Tag Archives: Edie Newman

Greyscale

Greyscale
★★★★

VAULT Festival

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Greyscale

Greyscale

The Vaults

Reviewed – 7th February 2019

★★★★

 

“The compelling acting and fusion of dramatic ideas enrich both the moral dilemma and the theatrical experience”

 

Amidst the weird, wonderful and wacky that is the VAULT Festival is a unique production from ‘Anonymous Is A Woman Theatre Company’. Inspired by the Aziz Ansari controversy and with the question of consent very much in the air, ‘Greyscale’ makes the audience consider the grey area around sexual dominance, social conditioning and human nature.

Without conferring, Joel Samuels and Madeline Gould each wrote a monologue recounting two very different versions of the same date. We hear one account in the street, as the festival audiences brush past, and the other in a local bar surrounded by background chatter. In between, we become voyeurs to an essential part of what happened behind closed doors.

Director, Roann McCloskey, brings an ambiguity to two people’s behaviour and reactions, triggering the debate on why we make the decisions we do and how we can remember the same event differently from each other. The close proximity of the actors in this kind of performance heightens the intensity and they both succeed in portraying the characters with vital sensitivity. Tom Campion as James is charming and effusive, talking passionately as he draws us into his story and his impression of their meeting, which, he says, may have taken an inadvertent turn. Lucy, played by Edie Newman, movingly describes the same evening, struggling to understand her own mixed emotions and overwhelming self-doubt. In the central scene, we peer through peep holes to witness what happened that night, stirring up a sense of unease; we are spying on their privacy, but they are trapped in it.

The immersive, site-specific nature of the show holds us in a personal way, urging us to listen, watch and reflect. And the cast of two men and two women rotates, varying the gender combination of the couple and allowing the discussion to go beyond being just a feminist issue. With the medley of relationships and the choice of who we meet first being up to the audience, seeing one variation on the theme prompts curiosity to sample the others. If #MeToo has brought awareness through the scandals of the rich and famous, this succinct piece brings the matter home to our own lives. The compelling acting and fusion of dramatic ideas enrich both the moral dilemma and the theatrical experience.

 

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography by Ali Wright

 

Vault Festival 2019

Greyscale

Part of VAULT Festival 2019

 

 

 

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Review of Sweet Fanny Adams – 3 Stars

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Fanny

Sweet Fanny Adams

White Bear Theatre

Reviewed – 20th December 2017

★★★

“plenty of clever moments of dialogue throughout”

 

Jack and Emily are an alcoholic couple stuck in a rut. Jack is a playwright with writer’s block, although he repeatedly denies its existence, whilst Emily is an actress without a part. In the living room of Jack’s apartment, as he attempts to complete his next great work, they verbally abuse and belittle each other for their failings as artists and lovers.

Sweet Fanny Adams is an original work written by Matthew Lyons, who performed the frustrated Jack alongside Edie Newman as Emily. After a slightly nervous start, Newman’s Emily quickly relaxed into the part, giving the initially unlikable character a softer, more palatable side. Although she seemed to despise him most of the time, Newman portrayed a sense of vulnerability and insecurity which kept pulling her back to Jack. A similar variance in tone felt lacking from Lyons’ performance, as Jack was consistently mean and self-involved. Context from each character’s youth was introduced as if to explain their behaviour – for Jack an alcoholic father and suicidal mother and Emily an abusive father. However, the flippant way this was revealed (as jibes at one another) felt heavy handed and abrupt, and was not revisited in greater depth until much later in the dialogue.

The constant oscillation between malignance and affection was often abrupt; more than once as their bitter arguments came to a climax, Emily simply left the room, only to come back seconds later with a full glass of wine or a new bottle and move on without resolve. The piece was self-aware of moments of melodrama, but the acknowledgement often came frustratingly late, to the point where I couldn’t be sure whether action was sincere or later to be ridiculed.

There were plenty of clever moments of dialogue throughout that provided respite from the couple’s dismal outlook and an unexpectedly sweet ending lifts the piece. After all the vitriol and malice, we are left with a seed of hope.

 

Reviewed by Amber Woodward

 

Sweet Fanny Adams

is at the White Bear Theatre until 23rd December

 

 

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