Helen Bang Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★

“The fast pace creates its own sense of delirium, and the bitter aftertaste is delicious”

There is love happening in a festive Staten Island apartment. There is heartbreak happening too. There are heartfelt dilemmas as a twentysomething quartet – three men and a woman – try to sort out their criss-crossed relationships on the eve of Christmas.

In director Helen Bang’s cacophonous onslaught, sometimes it’s difficult to pick out these love stories from the rest. Because, between episodes of soul-searching, ecstasy and grief, there are the endless, merciless histrionics. No thought goes unexpressed. No minor shift in mood or status isn’t analysed then shouted loudly into someone’s face.

At the heart of it all, though, there’s the love quadrangle. Bitter queen Terry (scene stealer James Grimm) adores clean-cut Buck (James Mackay). But Buck has fallen for twisted and torn bi-sexual Alex (Jonny Davidson) who has girlfriend Sam (Sinead Donnelly) at arm’s length until he figures out his feelings for Buck, who loves him to the point of weepy despair.

Sam arrives for a showdown, having figured out something’s afoot. She stirs a pot already whizzing like a whirlpool.

Terry, never short of a bitchy exit line, sums it up thus, “Everyone I know is in love with everyone else I know.” Terry, shorn of reciprocal love himself, tends to scoop up random men, such as macho married-with-kids Roger (Nicholas Gauci) for hook-ups.

Terry, a feather boa on legs, is exhausting. They all are. Their verbal assaults tend to peak in either furious sex or rancorous wrestling, the difference between the two being moot.

Writer Buddy Thomas’ wordy mile-a-minute script – funny, busy and clever – is overwhelming at times. The cast feel it. They gamely wrangle the machine-gun acid drops but sometimes it simply gets away from them. The script is like a very big dog on a leash who spots a squirrel in the park – they hang on being pulled this way and that, hoping for a break.

There’s little time for nuance or character. They barely have a chance to register a reaction to some putdown before issuing a fully formed, impeccably paced, beautifully sour response. Consequently, there is very little genuine interaction, just a lot of staged sequential and sour monologues.

However, there are plums in the pudding. Alex’s comic retelling of his sacking as a mall Santa has room to breathe and is rewarding as a result. Grimm does a good line in drunken self-annihilation and Donnelly’s mousy Sam brings a squeak of genuine sadness to the tinselled madhouse.

Of course, Christmas spirit wins in the end, sort of, if not resolving the woes, then at least postponing conflict until the New Year. Everyone can have some turkey and lay down their weapons. Although you sense the men love the friction more than the ceasefire and can’t wait for hostilities to resume.

The performances here are spirited and fun. The fast pace creates its own sense of delirium, and the bitter aftertaste is delicious. If you’re looking for a dark alternative to a raft of cloying Christmas shows, set up camp in The Crumple Zone.

Naughty but nice. But naughty.

The Delights Of Dogs And The Problems Of People

Old Red Lion Theatre

Reviewed – 9th January 2020

★★★★

“however hard it may be to watch, it constantly grabs the attention”

A two-hander about the breakdown of a marriage compared to the loyalty shown by pet dogs might seem an odd take on the oft-dramatised subject of relationships, but in Rosalind Blessed’s play The Delights of Dogs and the Problems of People it becomes a nuanced and unsettling affair.

Staged as part of a double bill of her work at the Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington (alongside Lullabies for the Lost), there’s an opportunity to see each piece as an individual drama or across an afternoon and evening. Both are well worth seeing.

The title of this play, first seen four years ago, might suggest a jaunty romcom but the truth of the hard-hitting drama is far more harrowing. What starts out as a tender and quirky love story involving a couple who met while at university unravels into a terrifying 70 minutes of obsession, possessiveness and violence.

In some exceptionally clever and mature writing, Blessed constantly shifts the balance (and audience sympathies) between the pair who have been married for five years, yet separated for two of them.

On the one hand is James, an easy-going charmer desperate to save his marriage (he describes himself sadly as a “very nearly ex-husband”) and convincing when he tells friends that he has no idea why things are breaking down so badly. It is an intricate performance from Duncan Wilkins, who even draws members of the audience into his side of the argument.

But as the cracks begin to show we discover a manipulative monster who wants to “put his wife back together,” a hateful tyrant who refuses to accept the truth or to understand his wife’s delicate mental state.

Blessed gives an equally fine performance as Robin (the same character from Lullabies for the Lost, but in an alternate universe version), whose insecurities about her image and low self esteem leave her vulnerable. She is unable to let go of the damaging relationship yet her true feelings are exposed shockingly when she cries out “I never want any man to own any part of me ever again.”

This see-saw relationship never seems less than believable and Blessed has admitted that parts of it are drawn from experience, which certainly comes out in vivid writing and performance.

The unconditional love of a dog is contrasted with the volatility of a partner who swings between unbridled declarations of affection and rage caused by too much drink and an unwillingness to accept the end of a relationship. In a clever twist when we see the loyal Staffie he is played by Wilkins, who is so much in character that he sniffs the legs of audience members or sneezes into their faces.

As the layers are unpeeled we begin to understand the truth of the situation, which builds to a horrific climax. With domestic abuse not all the scars are visible, with words having the terrible power to wound, yet psychotic behaviour will ultimately cause an individual to lose control.

Director Caroline Devlin understands the strength of the script and allows the words and characters to tell their own story while Anna Kezia’s cardboard box white set (shared with Lullabies for the Lost) is simple but multi-functional.

It is the sort of well-written and acted drama that inevitably comes with its own warning about the distressing content and will resonate uncomfortably with many. But however hard it may be to watch, it constantly grabs the attention, providing a darker but important facet to understanding the truth about relationships – and how we might treat each other better.

THE CRUMPLE ZONE at the Waterloo East Theatre

★★★

“The fast pace creates its own sense of delirium, and the bitter aftertaste is delicious”

THE CRUMPLE ZONE at the Waterloo East Theatre

Reviewed on 29th November 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Peter Davies

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE CRUMPLE ZONE