Tag Archives: Ryan Donaldson

Owners

Owners

★★★½

Jermyn Street Theatre

OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★½

Owners

“The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off.”

“Turning you out? What an old-fashioned idea!” the power-hungry property developer Marion exclaims at one point in Owners. Of course, what the play sets out to prove is that it’s not an old-fashioned idea at all, but a painfully immediate one: both in 1972, when Caryl Churchill first wrote it, and now, in Stella Powell-Jones’ production at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Owners is concerned with property: with having and being had. Clegg wants a son, wants a butcher’s shop, wants Marion, who wants power, who wants Alec, who wants — maybe nothing at all. As Marion ruthlessly develops her London properties, she sets her sights on the flat where Alec is living with his pregnant wife. She also sets her sights on their unborn child. Owners is a play about the need to possess, but it is also a play about the need to be possessed. As it unfolds, sinews of desire stretch and flex between the cast, as they separate and come together, tangled in ever darker threads.

The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off. The set, designed by Cat Fuller, is a stroke of genius, with a panorama of doors pressing claustrophobically in on the little family. Fuller uses the tiny space of the theatre’s stage to her advantage. Throughout the piece, everyone vies for exactly the same tiny patch of hotly contested real estate, as a series of hinges and compartments turn one flat into the next. It also means that, even when one person’s life is carefully hinged away, it is still ‘present’ on-stage. All these lives stack on top of each other in a suffocating palimpsest that is extremely effective.

What is initially identifiable as something almost in the vein of farce, grows mesmerizingly misshapen and grotesque as the play leads us down darker avenues. This is underscored by increasingly sinister interludes of music (Sasha Howe and Max Pappenheim) and lighting (Chuma Emembolu) during scene changes, before the lights come back up and we revert to the brightly lit family moment. The sense of something dark and inarticulate shadowing beneath the mundane works very well, especially as Owners gathers speed and becomes more confident in its own surreal cynicism. By the end, it eschews the comfortable escape-routes that something ultimately closer to farce might provide, and instead embraces a grim cannibalistic quality that makes for some beautiful moments of dialogue. Ryan Donaldson as Alec delivers a stunningly haunting hospital scene, and Laura Doddington is incredible as the bullish, smarting Marion (“be quick, be clean, be top, be best”), and a personal highlight.

While the themes are still strikingly relevant, the production shies away from what could be a more current exploration of them. The choice to maintain the 70s setting so distinctly through music and costume (Agata Odolczyk) is visually very effective, but also serves to buffer the play slightly, making it a more comfortable watch. When Clegg the butcher charges a customer just 20p for a pound of mince, a titter goes up from the audience: this is not our world, really, then, and we can breathe a sigh of relief. In the second act, however, when the grim surrealism is allowed more space to unfold, Owners does begin to bite more. Ultimately, though frustratingly lacking in urgency, this is a well-executed piece that leaves you heading back to your cold flat and your rented room with a pit in your stomach.


OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 18th October 2023

by Anna Studsgarth

Photography by Steve Gregson

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Infamous | ★★★★ | September 2023
Spiral | ★★ | August 2023
Farm Hall | ★★★★ | March 2023
Love All | ★★★★ | September 2022
Cancelling Socrates | ★★★★ | June 2022
Orlando | ★★★★ | May 2022
Footfalls and Rockaby | ★★★★★ | November 2021
The Tempest | ★★★ | November 2021
This Beautiful Future | ★★★ | August 2021

Owners

Owners

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Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
★★★★

Rose Theatre Kingston & UK Tour

Captain Corellis Mandolin

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Rose Theatre Kingston & UK Tour

Reviewed – 1st May 2019

★★★★

 

“the musical interludes are moments of beauty that complement the theatricality and flair of this evocative production”

 

The scale of Louis de Bernières’ visionary novel “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” is probably the main reason why it has taken a quarter of a century for it to be adapted for the stage. The multi layered and varied style of the epic narrative is a daunting prospect, but Rona Munro’s adaptation pinpoints the core of the story and, with a surgeon’s precision, cuts away the excess flesh to expose the rhythms of its passionately beating heart.

Director Melly Still’s adventurous production comes in two distinct parts. The first act comprises a series of finely composed vignettes that not only encapsulate the sultry atmosphere of the Greek island of Cephalonia, but serve also to set up the characters. At first we wonder at the hotchpotch of accents on display (from Irish, Welsh and Yorkshire through to RP) but soon realise the deliberate ploy to challenge stereotypes. We are not being asked to pass judgement, or decide who is the enemy, but to focus on the personalities.

Dr. Iannis (Joseph Long) has brought up his daughter, Pelagia (Madison Clare), on a diet of free thinking, which is now being threatened by the Italian occupation of their island. Meanwhile Carlo (Ryan Donaldson), an Italian soldier, tries to make sense of the invasion. Likewise, Captain Corelli (Alex Mugnaioni), an accomplished musician who carries his mandolin everywhere with him, only takes music, friendship and romance seriously. A reluctant soldier, armed with only his charm and his love of music, he is able to win the heart of Pelagia by his refusal to believe in the Italian invasion of Greece.

Although he doesn’t appear until the end of the first act, Mugnaioni lights up the stage with his strong presence, albeit a touch passionless. His slightly bumbling Englishness contrasts Clare’s feisty Pelagia who soon recognises his detachment to the military cause. But there is also a similar detachment to the relationship which, once ignited, burns slowly. More rounded is the relationship with Pelagia’s first love, Mandras (a brilliantly assured Ashley Gayle), that reveals the complexities of lost love in a more believable fashion.

The central theme of war, though, casts its shadow like an impending storm until it explodes with its full force after the interval. Mayou Trikerioti’s design comes to the fore as her simple yet evocative set of beaten metal morphs from the shimmering idyll of a Grecian seascape into the harsh smoky barrage of the battlefield. Jon Nicholls’ thumping sound echoes the waves of dance-like movement of George Siena’s choreography. The contrast is all too pertinent when, at a stroke, it overlaps with the relative peace of the village and the minutiae of their lives. And it is the finer details of these individuals that captivates most. Not just the people, but the animals too – Luisa Guerreiro threatens to steal each scene as the herb-chomping, affable goat while Elizabeth Mary Williams hangs upside down from a ladder as Psipsina, the athletic pine martin.

But there’s another clue in the title. And, yes, Alex Mugnaioni plays the mandolin exceptionally well. Superimposed onto Harry Blake’s pre-recorded score the musical interludes are moments of beauty that complement the theatricality and flair of this evocative production.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Marc Brenner

 

Captain Corelli's Mandolin logo

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Rose Theatre Kingston until 12th May then UK Tour continues

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde | ★★ | February 2018
Much Ado About Nothing | ★★★★ | April 2018
Don Carlos | ★★ | November 2018
The Cat in the Hat | ★★★ | April 2019

 

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