Helen Maybanks Archives - Page 2 of 7

★★★★

“Crane rules the roost, a joyously commanding performance, scarily swinging between sympathy and oppression”

A decade ago, Greenpeace International added yellowfin tuna to its seafood red list. Although not yet extinct their population, through unsustainable fishing methods, is dangerously depleted. In a global context this imbalance in nature helps destroy the human ecosystem. Take the concept a few steps further and the effects are catastrophic. Marek Horn’s new play delves into a (not too distant) future when not only the Yellowfin have disappeared, but also all of the world’s fish. And much of the world’s population. England is under water; drowning the English. Nonetheless, Horn’s outlandish dystopian satire brushes that minor inconvenience aside to focus on the piscatorial annihilation. There were fish. And then there weren’t fish. Simple as that.

Well. Not quite. A man called Calantini (Joshua James) is being questioned by three senators in a committee room on Capitol Hill. Calantini swears he abandoned the black-market years ago. His interrogators aren’t so sure. We are in Kafka territory, with more humour. The dialogue is playful and deliberately obscure. A Russian contamination conspiracy is thrown into the mix. Catalina’s complicity is thrown into question. There’s no proof of his innocence or guilt except for the loaded preconceptions of the cross-examiners. Part documentary, part courtroom drama and part absurdism, the piece invites us also to playfully question the power of the decision makers of the world.

The term ‘post-truth’ is resonant throughout. The characters brandish their words to create their own reality. There is an Orwellian tendency to refashion past events. It can be frightening but the cast’s understanding of the comedic value lightens the mood. Yet at the same time the fun they have with it paradoxically darkens the situation, intensifying its relevance.

Nancy Crane is Marianne, the Senator, full of authoritative disdain – not just for James’ Calantini but for the ‘Other’ Senators on the bench. Crane rules the roost, a joyously commanding performance, scarily swinging between sympathy and oppression. To her left is Nicholas Day as Roy, the elder statesman whose wisdom seems to have disappeared with the fish, replaced with a bumbling benevolence and some hilarious non-sequiturs. Beruce Khan’s Stephen is ambitious and officious but no match for Marianne. The trio embody an audacious caricature of the Senate while James’ character mockingly toys with their tenuous power.

Anisha Fields’ simple but austere set frames the action, the flags and Seals of Office serves to add gravity to the absurdity. And there is a seriousness to Horn’s writing that surfaces. A social commentary that swims alongside the skit. It is innovative, sometimes sketchy and sometimes drawn out, with touches of Ionesco too. It is a refreshing take on the world we live in, but occasionally feels as though it is taking on too much without fully resolving anything in particular. Climate change, fake news, Senate hearings, influencing, manipulation, are all undercurrents – threatening to pull us under instead of allowing us to tread water in the entertainment of the performances. And there’s nothing fishy about the fact that this is a hugely entertaining and engrossing show. A real catch.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Helen Maybanks

The Dumb Waiter

Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed – 8th December 2020

★★★★

“keeps the signature ambiguity of Pinter’s work on the front burner”

It is fitting that Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter” should re-open at Hampstead Theatre exactly sixty years after its London premiere on the same stage; then called the Hampstead Theatre Club, housed in a parish church hall. This anniversary production was scheduled for March of this year, but an extended Pinteresque pause (caused by you-know-what) pushed it into the theatre’s winter programme. Its themes are befitting too: the two characters in the play are playing a waiting game, with mystifying and contradictory information drip fed to them from on high.

Holed up in a bleak, oppressive and windowless basement are two gunmen. Silence stretches across the first few moments, rich in meaning. Ben reads a newspaper while Gus ties his shoelaces. Ben flicks a page of the paper while Gus walks to the door, then takes his shoes off, one by one, to take out a flattened cigarette carton and matchbox. They are both useless. Later on, an envelope is mysteriously delivered containing a dozen loose matches. Why? Moments like these puncture the absurdism to reveal a darker, more ominous side to the writing in Pinter’s earlier works.

Alice Hamilton’s sensitive and stark direction enhances the sense of foreboding whilst still allowing the comedy to shine through. But the onus is on the performances. Alec Newman, as Ben and Shane Zaza, as Gus, are a cracking, Cockney double act. They brilliantly handle the vaudeville rhythms of the dialogue, lulling us into a false sense of security with poetically mundane humour before delivering a punch. Ben wants Gus to light the kettle, but Gus explains that you don’t light the kettle; you light the gas, then boil the kettle. The banter has a hilarious drunkard logic to it, but you can feel an undercurrent bubbling away. Ben appears to be keeping a lid on something and Newman perfectly evokes the strain of trying to stop it boiling over.

Both Newman and Zaza capture immaculately the balance of power and dynamics in their relationship. Although not quite the protégé, Gus still sees Ben as his mentor. An odd couple, testing each other, talking over each other, with Ben repeatedly calling the shots. And forever in the background is the dumb waiter itself, from which, bizarrely, food orders are delivered as though they are in a restaurant’s basement kitchen.

But the ‘dumb waiter’ could also be either of the two characters. Like in like Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”, this is an absurdist comedy about two men waiting in a universe without meaning or purpose. But they’re not as dumb as they look. They play the comedy against the menace, the familiar against the unfamiliar, with an ambiguity that keeps you guessing.

How much does Ben know? Who is the victim? Or are they both victims of a higher order? Puppets even – with somebody else pulling the strings – both low down in the pecking order. Although Ben is slightly higher up, he is still just a follower of orders, and the symbolic crashing down of the dumb waiter is the hand that forces him to carry them out. Or does he?

A short, one act piece that keeps the signature ambiguity of Pinter’s work on the front burner, but also a deeply personal play about betrayal that is given a touching and human face by this fine acting duo.

Southwark Playhouse

Reviewed – 15th October 2021

★★★★

“Crane rules the roost, a joyously commanding performance, scarily swinging between sympathy and oppression”

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Helen Maybanks

Yellowfin

Southwark Playhouse until 6th November

Other shows reviewed this month so far:

Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed – 8th December 2020

★★★★

“keeps the signature ambiguity of Pinter’s work on the front burner”

A short, one act piece that keeps the signature ambiguity of Pinter’s work on the front burner, but also a deeply personal play about betrayal that is given a touching and human face by this fine acting duo.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Helen Maybanks

The Dumb Waiter

Hampstead Theatre until 16th January

Recently reviewed by Jonathan: