Tag Archives: Blake Kubena

Stags

Stags

★★★★

Network Theatre

Stags

Stags

Network Theatre

Reviewed – 17th May 2021

★★★★

 

“moves like a large truck—slow to get going, but once on the move—impossible to stop”

 

Cameron Corcoran’s Stags, presented by Off Main Stage Productions at the Network Theatre, Waterloo, is an intense, gritty drama exploring all the unfinished business between a dead father and his two sons. Younger son Tony (Blake Kubena) returns home to find his father (Da, played by Tim Molyneux) dead in an armchair and surrounded by broken furniture. Tony’s older brother Conn (James Finnegan), just released from prison, is nowhere in sight.

In sixty minutes, Stags covers familiar territory made famous in the dramas of American playwrights Arthur Miller and Sam Shepard, but Corcoran gives it a decidedly Irish twist by setting the play in Dublin. Stags is a pressure cooker play, always hovering on the edge of violence, no matter how much civility smart blue suit Tony attempts to bring back to the wreckage he left behind. For starters, he’s still renting space in his memories to the abuse he suffered from his father and brother, and possibly his mother as well. The first half of Stags deals with all that as Tony confronts his father’s corpse in a memory play. The two rekindle, in bitter recriminations, the wary circling around that characterized their relationship when Da was alive. But Da is dead and confined to his armchair, so the resentments on both sides simmer along without resolution until the second half when Conn returns home. By now we know enough about Conn (and the way Da has nurtured violence in the home) to know it is only a matter of time before the brothers come to blows.

Playwright Corcoran handles this material with confidence. Stags moves like a large truck—slow to get going, but once on the move—impossible to stop. It smashes everything in its path. The play is a great piece for actors, and it gives Molyneux, Finnegan and Kubena plenty to do. Molyneux is particularly impressive, since he has to work from that armchair. Finnegan deftly handles the promise of violence fulfilled as Conn goads his younger brother into shedding his veneer of education and civility. Kubena holds the play together with a difficult role that requires him to shift between playing nice and exploding into nasty. Director Naomi Wirthner uses the space economically, and well. This is a bare bones production that focuses on the acting, and rightly so.

If you have a taste for this kind of drama, you’ll find Stags well worth your time. The Network Theatre space can be a challenge to find, but keep searching even if the location seems unlikely. The space, and this play, are well suited to one another.

 

 

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

 


Stags

Network Theatre until 22nd May

 

Reviewed this year by Dominica:
Public Domain | ★★★★ | Online | January 2021
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice | ★★★ | Online | February 2021
Adventurous | ★★½ | Online | March 2021
Tarantula | ★★★★ | Online | April 2021

 

Click here to see our most recent reviews

 

The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde 

★★★★★

Wilde Theatre, Bracknell

The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Wilde Theatre, South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell

Reviewed – 18th September 2020

★★★★★

 

“a taut psychological drama that is both true to the period whilst remaining vivid and accessible to contemporary viewers”

 

The theatrical flame was burning brightly again at Bracknell’s South Hill Park last night. Their Wilde Theatre reopened for one night only for a stylish and thrilling live and live-streamed performance of ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde’.

This revival is the work of resident company, Blackeyed Theatre, and was written by its excellent Director, Nick Lane. The recording is also to be made available on demand to schools with full support materials via blackeyedtheatre.co.uk.

Robert Stevenson’s 100 page novella has been adapted into over 120 films and plays. Over 100 years since it was written, it continues to inspire new creativity and to feature on school syllabuses. Put out of your head the schlock horror of some of those earlier film versions. This is a taut psychological drama that is both true to the period whilst remaining vivid and accessible to contemporary viewers.

The show opens as the lights go up on Victoria Spearing’s cleverly expressive set. The back wall is washed in red light and a jumble of piled up cupboards functions equally well as the laboratory where Dr Jekyll carries out his wild experiments or the morgue where Mr Hyde’s victims are inspected.

Some elegantly spare writing for piano by Tristan Parkes sets the mood in the first few moments. He was musical director for both the Beijing and London Olympic Games and his fine score is consistently satisfying. New to the show is the impressive Blake Kubena as both Jekyll and Hyde. He was well-cast, both physically and for his nuanced interpretation. He cuts quite a thrilling dash as the ‘twisted’ scientist who transforms in a moment into the utterly amoral Hyde. The story’s black and white moral core is plain.

Zach Lee nicely reprised his role as lawyer Utterson. His ‘period’ clipped delivery and precise movements were shared by other supporting characters, in particular Ashley Sean-Cook as Lanyon who also has some touching scenes with Paige Round as his wife. She sang some delightful songs and like all the other members of the cast seemed to inhabit her several roles with conviction.

Jekyll’s Faustian pact must damn him forever. But will his friends be drawn in or abandon him as his life unravels? That is the heart of this exciting and recommended story.

 

 

Reviewed by David Woodward

Photography by Alex Harvey-Brown

 


The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Wilde Theatre, South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell.

Click here for planned tour dates for the show.

 

Last ten shows reviewed by David:
The Importance Of Being Earnest | ★★★★ | Watermill Theatre Newbury | May 2019
Assassins | ★★★★★ | Watermill Theatre Newbury | September 2019
The Mousetrap | ★★★★ | Theatre Royal Windsor | October 2019
The Nutcracker | ★★★★ | Theatre Royal Windsor | November 2019
What’s In A Name? | ★★★★ | Theatre Royal Windsor | November 2019
Ten Times Table | ★★★★ | Theatre Royal Windsor | January 2020
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story | ★★★★ | Theatre Royal Windsor | February 2020
The Last Temptation Of Boris Johnson | ★★★½ | Theatre Royal Windsor | February 2020
The Black Veil | ★★★ | Theatre Royal Windsor | March 2020
The Wicker Husband | ★★★★★ | Watermill Theatre Newbury | March 2020

 

Click here to see our most recent reviews