“It is engaging but teasing. Like an extended trailer. Or rather a pilot for a television drama series”
“I’m not always that easy to love” Kate explains to her girlfriend Liv. She then spends the next ninety minutes proving her point. If it stretches our patience, think what it is like for the three characters in “The Beach House”, whose entangled lives untangle before us over the course of a year or so. A year in which Kate gives birth to their baby daughter (the conception of which remains a mystery) after the couple move into a crumbling cottage by the sea. Kate’s sister, Jenny, comes and goes, upsetting the already precarious balance each time she arrives, and often more so when she leaves.
Many staple themes are touched upon in Jo Harper’s episodic play, that are unveiled in a series of snapshots. Short scenes. Vignettes of a particular moment in time. Like looking through a stranger’s photo album. We see the surface, and then rely on our imaginations to create the back story. Dramatically that is a blessing, but a burden for the performers who have little time to convince us of their complex characterisation. And they don’t always manage this in the time they have. But what they do have, in abundance, is the ability to draw you into the moment and offer more than a hint of what is going on. The cracks appear in the relationships like the leaks that spring in the roof of their rundown home.
Kathryn Bond is the pragmatic, uptight career woman. Bond cleverly plays the bully with a tender lack of self-awareness who can surprisingly elicit sympathy. The issue of post-natal depression is brushed aside and swept under her façade of impatience and overreaction. Apparently Kate has always been the controlling type, according to free spirited, little sister Jenny. Gemma Barnett has many layers through which to make her character’s voice heard but, despite her strong charisma and very watchable presence, the message becomes muffled. Gemma Lawrence’s Liv has the most light and shade. A blocked songwriter, she depends on Kate financially and emotionally. Lawrence convincingly portrays a divided soul. We marvel at her tolerance, and understand and excuse her indiscretions.
There is a lot going on here. All three characters are both culprits and victims. They are grappling with some hefty issues. Coercion, emotional abuse, infidelity, motherhood, sisterhood, abortion, betrayal, desire. It could be a whirlwind, but it is more fragile than that. Delivered gently, the real tensions are like a dark cloud on the horizon, and the performances are treading some way from the precipice.
Set in the round, Bethany Pitts staging is nevertheless starkly honest, reflected in Cara Evans’ sparse setting. The lens focuses on a single trunk centre stage, a Pandora’s Box – on which the lid is never fully lifted. A baby monitor relays some offstage dialogue, but again we expect more of a reveal from this technique. It is engaging but teasing. Like an extended trailer. Or rather a pilot for a television drama series. Now there’s an idea. The performances certainly do leave us wanting to know more. And what happens next. And what happened before. “Always leave them wanting more” they say. A fundamental rule that this company haven’t breached in “The Beach House”.
“funny and empowering without attempting to gloss over the hazards”
In true striptease style this lucidly written play observing the sex worker lifestyle must wait an age while the audience is warmed up. Stacey Clare reads extracts from her forthcoming book countering the stigma and stereotypes of stripping, setting a feminist compass and authentic tone for the evening, before Electric Girl performs an erotic dance to establish the more familiar face and form of the subject. With thunder seemingly stolen, Joana Nastari then takes the stage to narrate the typical evening at a dance club for One, a stripper, as she navigates the hapless regulars and predictable first-timers. Behind her, The Other, played by Charlotte Bickley operates the decks, playing music and occasionally chiming in as DJ Craig as well as voicing One’s phone, which slowly dies as her worried mother tries to make contact.
The tale is funny and empowering without attempting to gloss over the hazards of drugs and drink, the insecure employment and short-term lifestyle. We share the camaraderie of her co-workers as they respect one another’s ‘hustle’, but also the building concern represented by the mother’s missed calls. As a writer, Joana Nastari is perceptive and entertaining. As an actor, she establishes a rapport with her audience while being able to withdraw into scenes where more depth is needed.
Director Bethany Pitts, together with movement director Yami Lofvenberg, uses podia, pools of light, (lighting design, Martha Godfrey) fake fur and tinsel (designer, Naomi Kuyck-Cohen) to create the necessary stages, corners, cupboards and dressing rooms, enhanced by Charlotte Bickley’s rich sound design.
Producer Ellen Spence steers her female production team determinedly away from any danger of being too serious, while ensuring that the stereotype created by those who demean sex workers is thoroughly busted. In place of analysis, the team prefers to endorse the well-run strip club as a safe way for fun-loving adults to exploit each other’s needs.
The show might be more self-confident without the preamble (different performers will open each performance) but if you know how to extract whoops and cheers from an audience the temptation to is probably irresistible. However, in doing so, some of the idea is lost. It’s the intersection between the emotional support sex-workers provide for each other with the moral and campaigning support provided by modern feminism that makes this a fresh and fascinating production, one that needs no dressing up.
Reviewed by Dominic Gettins
Photography by Maurizio Martorana
Fuck You Pay Me
The Bunker until 19th May
The line up of special guests at each performance will be announced each day on FYPM’s social media
