Tag Archives: Pleasance Theatre

Dames – 3.5 Stars

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Dames

Dames

Pleasance Theatre

Reviewed – 18th April 2018

★★★½

“a truly heartwarming love song to female friendship”

 

Charlotte Merriam’s terrifically turbulent, teeming and joyful writing debut is brought to every shade of life on the Pleasance stage, by an ensemble cast of six that support one another’s skillful uproar. Produced by Siberian Lights & Rachel Kraftman Productions and directed by Jamie Garven, Dames is theatre which makes you want to dance, get drunk, tell your friends you love them and embrace the world outside the toilet, no matter how daunting it can be.

Stepping in and out of character, in a sort of Brechtian performance of femininity, the toilet scenario is also a metaphor for the process of undress which happens in a cubicle, akin to the one which the actors perform on stage, as they expose themselves in order to build relationships with the audience. In principle, this premise works really well, and added a clever comic touch, when Ginny, played by Bianca Stephens with excellent comic timing, talks to the audience as her real self, preparing herself to go in to the toilets in character. The toilets are this ground of rebirth, of blinking drunkenly into the eyes of a strange woman and finding out you could be friends, or that you’re in love. It’s a nice original twist which defies expectations, just as Dames describes itself as a ‘raucous revelation’.

Merriam herself plays the wonderfully dry Erin, whose double act with Bianca is a truly heartwarming love song to female friendship, in all its honestly beautiful ugliness. Arabella Neale’s Kate takes self-awareness to the next level, as she theatrically bemoans being thin and beautiful. On the surface, this is rather inane: but Neale’s portrayal manages to be haughty and highly loveable. She and Olivia Elsden both deliver performances which complexify Dames, as they retain an element of reserve. Melanie Stephens as Cardiff is the last to enter the toilets in a whirlwind of wanking and speaking frankly. Her no-shits-given swagger is the perfect counterpoint to Emily, played endearingly by Ellie Heydon, and Kate, whose waxing lyrical about halloumi and wholefoods is nigh on excessive. But they pull it off, because they’re fun and very watchable.

Joshua Bowles’ live music, often cued by the performers, is the perfect accompaniment to the antics. Reverberating round the echoic playing space, it feels like the club outside the toilets, from which they’ve all come to hide. April Dalton’s design is instantly eye-catching, a mass of streamers, glitter, iridescence and strewn toilet paper, crowned by a golden chair in the middle – the bog. When Erin is sick, she throws up feathers. The design, highlighted by Ryan Joseph Stafford’s lights, brings just the right amount of stylisation and other worldliness to Dames, which keeps the content raw, but still allows the audience to celebrate and enjoy what is being revealed.

Dames is brave, fun and novel. I liked watching it, yes – but there was something about it which also made me want to inhabit it. Structurally, it could have been better conceived, with some of the elements of repetition stripped back. As an experience, though, it was a treat: brimming with energy and sparkling with golden performances.

 

Reviewed by Eloise Poulton

Photography by Scott Rylander

 


Dames

Pleasance Theatre until 29th April

 

 

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Spiked – 4 Stars

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Spiked

Pleasance Theatre

Reviewed – 17th April 2018

★★★★

“a touching, thoughtful, well-designed show”

 

Spiked, written by Félicité du Jeu, and produced by Pepperbox Theatre, is “a play about mothers, by mothers”. It tells the story of three mothers: Karen (Daniella Dessa), Rozhin (Katie Clark) and Joanna (Charlotte Asprey), anxiously waiting in A&E where their children, along with the entire class, have been mysteriously taken ill. The story builds slowly and expertly to the final climax and we learn not only why the children are sick, but also about the mothers’ different lives and their relationships with their teenage children. Each of the characters come from very different backgrounds, and tensions about race, class, and different parenting styles all bubble under the surface. We move back and forth between the waiting room and flashbacks showing the day-to-day lives of each mother and her child.

The acting is very good overall, with each actor playing both a mother and the child of another mother. The latter is signified by a quick costume change into a school blazer and adopting an angsty attitude. While the scenes with the teens are enjoyable, the waiting room sections are the best part of the show, as we watch these three very different women handle being thrown together in a room during an incredibly difficult and stressful time. The characters all show some sort of development or change and Katie Clark’s character, Rozhin, is given the best speech. It should be noted that Clark’s Kurdish accent is strong throughout, thanks, in part, I imagine to the Kurdish advisor on the team, Abed Moftizadeh.

Cecilie Gravesen’s set design is excellent. There are five plastic waiting room chairs facing the audience in the intimate Stagespace at the Pleasance. Hanging from the ceiling, around the edges of the stage, are different shaped panels with grainy images on them: an estate, a hospital corridor, a wall covered in graffiti, and some smaller ones painted white, grey, and yellow.

The projection used throughout is done in the same grainy style as the panels. It is used to cleverly portray a narrow hospital corridor, with newspaper-style cut-out figures flashing up as though they are moving through the hall. These projections are used mainly during transitions, with the stage in a blackout and a hospital soundscape playing, which works well. However, almost all of the transitions are the same; some variety in them could keep the audience on their toes a little more.

The ending of the show bordered on cheesy and cliche but never quite crossed over, thanks to the control and command of the actors. Overall, Spiked is a touching, thoughtful, well-designed show that is absolutely worth a watch.

 

Reviewed for thespyinthestalls.com

Photography courtesy Félicité du Jeu

 


Spiked

Pleasance Theatre until 28th April

 

 

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