Cecilia Trono Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★★

“There are brilliant nods to The History Boys in this performance, but it feels like a fresh, very current take on those dynamics.”

Three men sit in the welfare office of a prestigious British University. It is never stated whether it is Oxford or Cambridge, but it doesn’t matter, it’s one of the two. There has been an incident of plagiarism and one student, the quintessential lad about town Greg (Charlie Beck) is accused of copying his quiet bisexual peer Casper (Issam Al Ghussain). Bumbling and cringeworthy welfare officer ‘Timby’ (Edward Judge) just wants to show he’s one of the boys – he’s a student too! Laddish showboating, mute resentment and shameless pandering continue as do the reported incidents. But as the severity of the accusations escalates, so too does the complexity and moral confusion of these three characters.

Richard Speir’s direction complements Matt Parvin’s script to create a tense and uncomfortable piece, which subverts and contorts traditional power dynamics and builds a mounting sense of dread. The play is also very funny, especially at the beginning. The first half builds up archetypal characters which the second half breaks down. It could have taken it further, but the moral tangles and muddied sense of right and wrong which the play toys with are fascinating.

All three performers have shining moments. Beck brings emotional depth to the laddish party boy Greg, and his performance is genuinely moving. Al Ghussain has mesmerising physicality, demonstrated particularly in a piece of physical theatre during a dream sequence and a joyous moment of dance. However, the stand-out performance is from Edward Judge as the tragic, and easily swayed welfare officer. There are brilliant nods to The History Boys in this performance, but it feels like a fresh, very current take on those dynamics.

Cecilia Trono’s set is an evocative, naturalistic replica of this kind of office, and the attention to detail transports us there. Will Alder’s lighting design is able to go wild in a nightclub scene and a dream sequence, and Jamie Lu’s sound design becomes particularly interesting in the second half.

The play is not perfect, and there are certainly elements that don’t work. For example, there are repeated references to General Franco’s attitude to gay men, which is not explored in enough detail to make it worth including, and feels like a lack of confidence in the beautiful simplicity of this concept. The best part of this play is the claustrophobic moral mess that these three men are trapped in. However, the idea behind this play, and the way it explores it, is interesting enough to make it recommendable.

The Ice Cream Boys

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 11th October 2019

★★★★

“There’s never been a better time to make this study, and the Jermyn Street production does it with panache”

On 11th October 2019, two days after Jermyn Street Theatre opened its new production, newspapers reported that former President of South Africa Jacob Zuma was to stand trial for corruption charges in relation to billion-pound arms deals. Charges against Zuma are not new; these same charges had simply been held off until now.

This is all very timely for The Ice Cream Boys. The sweet name belies the murky political intrigue at its heart. The single act play posits a meeting between two architects of the rainbow nation’s modern history: Zuma and his former intelligence services mastermind, Ronnie Kasrils.

In Gail Louw’s new play, we’re asked to enter into the fantasy of Kasrils and Zuma meeting in the present day. They’re old men now, their paths crossing in a starched hospital room as they both await tests and treatments for the sorts of conditions that come to men in their eighties. Zuma reports that he’s slow to pass water (‘Prostate’, he says grimly) and Kasrils that he has a possible skin melanoma after ‘all that time in the sun’. But the men, former allies, have plenty of unresolved differences. Cue a complex but taut psychological interplay, as the pair play metaphorical (and literal) chess and debate lives spent steeped in divisions of race and class.

Set design (Cecilia Trono) is simple but clever, neatly invoking a clinical white hotel room that acts as a kind of purgatory. The men are left alone to spar but for occasional interruptions by their nurse – and their past. When history intrudes, often in the form of painful memories, lighting (by Tim Mascall) shifts, jarring back to the cool, sanitised hospital room after.

The two male leads – Andrew Francis as Zuma and Jack Klaff as Kasrils – hold the stage with astonishing personality. Klaff, especially, is spellbinding, using his whole physicality to invoke Kasrils and maximising his passing resemblance to the man. The South African accents, so often mangled, are almost faultless, and the charisma such that we find ourselves in a bind as to whether to warm to or despise these deeply flawed individuals.

It might be easy to overlook the third player here; Bu Kunene as Thandi, the nurse tending to her patients with increasing exasperation. The play has Thandi transforming into numerous other characters, appearing magically transformed each time – from Zuma’s mother to Nelson Mandela, Kunene delivers with skill and a quiet certainty. So understated is her performance, especially as an increasingly steely Thandi, and so in contrast to the bombast of the Zuma and Kasrils characters, that it shows a real talent for handling sensitive characterisation. It’s also essential to see a woman here, playing and representing the many women who were implicated and caught up in – and harmed by – the political and personal machinations of the men.

The politicians appear variously as children, laughing and singing in fond waves of nostalgia and petulant when denied ice cream, and as uncompromising despots debating solutions for their divided country. Each is misty-eyed at memories of the women who influenced them – but in the next breath, we’re graphically reminded of Zuma’s rape accusation (dismissed in court but presented as near-fact here, with Zuma barely bothering to deny it).

And this is the truth of politics; complicated, messy issues led by complicated, messy and perhaps ultimately irredeemable individuals. There’s never been a better time to make this study, and the Jermyn Street production does it with panache.

GENTLEMEN at the Arcola Theatre

★★★★

“There are brilliant nods to The History Boys in this performance, but it feels like a fresh, very current take on those dynamics.”

GENTLEMEN at the Arcola Theatre

Reviewed on 9th October 2023

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Alex Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Gentlemen

Gentlemen

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 11th October 2019

★★★★

“There’s never been a better time to make this study, and the Jermyn Street production does it with panache”

This is all very timely for The Ice Cream Boys. The sweet name belies the murky political intrigue at its heart. The single act play posits a meeting between two architects of the rainbow nation’s modern history: Zuma and his former intelligence services mastermind, Ronnie Kasrils.

And this is the truth of politics; complicated, messy issues led by complicated, messy and perhaps ultimately irredeemable individuals. There’s never been a better time to make this study, and the Jermyn Street production does it with panache.

Reviewed by Abi Davies

Photography by Robert Workman

The Ice Cream Boys

Jermyn Street Theatre until 2nd November

Previously reviewed at this venue: