“a wonderful display of talented performances with a script not quite up to scratch”
A tragedy doesn’t just befall the victim in the middle, it happens to so many people. One Under explores the effects of loss, ownership of grief, and the sometimes-bizarre ways we deal with it, whether we knew the person or not.
Sonny (Reece Pantry), a good-natured and well-loved young man full of potential, jumps in front of a train. His mother (Shenagh Govan) and sister (Evlyne Oyedokun) are left to manage their understandable grief. Train driver Cyrus (Stanley J. Browne) finds himself incapable of moving past the incident, and takes on the mystery of Sonny’s suicide, insistent that the story is more complicated than it might seem. We’re also privy to Sonny’s last day before his death, in which he decides to anoint himself the guardian angel of Christine (Clare-Louise English), a complete stranger.
The story works best when we’re unsure of how it will all piece together. Dialogue is playful and snappy; various relationships are displayed organically, painting a true-to-life image. But as soon as we reach an attempt at clarity- I’d say about an hour in- it all starts to drag a little. Each plotline is too complex to meet any other with any kind of harmony, as though writer Winsome Pinnock had lots of ideas, but no ending in mind.
The first ten minutes are also distractingly confusing, as Govan plays both a jaded fellow train driver trying to down-play Sonny’s death, and, in the following scene, his grieving mother. It’s unclear for too long that these are two different people. I’m sure casting director Sarah Hughes was working to a budget, but maybe next time splash out and get someone to step in for the first role. That being said, Hughes has done a splendid job otherwise. Govan as the mother perfectly balances force and affection; her relationships with both her children seem well-worn and honest. Pantry is spectacular, showing the full range of someone on the brink. English, too, expresses incredible nuance, full of kindness whilst distrustful of others’ good nature.
The scenery (Amelia Jane Hankin), though very pretty, doesn’t work. Two free-standing wooden shelves bow over the stage, carefully curated with plants and artfully stacked books. Scenes come and go in various locations, and I’m waiting for the backdrop to make sense. It’s possible it suits a scene in a hotel, or maybe Sonny’s flat, but the story takes place in a bunch of different places, so it really doesn’t make sense even if it were either of those, and it’s unclear either way.
The main trouble, though, is that within this one play, Pinnock has enough material for a series, following various characters, each with their own story, each suffering in their own private way. But in attempting to squeeze it in to one plot under two hours, she’s lost the thread. I would love to see this story properly unpacked, but for now, One Under, as directed by Amit Sharma, is a wonderful display of talented performances with a script not quite up to scratch.
“direction lacks subtlety, and the broad strokes with which all the characters are painted make for a repetitive evening”
Beryl Burton is an unsung sporting heroine; an extraordinary sportswoman whose list of achievements is mindblowing. She was a cyclist, and records that she created in the 1960s and 70s stood for 20 years and more; her 12 hour distance record standing for an astonishing 50 years, only finally to be broken two years ago. She was a working class Yorkshirewoman, wife and mother, yet despite being decorated by the Queen, remains almost unknown in the popular history of British sport. Maxine Peake has sought to change that with this play, first performed five years ago in 2014. It is easy to see why Peake was attracted to Beryl’s story. Peake is a proud Notherner as well as an outspoken feminist and socialist, and Beryl’s very Yorkshire breed of grit and determination, allied with the fact that she has been largely buried by history, dovetails neatly with Peake’s passions. The problem lies with the fact that, outside the parameters of her sporting life, Beryl led an unremarkable life. She was happily married to her exceptionally supportive husband from an early age – it was he, in fact, who first got her on a bike – and had a daughter, Denise, who became a competitive cyclist herself. Beryl was diagnosed with a heart problem when she was still at school, which she refused to let restrict her sporting ambition, and ultimately she succumbed to a heart attack, just short of her 59th birthday party.
The fact that Beryl’s life was so unremarkable only magnifies her extraordinary sporting talent. It does not, however, make for riveting theatre. There is precious little drama in Beryl’s story, and Peake’s decision to write it, documentary style, as a linear narrative, from her school days to her death, does nothing to help lift it off the page. Ed Ullyart’s design works well, and treads the right line between playfulness and functionality, but Marieke Audsley’s direction lacks subtlety, and the broad strokes with which all the characters are painted make for a repetitive evening. Audsley has chosen to liven up the story by creating slapstick cameos throughout, but with only varying degrees of success. Mark Conway clearly has a gift for this type of work, and creates some terrific characters and comedy moments, not least owing to his deft physical work, but the other two supporting cast members frequently fall flat in these situations. There are some bizarre directorial choices too; why, for instance, do the two authority figures (teacher and doctor) in Yorkshire, speak in exaggerated RP? And, given the small size of Arcola Studio 2, why does one of the actors continually shout all their lines? It became exhausting to watch.
Jessica Duffield, as Beryl, is believable as the ordinary woman with extraordinary drive, but the script doesn’t give her much opportunity to flesh her out beyond that. There are some flashes of dramatic interest in the second half, when we are briefly allowed to see a less sympathetic side to Beryl’s character, but they are never developed, to the play’s detriment. What we do see an awful lot of is Beryl on her bike. There’s no denying that it makes a good stage picture to see her pedalling away on stage, but once you’ve seen it and got the point, you’ve seen it and got the point. Tom Lorcan was charming as Beryl’s husband, and again, did his best with the skin-deep sketch given to him by the script, but there was nowhere for him to go. He is the same man at the end as the one we meet at the beginning. Perhaps that is how he actually was (although that would be surprising, given the nature of his wife’s ambition) but there’s no drama there.
Maybe in an effort to address the inherent lack of theatre in this tale, Maxine Peake intermittently gets the actors to break the fourth wall. They make quips about their agents and auditions, and the low-budget nature of the production. This meta-theatrical device doesn’t work however, precisely because of the lack of theatre in the main narrative. It merely has the whiff of in-jokes in the school playground, and sets us further apart as an audience, rather than inviting us in. There’s no doubt that Beryl Burton should be remembered, but her story might have been better served by Maxine Peake herself, in a monologue of half the duration.
