Hope Theatre Archives - Page 7 of 25

★★★

“Turn Point Theatre’s production is poignant yet warming, but a more daring approach to the acting would do justice to this original and thoughtful play”

Ellie and Jack dream of having a family. After a series of miscarriages, they have a son. But he dies and their world is shattered. ‘River in the Sky’ exposes their contrasting reactions for coping with the loss and pain – to detach from the familiar past or immerse oneself in it – until they realise that they need to help each other work through the mourning and begin to heal. Over the comfort of tea and biscuits, they argue to release the unsaid and distract and reconnect by telling each other stories of fantastical beasts.

Writer and director, Peter Taylor, captures and bonds both human and dramatic elements of the couple’s agonising fragility, artfully incorporating the various stages of bereavement into their own experience. He personifies grief as the enormous, overpowering monsters in their tales, the pair struggling separately to overcome them; only when they finally join forces can they challenge their demons. Taylor weaves the many layers of this distressing and complex subject into an imaginative drama. From the clever riddle of the first scene, we get wrapped up in the detailed descriptions of fighting against these oppressive powers and then, like the characters, we are brought back to earth, reminding them and us of the inescapable continuity of everyday life.

Howard Horner portrays Jack with a genuine disarray of torn emotions. We are drawn to the young father’s tenderness, caught up in his vivid nightmares and empathise with his confused feelings of attachment towards Ellie. Only at the end when he briefly mirrors the child is there a slightly uncomfortable, affected moment. As Ellie, Lindsey Cross’s performance is lower key. Her storytelling lacks the passion of one desperately running away from reality; she creates expressive movement to the words but there is little dynamic contrast in her voice or pacing. It is as if the volume button has been turned down vocally and emotionally and, though sensitive to the script, it comes across more as a poetical rendering. Anastasija Roitenberga’s sparing stage set of four large cubes works as cliff, rocks, table, chairs, cot… as well as looking, perhaps unintentionally, like children’s building blocks; her lighting adds spirit to the illusions.

The title ‘River in the Sky’ could be interpreted in various ways. It is perhaps the power and inevitability of nature, a boundary to be crossed, the perception of time passing or simply life itself, from source to sea. Turn Point Theatre’s production is poignant yet warming, but a more daring approach to the acting would do justice to this original and thoughtful play.

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography courtesy Turn Point Theatre

The Censor

Hope Theatre

Reviewed – 27th June 2019

★★

“As much as round RoundPeg tries to revitalise this unsettling play, it feels heavy handed and melodramatic”

Art or porn? That is the question. Anthony Neilson’s controversial play The Censor, makes a London comeback to explore all things taboo. Female-driven RoundPeg Theatre, responsible for its return, try taking a feminist stance on the work’s gender power play. Yet it’s difficult to tell if the fault lies with the writing, the performances or direction in not fully achieving the desired affect, making this production quite unbearable at times to watch (and that’s not the extremely close-up explicit content).

A female film director finds herself in the office of a censor, a man whose decision determines whether her work will be given the green light for release. Due to the film’s highly pornographic nature, the censor point blank writes it off as a no go, but can Miss Fontaine convince him to see beyond the images and at its artistic dissection of humanity instead? As she tries to educate him past the black and white and into the grey areas, more unravels about the censor’s personal life and the repressed feelings he’s held back.

The two female roles, Miss Fontaine and the censor’s wife, in particular, feel very one dimensional. As mentioned previously, it’s difficult to tell whether it’s the writing or the performances that don’t quite work. I feel it’s a little of both. Chandrika Chevli as The Wife is far too underused and whose brief moments on stage with Jonathan McGarrity seem fruitless. It would be more interesting to see their relationship developed further. Suzy Whitefield’s turn as the allusive Miss Fontaine can often come across forced whilst McGarrity as the censor lacks a sense of authority to initially clash and then be overruled by Miss Fontaine’s dominance.

The twenty-two year old play does feel aged in certain ways. Due to the growth of explicit images surrounding us and being easily accessible, the ‘scenes of a sexual nature’ in The Censor seem to have lost their potency. Undeniably there is still a certain frisson in having such acts simulated live, particularly the infamous defecation scene, but overall our desensitisation to the like, has made it far less shocking than back in 1997 when first staged.

The projection screens to the corners of the space, showing the erotic, semi-graphic scenes from ‘the film’ could have been used with far more powerful intention. It does help to set the dark, ambiguous atmosphere but ends up feeling monotonous and ineffectual as generally the same brief clip repeats for denoting transitions or sexual acts on stage.

As much as round RoundPeg tries to revitalise this unsettling play, it feels heavy handed and melodramatic. Although there are certainly problems with the writing itself, such as questionable character actions or improbable situations that occur, the more interesting questions that Neilson does raise feels undeveloped and not presented clearly enough by the company.

Hope Theatre

Reviewed – 8th August 2019

★★★

“Turn Point Theatre’s production is poignant yet warming, but a more daring approach to the acting would do justice to this original and thoughtful play”

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography courtesy Turn Point Theatre

River in the Sky

Hope Theatre until 24th August

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Hope Theatre

Reviewed – 27th June 2019

★★

“As much as round RoundPeg tries to revitalise this unsettling play, it feels heavy handed and melodramatic”

Reviewed by Phoebe Cole

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

The Censor

Hope Theatre until 13th July

Previously reviewed at this venue: