needing care. These stories are much more engrossing than Joanne’s because they’re in front of us, as Joanne herself is a shadowy puzzle that we slowly and satisfyingly piece together.

Through written by five different writers, the monologues seamlessly connect but remain stylistically distinct. Told in the past tense through the sharing of memories, they are fine examples of storytelling that Moodie makes active and varied rather than nostalgic. She owns the distinct characterization of these women, skillfully masking Róisín McBrinn’s direction. Colour changing light-up columns and panels add visual variation, but don’t contribute towards meaning or location. Their presence is unimposing, but unnecessary. The otherwise minimal, black set draws all attention onto Moodie, as it should in this production. Audience focus is on Joanne’s attempted helpers and their capacity to empathise; they are more solid and demanding of immediate attention than the silhouetted subject of their stories who leaves nothing but a memory.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PayPal.

The Devil Without, London Horror Festival

rsz_1devilHiding in a room above a pub in Camden, John is on the run from an archdemon that he initially believed was the angel Madimi, with whom he did a dodgy deal for his soul. This archdemon is so powerful that being in his presence is enough to kill a mortal. But don’t worry, everyone is safe as long as we follow John’s instructions and don’t go through the door. Arcane symbols and a circle of salt help protect us from harm, as does his wisdom and hundreds of years of life experience. We are there for a workshop of sorts, to learn how to augment our realities through the power of the liminal space that exists between realities and just happen to be caught up in the demon chase, so the audience must sign a waiver before entering the theatre. Part séance, part hypnotism show, part magic and part theatre, The Devil Without seamlessly merges genres and the occult in a frighteningly unpredictable show loaded with audience interaction.

It’s difficult to say much about this show’s details without giving away the elements that generate the near-constant surprise and suspense, but there is a storyline and a structure that definitely makes this a piece of highly effective theatre. Ian Harvey-Stone plays the character of the 500-year-old immortal, performing feats of mind control and magic that rely on audience participation, including four people taken on an out-of-body journey to see if it’s safe to emerge from the room. There are also guided meditations that are meant to reduce phobias and demonstrate the power of our own minds, which are uncomfortably successful. It’s certainly impressive as Harvey-Stone manages to fully convinces and disarms the audience. Logically I believe what he does must be trickery involving audience plants, but he’s so convincing that the seeds of doubts are there, especially with Harvey-Stone’s assurance that they aren’t and the show changes nightly – could it be real? After all, “magic features the power of words…speak something and it exists,” says John. This uncertainty contributes to the scare factor of the show; we are unsettled when logic cannot explain an occurrence.

Smoothly directed by John-David Henshaw, the use of light and sound emphasizes the paranormal with resonant tones and pulsing lights. Henshaw’s direction combined with Harvey-Stone’s performance makes them an impressive pair of suspense masters. As a former scare attraction performer and an aficionado of horror, it takes a lot to rattle me but The Devil Without is hugely unsettling. The fluid genre mash-up and Harvey-Stone’s committed performance combine to create a show that extends the genre of horror theatre in a wonderfully frightening direction.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PayPal.

The Sandman, London Horror Festival

rsz_sandmanThe sandman doesn’t throw sand in your eyes to help you sleep, oh no. That’s just what parents want children to believe so they aren’t scared of the real sandman. The real sandman is horrible. If you’re still awake, he steals your eyes and puts them into his little bag and takes them up to his little, bald bird-children who live on the moon. Then they eat them.

T. A. Hoffmann, celebrated German gothic horror author, wrote short story “The Sandman” in 1816. Featuring automatons, folklore, love, childhood trauma and obsession, it tells the tragic downfall of Nathaniel, who couldn’t let go of his boyhood fear of the sandman, personified in his father’s malformed colleague, Coppelius. Adie Mueller and Mike Carter adapt and modernise this short story into a one-woman show of the same name that eschews linear narrative in favour of a disturbing, extremely fragmented chaos. Mueller skillfully performs the eight characters that appear in the story, but the show requires a lot of thinking and patience to decipher the truth behind the numerous perspectives.

In the programme, Mueller and Carter state, “The woman knows that this story is too much for her and she needs you, the audience. The story bursts out of her and comes at you in fragments, randomly and out of chronological sequence. You will have to play your part in piecing them together, finding the overarching narrative, and search beyond reason to make meaning from them.” This is a nice idea to draw the audience into a one-person show and make them feel needed, but for the tired and those that want to sit back and be entertained/scared, it’s hard work. It also serves as a distraction from the lack of clarity of the audience’s function and relationship to the performer, a vital element of one-person performance. Requiring us to sift through the pieces of story strewn before us has no benefit to the performance or the piece; it would be delivered identically whether the audience understands or not. Director Carter chooses to keep the house lights on so Meuller can make eye contact, but there is no direct dialogue. What does she want from us? Why are we hearing this story? It is never revealed.

Mueller’s performance draws attention away from these shortcomings, and it’s an excellent one. Her use of physical storytelling and character differentiation comes easily, and shows a high level of skill and training. Clad in white, she cuts a powerful image in the Etcetera’s small black box, adding to the chaos with her violent use of creepy props.

The story modernizes well, with a focus on sexual dysfunction, technology and its grim intersection. The characters evoke empathy, particularly Nathaniel, who we see as a scared child and an adult obsessed with his lecturer’s “daughter” Olympia. Though his behaviour is appalling, he is a victim of his past rather than a calculating psychopath. His attempts to maintain a normal relationship with human being Clara are thwarted by reoccurring psychotic episodes…or are they real? The prospect of an alternative, tormenting reality that haunts Nathaniel is deliciously spooky. The Sandman is creepily unsettling and despite the effort needed to work out what is happening, the performances and characters make up for the jagged structure.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PayPal.

In the Heights, Kings Cross Theatre

rsz_sam_mackay_as_usnavi_and_the_cast_of_in_the_heights_photo_credit_johan_persson

Way up in Manhattan, so far north that it’s nearly the Bronx, is Washington Heights. You take the A or the 1 train to 181 Street to find this primarily Hispanic neighbourhood that’s not on any tourist radar. In the Heights shows the day-to-day struggles and celebrations of a group of residents on one block far removed from downtown prosperity with a soundtrack of salsa, hip-hop and poppy musical theatre.

The songs are the most innovative aspect of this mostly-sung musical with a stellar cast, but the book is rather sparse and the large cast of characters means it’s a cracking ensemble performance with frustratingly little development for any one character. The book and lyrics rely on stereotypes of Latino immigrants in New York City, though it both fulfills and destroys them within the diverse array of characters. The story feels rather tenuously squeezed around the songs with the dialogue serving as a plot point connector; most, of the scenes aren’t substantial enough to stand on their own. But, going back to the music, the songs make up the bulk of this musical and create a fabulous atmosphere complimented by excellent design. The Latin and hip-hop tunes are the best and most original, resulting in a fun evening and a memorable soundtrack.

This production is the same one that received numerous accolades and award nominations last year at Southwark Playhouse, and deservedly so. The Kings Cross Theatre suits this show well, with a wide traverse stage and audiences on either side, creating intimacy and suiting Drew McOnie’s circular, street party choreography. There are still design relics from The Railway Children, but Takis’ urban set and Gabriella Slade’s bright, revealing costumes pull the focus onto this completely contrasting world. With the performances practically in the laps of the front rows, it’s hard not to get up and dance. Some people do during the curtain call.

It’s not all a party, though. Nina (Lily Frazer), the first of the neighbourhood to go to university, has dropped out after her first year. Her father Kevin (David Bedella) hates her boyfriend Benny (Joe Aaron Reid) and is furious about Nina’s deceitful behaviour. Corner shop (or “bodega” in NYC lingo) owner Usnavi (Sam Mackay) and salon owner Daniela (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt) are getting priced out due to rising rents. Others came here for a better life only to find themselves cleaning houses and pigeonholed by poverty. The joy in this show comes in the characters’ ability to party and find solace in each other in the face of adversity – a powerful message for modern times.

I wanted to know more about these characters, though. This is a “slice of life” show that tries to fit in a lot of big personalities and backstories in a short amount of time, so the main characters and their tales have little space to grow. The storyline feels rushed and the ending, though a happy resolution, is a bit too “musical theatre twee” for a world that’s poor and gritty, albeit one soaked with colour and excellent music. It’s still possible to be pulled into this little stretch of Washington Heights in the height of summer and to want to dance the night away to this extraordinary blend of Latino, rap and musical theatre.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PayPal.

Twelfth Night: A Gender Experiment (opposite gender cast), The Rose Playhouse

Most Shakespeare I see is performed with the actors’ genders matching that of the characters they play. Sometimes I see token cross-gender or gender-blind casting within an own-gender cast, sometimes all-male productions and less often, all-female productions (I wrote about the scarcity of all-female Shakespeare companies in the UK for The Shakespeare Standard last month). What I hadn’t seen however, was a completely cross-gendered production. As part of a gender experiment, actor/director Natasha Rickman stages Twelfth Night: A Gender Experiment four ways: all-female, all-male, same gendered and cross-gendered. Rather than seeing all four, I went for the most rare of the options out of curiosity, which was satisfied by excellent performances and a 90-minute edit with plenty of fun and energy. I’m now tempted to see the remaining three as I can’t decipher quite what Rickman seeks to prove or disprove with her experiment, but the questions surrounding the nature of the experiment did not dampen the enjoyment of the evening.

A cast of seven, three men, three women and a sock puppet, play all parts. There are the same number of men and women in all four versions, supporting Equity’s goal for 50/50 gender representation in theatre. Rickman is a RADA grad, as are most of her cast so handle Shakespeare’s text easily. Julia Goulding is an outstanding, versatile Orsino, Sir Andrew and Feste, using accents to clearly differentiate her characters. Shauna Snow is, hands down, the best Malvolio I have ever seen – serpentine and androgynous, but utterly buffoonish upon discovery of Maria’s planted letter and vulnerable after her release from prison. Henry Gilbert is a lovely Olivia, feminine but not helpless. Christopher Logan’s Viola has a hard, threatening edge when fending off Olivia’s advances, rare in a female playing the role. There is a notable lack of racial diversity, though. This cast is all white and the actors that make up the rest of the company appear to be as well, or at least look like it in the small, black & white photographs in the copied programme.

Sorcha Corcoran clothes the women in costumes inspired by Smooth Faced Gentlemen’s skinny jeans, shirts and braces, showing masculinity without hiding feminine features. The men wear dresses, but don’t hide their short hair with wigs. Though they still play the gender of the characters, Rickman doesn’t strive for realism in design or performance, which works well for this play that has such a heavy focus on gender. She indicates gender with the costume rather than playing it, creating a self-referential style more in keeping with Shakespeare’s original performance practice than contemporary productions that seek total naturalism. Also, she draws on stereotypes to create the roles; there is a heavy dose of Commedia dell’arte in the characters’ movements, which would have been a large influence on Shakespeare’s comedic characters in both writing and performance. The overall feel is light, funny and camp from both the men and women, with any references to the characters’ genders heightened due to the reversed casting. Combined with a good sense for pace and timing, the 90 minutes feel more like a relaxed hour filled with laughter and music.

Rickman uses diagonals well on the small stage, but doesn’t place much action around the rest of the Rose’s site despite the tea lights scattered around the pool and back wall. Sir Andrew and Viola’s almost-fight is oddly conducted with tree branches, which feel out of place. There’s a good dose of music and a jig during Feste’s final song, ending the evening with a flourish and reinforcing the sheer joy of Shakespeare’s comedies. This is one of The Rose Playhouse’s stronger offerings, and a rare opportunity to see a cast with impressive credits perform Shakespeare in an intimate space, regardless of any gender “experiments” the production seeks to conduct.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PayPal.

Barbarians, Tooting Arts Club

Punks Paul, Jan and Louis are working class lads living in south London. School didn’t do much for them and unemployment is high, so they hang around and smoke, nick cars and try to pull girls. They’re bored, angry and frustrated at the lack of opportunities available to poor kids like them. They want to improve their quality of life and feel like they belong in society, but society’s too busy fighting terrorism and racism to pay them any attention so they do their best to get by, or not. It sounds like the present, right? Nope. Barrie Keeffe’s Barbarians premiered in 1977. As London battles the National Front, striking unions and IRA bombs to a soundtrack of The Clash and The Sex Pistols, audiences can’t help but draw parallels between life then and now. It’s unsurprising this Tooting Arts Club/Soho Theatre production will soon be followed by the Young Vic’s, a completely different production of the same play, what with its contemporary social relevance and three fantastic roles for young actors to get stuck into. Though close to three hours long and composed of three self-contained plays at different points in the boys’ lives, the excellent performances, atmospheric venue and socio-political comment make the time well spent.

The long-vacant uni building on Tottenham Court Road used as the performance space for this production is the defining feature of this production, fostering intimacy, interaction and that overused catch-all word, “immersion”. The decaying interior surrounding the audience reinforces the poverty in the the lads’ and how grim it is for them day in and day out. We are in this world too, rather than just observing. Political slogans and graffiti cover the walls. The ceiling’s falling in above the youth club tables and chairs. Barriers herd spectators like cattle at a football match. Discarded furniture lines Notting Hill’s streets during carnival. The audience doesn’t sit on comfortable theatre seats, but on the items that make up the set. We aren’t comfortable, but nor should we be as neither are these guys. The three rooms that are used for the three separate plays contained in Barbarians are small and crowded with people; the actors’ energy rushes around the room, occasionally making contact with those of us watching but we never feel threatened despite the regularly erupting violence. There’s a feeling of claustrophobia created by this space, but also the possibility for the walls to be blown away by all rage. It’s a wonderful, angry whirlwind that encourages our inner “fuck the establishment” punk anarchists and empathy with the characters even though their actions are often abhorrent.

The cast is outstanding. Josh Williams is the aspirational black Louis; his skin colour is often unseen by his mates, and also makes him the victim of their racist “banter” and violence. Williams captures his inner strength and good intentions that eventually grow large enough to stand up for his beliefs. Whilst all of the characters want their lives to have a purpose, Louis doesn’t let leader Paul (Thomas Coombes) turn him into one of his violent minions as they grow up. Coombes’ terrifying Paul still manages to evoke sympathy when he is younger. His need to fit in always tends towards mob violence; the character reminds me of troubled young people from dysfunctional homes with little love around and no other knowledge of how to express frustration. Jake Davies is Jan, the shy mousy one who also tries to make something of himself but doesn’t have the inner strength that Louis does. Unsurprisingly, all three lads come to a horrible end when they meet again after going their separate ways, in the summer heat at Notting Hill Carnival.

Keeffe’s script is excellent and each of the playlets can stand alone and still make their point, but to present all three really drives the message home as the audience can see the effect of a poor quality of life on young people over a longer period of time. I would love to see a female equivalent of this play, as much of what’s contained in Barbarians is stereotypically male, and working class young women’s lives would have been no easier during the late 70s. Regardless, Tooting Arts Club’s production is worth seeing for its use of space and the effects it has on characterization and the energy of the piece. Director Bill Buckhurst’s work here is certainly to be commended in one of my theatrical highlights of this year.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PayPal.

The Emperor Jones, Lost Theatre

Whilst visiting a Caribbean island about 100 years ago, Brutus Jones, an African American train driver, some how ends up emperor of the island’s native tribe. His reign is brutal, so Jones knows it will eventually end. Eugene O’Neill’s 1920 The Emperor Jones begins with Jones’ initially relaxed attempt at escape from the uprising citizens, and inevitable guilty descent into the madness of a Shakespearian villain. The script is entirely spoken by Jones, barring the first and last scenes, with his madness peppered with ghosts that won’t let him rest in the darkness of the island’s woods.

The ensemble cast add variation with movement, dance and music, breaking up the lengthy monologue that comprises most of the play. The Afro-Caribbean style dancing and ritual bowing designed by movement director Diane Alison-Mitchell compliment the set of heavy, distressed drapes that become a throne room, forest and road. The dance and movement plays a vital role in determining the setting, as the script largely neglects this. The time period is also ignored in the text, but also smartly indicated with generic peasant costumes by Sorcha Corcoran. Director Ursula Campbell effectively unites the design elements, rounding it off with Fasier Milroy’s dark sound and lighting.

It’s an interesting play choice for Black History Month considering how unlikeable the title role is, but shows episodes from African-American history in Jones’ hallucinations, and can provide some insight into Caribbean island life. What is also worth considering is that The Emperor Jones was written by a white man prior to US integration and features a black leading man who speaks in the vernacular of the slave generations, but O’Neill was the son of Irish immigrants, a nationality on the receiving end of much discrimination. Though initial pathos towards Jones is impossible, there is room for it to develop over the course of his collapse. O’Neill’s script is similarly wordy and slow to develop tension, not gathering momentum until roughly half way through. It employs several different performance styles including early realism that although experimental at the time of writing, feels dated now.

RSC, National and Globe veteran Mark Springer is egotist Brutus Jones. His arrogance, written into the script, takes a long time to break down; this limits Springer’s range until he starts to lose his mind after which he splendidly falls apart. His second in command, Smithers (Matthew McFetridge), is the bearded manipulator that keeps his cards close to his chest when advising Jones of the people’s revolt. The rest of the cast who form an ensemble are good, but underused.

The issue with The Emperor Jones isn’t the production in this case, but the script itself. Despite considered design and production elements, it becomes clear why this play is rarely produced in the UK. It has little relevant to modern British society and Jones’ narcissism, whilst no doubt fun to play, is much less fun to watch and drags on for too long.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PayPal.

The Gastronomical Comedy, Cockpit Theatre

whatthehell_pressNew writing based on classical literature, with the audience being served Italian food as part of the performance, sounds like a cracking way to spend an evening. The Gastronomical Comedy tells Dante’s story as he tries to be an actor in London but ends up working in his wife’s uncle’s restaurant, The Inferno, to pay the bills. It’s a timeless story of artistic struggle meant to parallel Dante Alighieri’s journey through hell, though the connection between the two stories was tenuous at best as the modern day Dante didn’t encounter particularly difficult opposition to his dreams. Despite good performances, it’s a concept that is good in principle but feels very much like a work-in-progress in need of quite a lot of script development before being a completed piece of theatre.

Paolo Serra’s script co-written with Jud Charlton and Gian Sessarego is quick and choppy, too brief to allow the story to unfold at a realistic pace but neither is it episodic. Dante quickly gets a role in a profit-share show, he easily finds a day job, and his wife gives him a bit of grief but nothing major. The play runs at just over an hour, but this is too short for the time frame covered and character journeys contained in it. Dante is the active hero of the story rather than Alighieri’s passive observer and some comedy and magic opens the evening, which although fun, doesn’t contribute to Dante’s story. As for the food, there was plenty of it served by an onstage waiter-magician to select ticket holders who got several courses of food at onstage tables. Some other audience members received samples of pesto pasta from Dante’s frantic on-stage kitchen, but the rest were unlucky. Disappointing, as it smelled fantastic.

The performances are good though. Sessarego is the optimistic but poor Dante who left his wife in Italy to pursue an acting career. Two additional performers, Jud Charlton and Louise Lee, play several other characters in Dante’s life. These people are extremely heightened, which could clash with Sessarego’s naturalism but effectively draws attention to his foreignness. Charlton’s fringe theatre director who casts Dante in an adaptation of The Divine Comedy is particularly good, as is Lee as Dante’s wife Patricia who the audience mostly sees through projected skype calls.

Set was a chair and a metal trolley for the kitchen, not helping the incomplete feel of the production. There are some well-designed projections and music in Dante’s restaurant, The Inferno, which helped combat the sparseness of the script. The performances also help alleviate the lack of substance, but for The Gastronomical Comedy to really push boundaries of genre and create a food/theatre performance event, the script needs to follow through with several courses rather than try to get by with a predictable starter and a side salad.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PalPal.

Rise Up, Theatre Centre

Kimisha Lewis in Rise UpMay, 1961. The American south. Segregation has been ruled unconstitutional, but southern states ignore the legislation and the federal government does nothing to enforce it. Activists of all ages and races, sponsored by civil rights organizations, challenge this non-enforcement on public transport and customer services by sending groups of riders, black and white, on interstate bus journeys from Washington DC to New Orleans.

They never get to New Orleans. Over the next several months, in Alabama and Mississippi one bus after another is brutally attacked. The activists, who believe in passive protest, are terribly injured and eventually arrested. President Kennedy, embarrassed by their actions on an international level, urges them to stop but they continue to fight for equality. Rise Up by Lisa Evans uses spoken word, storytelling and multi-rolling to inspire young people to fight for equality in their everyday lives and pay homage to these brave people fighting for justice. A cast of four actor-storytellers with boundless energy plays all the characters with minimal set and props, inciting enthusiasm from both adults and young people alike.

Three metal panels on wheels are the old silver Greyhound buses. A few matching metal stools cleverly create bus seats, jail cells, shop counters and so on. Actors Emma Dennis-Edwards, Sam Kacher, Kimisha Lewis and Edward Nkom set the scenes with an array of accents and physicalities under their belts, plus a few hats and small props to help. The audience consisting mostly of children from the local girls’ school immediately warm to them, both during the production and the post-show “revolution”.

The script is narration-heavy, perhaps too much so, but these monologues feature sections of poetry delivered with a hint of spoken word, but not so much so that the performance style changes and does a disservice to production style continuity. Though more showing than telling would have been welcome, the incidents described are quite graphic and not appropriate to vividly show to school children. This isn’t a particularly visual show, so the students’ attention is a testament to the script and performers’ strength.

Theatre for young people continues to develop in leaps and bounds, creating rich stories and detailed characterization that can appeal to all ages. Rise Up is an example of this, telling a clear story that although set in another era and country, manages to relate to the lives of contemporary young people in Britain feeling the effects of inequality. The staging is simple as is the design, but this serves to focus the audience’s attention on Evans’ excellent script.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PalPal.

Proof, Tabard Theatre

UHiP6jXbA5DqIaNXkAytOBl1UuLDXy_b779FX7xl6BQ,a9rOk_j1JSFH2FR-jBMbqGBJsjT4iFWRGYLFIWCxaIA,C2UVon_VzrAAqP9YeBbzFYsaScoYT5zPqdFATRLMTa4David Auburn’s 2001 play Proof is an exquisitely crafted Tony award winner about Catherine, a young woman who gave up her early 20s to care for her father, a renowned mathematician suffering from mental illness. The night before her 25th birthday, she wrestles with her overbearing older sister Claire, awkward advances from her father’s former student Hal, and the question of  how much of her father’s genius and/or madness she inherited. Darting between mathematics, sibling relationships, mental health and trust, Front Foot Theatre’s production brings out the script’s humour and uses stark character contrast to easily generate external conflict. There is little subtlety in this interpretation though, and an unusual casting choice exacerbates this.

Of the cast of four, they are all undoubtedly excellent, and three of them are mostly consistent with their Chicago accents. But director Sebastien Blanc focuses on character clashes whilst neglecting lead character Catherine’s inner battle, here played by Julia Papp, an actor from Hungary. Papp performs in both a language and accent that aren’t native to her, huge challenges to overcome in order to achieve any sort of in-depth characterization. She does get there near the end of the play; up to this point, she relies on sarcasm and shouting to convey a generalized emotional state. Her accent is also frustratingly inconsistent. There is great chemistry between the cast as a whole though, particularly Papp with Kim Hardy as her father’s ex-student Hal, and in her final scene with her father (Tim Hardy). Their more intimate moments are lovely. Papp certainly has talent as a performer, but the obstacles in Proof create a constant struggle for her. Mary-Ann Cafferkey, as Catherine’s older sister Claire, a no-nonsense currency analyst living in Manhattan with her fiancé who has no patience for Catherine’s issues, balances Catherine’s emotional instability. Her stereotyped interpretation is fun to hate, but Blanc ignores her genuine love and worry for Catherine. The male characters are played with much more nuance than the women, despite them being smaller roles, so it appears that there are some deeper directorial issues present.

Michael Leopold’s dilapidated house is a wonderful set, more complex than most in fringe theatre. It looks well-crafted and sturdy, an excellent finishing touch to a play grounded in modern naturalism. The sound design is an original composition by Chris Roe, blending a range of emotions with the digital precision of the mathematics that feature so heavily in Auburn’s script.

Without a doubt, Proof is a beautiful play. It’s unsurprising that it won several awards during its Broadway run and the play itself is the highlight of this production, followed by the design. The direction neglects the inner emotional life, particularly of the female characters, but most performances help redeem this. It’s a play rarely mounted in the UK, and the opportunity to catch it should not be missed despite this production’s shortcomings.

The Play’s The Thing UK is an independent theatre criticism website maintained voluntarily. Whilst donations are never expected, they are hugely appreciated and will enable more time to be spent reviewing theatre productions of all sizes. Click here to make a donation with PalPal.