“The performance is beautiful, pitched perfectly to capture both naivety and knowing”
Fundamentalism and personal freedom are examined in Gracie at the Finborough Theatre. Growing up in the confines of a fundamentalist Mormon Community in Utah, Gracie is a lively happy little girl consciously unaware of the restrictions put upon her. Produced by Tanzanite Theatre, Joan Macleod’s play has a tangible relevance in light of current gender politics.
One-person shows are tough, both for performer and audience. But this is an accomplished and engaging production. Although a guest on the set of another production, Gemma Aked-Priestley’s direction is light and encompassing, making full use of the intimate space. At ninety minutes, there are moments that seem prolonged, but Carla Langley’s energetic delivery never lets the pace dwindle too long. The performance is beautiful, pitched perfectly to capture both naivety and knowing. Gracie is charming and winsome, loving and trusting of her Mamma. Equally there are flashes of understanding as the demands placed on her and those she loves become more unsavoury. Langley creates Gracie’s family with precision and care. It’s a fantastic job.
The only weakness is in the Mormons themselves. Their lifestyle still seems obscure. Shelby, Jamie and Stanley, the men who pose a direct threat to Gracie and her family, remain largely abstract. Shelby has a charismatic menace, but we see little more to justify Mamma’s trust in him or understand her choice to bring her children to a place where she is immediately separated from son Billy. Jamie and Stanley are simply bad husbands. The good Mormon Sister-wives, while sympathetic, also lack depth. This for me is problematic. While seeing this world through a child’s eye allows us to see how indoctrination can be normalised, the danger seems too severe. It feels like while this piece has a very strong argument, it’s missing a component to give a fully rounded picture.
However, this is a thought provoking show with a memorable performance at its core. Definitely worth a look.
“the empty stage makes it difficult not to disengage with the narrative at every scene change”
Behind sheets of plastic that reflect red lighting, magazine covers that feature naked women are plastered across the walls. This is the backdrop to our narrative, a revival of Sarah Daniels’ radical play ‘Masterpieces’ first produced in 1983, which discusses the possible ramifications of the casual consumption of porn on everyday society and the way that women are viewed and treated as a result of that. We begin at a dinner party where three women endure their husbands sharing rape jokes, sparking Rowena’s own investigation into porn and its effect on the way men see women, with extreme consequences.
Olivia Darnley plays Rowena and delivers a standout performance, tight, energetic and committed. Darnley approaches the role with a fantastic balance of warmth and strength, and doesn’t waste a word of this well-written script. Rob Ostlere is strong as Yvonne’s horrible husband, but otherwise the male characters are one dimensional, not helped by predominantly weak performances. Sophie Doherty’s Jennifer starts promisingly but quickly becomes generalised and undecided in her character choices and uncertain in her movement. Doherty also has a tendency to swallow her words so that we lose moments of comedy in the text. Whilst Tessie Orange-Turner has some lovely moments, she stumbles over her words and seems to be constantly ‘acting’, so it is increasingly difficult to believe in or empathise with her, a trap that many of the actors fall into in this production.
Melissa Dunne’s directorial choices are clumsy and lack detail. Full wine glasses are refilled and the same pile of laundry is unfolded and refolded before our eyes over and over again. In multiple scenes there is an overuse of movement with no reason behind it, people sitting down and standing up, or even circling the stage in what is clearly a device, rather than a character motivated movement. The scene changes are achingly long, often ten seconds of wasted empty stage for no apparent reason as we listen to music of the era. Whilst music early on helps set the scene, the continued use of it between every scene change (of which there are many) is ineffective, protracted and grating, and the empty stage makes it difficult not to disengage with the narrative at every scene change. Whilst the set design (by Verity Quinn) is visually appealing it adds little to the narrative itself, and is unhelpful when it comes to scene changes.
Reviving this play in a relevant way is no easy feat as the conversation has moved on so far from the concrete anti-porn message of the piece. Daniels’ narrative insists on a direction correlation between violence and pornographic images and films, and dismisses any idea that women might enjoy sex, sex toys and pornography themselves. It is not the nuanced discussions we are used to surrounding these topics today, however Daniels’ play still has the potential to be topical and contemporary in its portrayal of rape culture, and the empowering narratives of four women refusing to accept cheating husbands and abusive bosses as the norm. However Dunne’s direction does not push this piece far enough, and it falls short of what it could achieve.
‘Masterpieces’ is a disappointing revival of a well-written and potentially extremely topical and exciting play, let down by weak, over-acted performances and ineffective directorial choices.
