fringe theatre

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.

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.

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.

The Tempest, Bread & Roses Theatre

The Tempest cut down to an hour performed by an all-female cast in a newish fringe venue in south London? Go on, then! Gender bending Shakespeare gives women opportunities to play seminal roles and audiences the chance to see Shakespeare’s characters in a new light. Get Over It Productions have been producing all-female Shakespeare for several years, having set up in order to direct and perform in their own work. They also seek to cast a mix of seasoned pros with actors just starting out, and have a small budget. All of this is bloody brilliant in principle.

But it’s incredibly difficult to do well. Taking on multiple roles within the production team, working with a range of abilities and experiences, and not having much to spend on a good venue is hard work. What was a good concept didn’t really work in practice here. There were some cracking performances, but the mix of naturalism and Victorian melodrama showed a lack of cohesive vision within the Victorian music hall design. Director Paula Benson, who also played Prospero and is the artistic director of the company, could have done with an impartial outside eye to provide additional support and guidance. Clapham’s Bread & Roses, though a lovely space, is too small for the 11-strong cast and often led to stilted, restrained physicality and actors bumping into each other during transitions. This had a knock-on effect on line delivery, breaking up the metre and muddying line endings, and flattening energy. Shakespeare’s language is intrinsically linked to the actors’ movement and when one is blocked, it obstructs the other. There were no weapons; instead they were mimed. Unarmed combat would have been a more active choice, as the actors looked self-conscious with the lack of weapons.

The performance quality varied, but is to be expected with a company of mixed ability and experience. Benson’s melancholy, plotting Prospero was a unique and effective perspective I haven’t seen before. Sassy Clyde’s goofy, posh Ferdinand was equally unique and very funny. The contrast with the naïve Miranda (Velenzia Spearpoint) was wonderful; if she had more worldly experience she would most certainly not go for such a useless fellow. Both Clyde and Benson are convincing as blokes, with much focus on masculine gesture and movement. Joan Potter as Gonzalo and Cindy Evans as Alonso also play excellent men. Telma Rocha has the comic ability to contort her face into one resembling Commedia masks, and also has a well-developed, albeit stylized, character in Trinculo.

Despite the several issues with the production, they are ones that are easily solvable and with a few tweaks, including sharing production responsibility with a larger, trusted creative team will really ramp up Get Over It’s work. Lengthening the show, even a little bit, will make the cuts to the script less jarring and the action more fluid. Budget obviously can’t be helped much, but an adjustable space like The Bread & Roses allows for a different audience layout that would give the performers more space. I could see traverse staging working well with this production concept. Get Over It Productions ambitions are certainly commendable and the talent is clearly present. Perhaps this production was a weaker one, and I look forward to seeing future work.

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.

Empty Vessels, Rosemary Branch

Bethany runs a work-in-progress writers’ retreat on an idyllic Greek island. Her current guests are realty TV star lad’s lad Travis who is paying her to ghostwrite his autobiography, and Eric, a hippie idealist who chucked in his comfortable life to write a fantasy novel set in the present day based in Greek mythology. When mysterious biker chick Athena turns up looking for username Ferryman4 in response to his online advert of souls for sale, Eric’s fantasy starts to look rather like reality.

This dark comedy by Greg Freeman directed by Ken McClymont has an interesting premise and is chocka with witty one-liners. A couple of the characters could use a bit more detail and the dialogue can be a bit clunky, sometimes obviously spelling out plot development unnecessarily. The main thread of the plot is quickly predictable, but doesn’t interfere with enjoyment of the character-driven comedy. With nods to online identity vs. real life, narcissistic selfie culture, and the relevance of ancient history in the modern day, Empty Vessels shares socially relevant messages with a hefty dose of humour and without being preachy.

Travis (Tobias Deacon) is the most entertaining of the four characters, an amusingly abhorrent young man epitomizing the self-obsessed who determine the value of the life by the number of followers they have on social media. He and Eric (Ben Warwick) have some frustratingly funny opening clashes that resemble Christmas dinner with your UKIP voting cousin. Deacon gleefully gets stuck into Travis’s despicable character, but Warwick has less to work with as Eric, who comes across as well-intentioned but confused much of the time, which is less interesting to watch.

The set is simple but not sparse, probably quite cheap, and clearly indicates the setting with a couple of pillars, an army of potted plants, and concrete blocks. Constructed by Jules Darker and presumably designed by McClymont, it immediately evokes Greece. It’s a lesson in how fringe theatre sets don’t have to be sparse to save money, unless there really is no budget for one. Leo Steele’s lighting is warm and inviting, with sharp transitions to show change in time of day and mood. These transitions are wonderfully quick, with no lost momentum.

This one-act also looks at humanity in a positive light despite the mocking of Narcissus’ descendants. The final scene’s revelation is both funny and endearing after the Comedy of Errors-esque soul swapping. It also gives Sophia Hannides (Athena) a chance to showcase her range. Even with the self-obsession of today’s society fostered by the dominance of online presence, there are still gods amongst us who have the power to wake us up and refocus attention onto the real here and now rather than on a smartphone screen.

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.

Never Ending Night, The Vaults

“Immersive” is a trendy term that’s rather overused in theatre at the moment. But what is it, exactly? The same can be said for “site-specific” and “interactive” theatre. Audiences are seeking out alternative theatre experiences that aren’t just sitting in a dark room and watching actors tell a story, and theatre producers are obliging, using the aforementioned vocabulary often too liberally and consequently diminishing the words’ meaning. Established practitioners of immersive performance include Punchdrunk, probably the most well-known, Secret Cinema’s events that are part cinema and part theatre, and Coney’s use of game design to empower audiences. Many other companies and individual shows also describe their work as immersive; some definitely is whereas others is less concretely categorised. CCSD lecturer Dr. Gareth White says the accepted definition of immersive theatre is a production that contains “installations and expansive environments, which have mobile audiences, and which invite audience participation.” But is that entirely accurate?

Never Ending Night at the Waterloo Vaults is immersive in that the audience is freely mobile in a space fully kitted out as a bunker for the survivors of a global pandemic. The audience is first taken through decontamination, where personal effects are checked and white boiler suits and masks are provided. There is a distinct air of authority that the audience dares not violate. The first part of the performance is set outdoors in one of the two large rooms that contain the show. It’s a desolate street, with bodies of the living, barely living and dead. Lighting guides the audience to individual moments, promenade style. This provides clear, concise exposition to the world created. Narratives overlap, creating snapshot moments of grief and desperation, but it’s not frantic. Soldiers in boiler suits take the last survivors and the audience into the next room, where the rest of the play happens.

The audience can spend as much or as little time with any given character as they chose. There are several options: following a character, staying in one space to see what characters come and go, or move to scenes as they occur; each will create a totally different experience. The survivors have all been in this bunker for quite some time, and a reference to nearby Waterloo Station adds an element of site-specific performance, but doesn’t seem important to any particular narrative. The structure gives the audience autonomy, but with a large cast, individual characters have few scenes so it’s hard to connect to their experiences and learn about the little details of their lives.

There is no interaction between the audience and the actors, which raises the question of whether or not Never Ending Night is fully immersive. Can immersive theatre not be interactive? My initial instinct is to say no, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily correct, showing the issue with the lack of a standard definition. The audience here, even in provided costume, are merely observers with an unclear role. They are not residents of the facility, nor are they government officials. Even if they are there to observe, the reason why is never made clear.

Created by a company of actors trained in the Meisner Technique of character development, this quietly ending piece feels more like an extended acting exercise. It would certainly be possible for the audience and actors to speak to each other without disrupting the main scenes at any given moment, but create a new level of intimacy and depth. There characters are interesting enough to want to engage with them, but the audience was invisible. There are numerous encounters between characters and emotions are often running high, which make for excellent bursts of dramatic tension. These are too brief, within a form that goes on for too long, however. The ensemble cast remains excellent, with immense focus and emotional truth Meisner would commend. The gentle ending is a powerful anti-climax, after which the audience is set free into the night.

It is a well-managed, polished piece of ensemble theatre, but the opportunity to develop a relationship with the characters is not provided. They would continue to function and interact in their world with our without the audience present. Consequently, this is a great production for those looking for an unconventional theatre experience without the pressure of audience participation. The setting is clear, but what isn’t, is what the audience is meant to take from the experience. Still the performances are good, as is the design and it’s a worthy attempt at a form that is still developing, whether or not it really counts as immersive.

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.

The White Feather, Union Theatre

During WWI, men considered too afraid to enlist were given white feathers by those disapproving of their cowardice. Also common were boys too young to join up lying about their ages so they could experience the excitement of battle. Then there were the hundreds who were killed for desertion and cowardice in the face of the enemy. These young men suffered from PTSD, an ailment not understood or acknowledged until well after the war was over.

A cast of nine tells the story of 16-year-old Harry Briggs, who cheerfully joins up to escape humdrum village life, and his sister Georgina’s search for the truth of what really happened to her kid brother out on the front. Whilst trying to clear his name, she discovers hidden secrets of her fellow Suffolk villagers, learning more than she bargained for. Spanning several decades and touching on a wide range of issues including homosexuality, shellshock, the class system and the reality of life in the trenches, The White Feather is an intimate, provincial musical with a sturdy first act and excellent music, that reflects the close-knit and often overbearing aspect of life in a small place during wartime. The second act, shorter but covering a much longer period of time, is rather choppy and introduces an interesting subplot but too late to for much development.

Abigail Matthews flawlessly leads as the kind but tenacious Georgina Briggs, supported by wonderfully mouthy best friend, Edith (Katie Brennan). It’s not all about the girls though; David Flynn as the conflicted lord of the manor Adam Davey is the most complex character of the lot and deserves more focus than the script gives him. Edward Brown, played by Zac Hamilton, has a couple of great scenes showcasing his emotional range. This is a great cast size for a musical: enough voices to give the larger numbers a punch, but not so large that some characters are relegated to the ensemble.

A piano, violin and cello trio give the music richness but an acoustic, rural tone that beautifully suits the world of the musical. The book and music are well integrated and transitions from one to the other are mostly smooth. The act finales could stand to be a bit longer, but otherwise the music feels developed, albeit quite gentle. The book follows an evenly paced narrative arc for the first half, but several jumps feel choppy and disruptive after the interval. The programme helps with indicating the time leaps, but more could be added to the script and design to clarify them so the audience doesn’t have to regularly refer to the programme. The Adam Davey subplot could do with more than a single, brief reference in the first half in order to have greater plot integration later, but this could potentially detract from the main thread of Georgina’s quest for justice. Though the title can represent Harry’s perceived cowardice, there is little mention of the feather as a convention of the time. All of the focus points are worthy of presentation and add to the overall story, but perhaps the show is trying to do too much. Without lengthening it quite a lot, some aspects of the plot will remain under-developed.

With an engrossing first act, detailed and complimentary characters, The White Feather writers clearly Ross Clark and Andrew Keates have a gift for telling great stories. New musicals often disappear after their initial run, but this one is a mostly polished affair that deserves more development and larger houses. In the Union Theatre, it’s an emotionally charged, intimate experience not to be missed, even with its 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.