Tag Archives: Brockley Jack Studio

The Night Alive – 3.5

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Alive

The Night Alive

Jack Studio Theatre

Reviewed – 24th May 2018

★★★½

“The characters are convincing; menacing, sad, struggling, lost, vulnerable, and all victims in different ways”

 

The sky above the Jack Studio Theatre was trying to squeeze through a little evening sunshine, and was a stark contrast to the set (Dave Jones and Dan Armour) of a messy and run down apartment on stage inside. Doubling as an untidy bedsit for Tommy (David Cox) who’s struggling with an estranged wife, teenage kids and work and life in general and as a room within the Dublin house of his Uncle Maurice (Dan Armour), a man who feels he’s still bringing up the four year old child who arrived around forty years ago.

Tommy’s friend Doc (Eoin Lynch) is a frequent visitor, there to help out when needed for the next get rich quick opportunity, and often in need of shelter. Their world jogs along, they’re getting by, going nowhere, until Aimee (Bethan Boxall) crashes into their lives, escaping her past and avoiding Kenneth (Howie Ripley). From then on everything changes, with gathering pace, and in directions no one can control.

This play from Conor McPherson is rarely produced, so therefore less well known. When written in 2013, it was hailed as the Irish playwright at his compassionate best and this production tries hard to prove that point. The characters are convincing; menacing, sad, struggling, lost, vulnerable, and all victims in different ways. The story has both brutal moments and lines that made me laugh aloud. I veered from compassion to anger at characters, then back again, as their stories emerged and intertwined.

McPherson has said it was the first script he wrote after becoming sober, it altered his perception of how and why people act the way they do. As an audience you get to wonder what will happen next with a fear for the worse yet a hope for the best. The potential for everything to work out alright after all is ever-present and whether it does or not is definitely worth finding out.

 

Reviewed by Joanna Hinson

Photography by Robert Piwko

 


The Night Alive

Jack Studio Theatre until 9th June

 

Related
Previously reviewed at this venue
Fear and Misery of the Third Reich | ★★★ | January 2018
Stuffed | ★★★★ | March 2018
Kes | ★★★★★ | May 2018

 

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Eve

Adam & Eve

Jack Studio Theatre

Reviewed – 31st August 2017

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

 

“you are never sure of who is the villain, and that, is absolutely chilling”

 

 

Picture the scene – a young couple with hopes and dreams of their future. The countryside, the house, the family and that white picket fence. Idyllic, don’t you think?

Tim Cook’s excellent work allows the audience to be mesmerised by the journey of the characters. From the opening scene where they reminisce about how they met in their school days, you feel as though you have known them for years. Perhaps they were your friends, that annoying boy at the back of the classroom, the chatty girl sitting at the front. So ultimately, you want them to succeed and build their happy life together. But what happens when something arrives to shatter the illusion?

Adam and Eve thespyinthestalls

Adam (Christopher Adams) an English teacher and Eve (Jeannie Dickinson) have their lives turned upside down when one of Adam’s students Nikki (Anuschka Rapp) makes allegations that he has acted inappropriately.

Eve stands by her husband but is she doing the right thing? We are torn between wanting to believe that Adam would not sacrifice the life he has built for an idiotic fling with a teenager and yet the narrative is telling us otherwise.

Adam and Eve thespyinthestalls

The quality of the acting in this performance means that you are never sure of who is the villain, and that, is absolutely chilling. The set is minimal yet effective, consisting of a small number of crates intending to portray a living room, classroom and the most effective – the supermarket where Adam and Eve will later run into Nikki who is an employee. Quite possibly the most awkward situation imaginable.

The play is a brilliant insight into the complexities of a relationship addled with doubt and accusation. It challenges the trust between our main characters; it asks the question that even though they have been together for a long time, do they really know everything about each other? After all that time, can someone still surprise you? Can they shock you?

 

Reviewed by Stephanie Legg

 

ADAM & EVE

is at The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre until 2nd September

 

 

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