Tag Archives: Ste Murray

MASTERCLASS

★★★★

Southbank Centre

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MASTERCLASS at the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre

★★★★

“Rachel Bergin’s creative production packs a well-staged punch aimed squarely at the patriarchy”

You will recognise the stage set up from any “A Conversation With…” events you have attended in the neighbouring Royal Festival Hall. Two opposing casual chairs either side of a coffee table, prominent copies of a ‘great work’, and a historically accurate cognac bottle: Ellen Kirk as set designer gets the tone just right.

However, the sincerity lasts for mere seconds before Feidlim Cannon and Adrienne Truscott start unravelling the form with silliness, physical comedy and rat-a-tat dialogue. Over the course of an hour they unpick the work of many of the greats stubbornly taking space in the literary and theatrical canon.

Feidlim Cannon plays the interviewer, entering the stage to smooth jazz (Jennifer O’Malley on sound design), ready to cosily interrogate a great man and his body of work. A moustachioed and body suited Adrienne Truscott is introduced as a writer, director and costume designer whose work allegedly surfaces themes of truth, gender and power, but as unrehearsed readings of one of his scenes demonstrate, are more often channels for misogyny and violence against women.

 

 

Quickly, the artifice is revealed, with Cannon’s seventies wig falling off during farcical movement sequences (well designed by Eddie Kay, movement director). This escalates throughout the piece as lines between the characters and the artists playing them are increasingly blurred; they appear to break scene to demand self-examination of themselves. In places the threads of the devising are still visible, though they are mostly welcomed (I am a sucker for a juxtaposed dance sequence). Costumes are shed nearly all the way; which as we are reminded is Truscott’s calling card from previous shows, and extensively examined.

There are some great one liners in the first half of the script from writers Cannon and Truscott, along with Gary Keegan of Irish theatre company Brokentalkers, which jab at well-known theatrical productions that have frankly audacious premises. The exploration of why genius and passion never seems to express itself in calm and considered behaviour when violence is available was another point persuasively demonstrated.

Then as the fourth wall fully breaks, we move into a fairly explicit lecture on feminism, allyship and taking up space. It feels like most of the flair disappears for too long before the ambiguous ending restores the playfulness that has underpinned the majority of the piece. I felt like the stripped back truth-telling felt a bit too much like a classroom and the commentary slightly too surface level to justify the lack of theatricality.

Despite this, the vast majority of Masterclass is creative, gnarly, and cathartic for many a practitioner. Rachel Bergin’s creative production packs a well-staged punch aimed squarely at the patriarchy.


MASTERCLASS at the Southbank Centre

Reviewed on 9th May 2024

by Rosie Thomas

Photography by Ste Murray

 


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

FROM ENGLAND WITH LOVE | ★★★½ | April 2024
REUBEN KAYE: THE BUTCH IS BACK | ★★★★ | December 2023
THE PARADIS FILES | ★★★★ | April 2022

MASTERCLASS

MASTERCLASS

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Flights

Flights

★★★½

Omnibus Theatre

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Flights

Flights

Omnibus Theatre

Reviewed – 13th February 2020

★★★½

 

“All three actors are at their best as Liam, lively and energetic and sad”

 

In rural Ireland, three friends meet to commemorate something that happened 17 years ago – the death of their mate Liam. But none of them are 17 anymore, and the night is a mix of memory and present day revelations. It’s supposed to be a big one – 17 years later, and 17 when he died, but the rest of the lads are in town for the birthday of someone none of them know, and only Pa, Barry and Cusack show up to mark the anniversary. Still, they line up the cans, Pa passes out the drugs and they get the darts out.

The whole play (set and costume design by Naomi Faughnan) is set in the shack they used to go to, the gang of them, when they were teenagers. There’s a single flashing strip light (lighting design Zia Bergin-Holly), empty beer cans, faded deck chairs, candles, a table the wrong way up, a bed and mattress separated on either side of the room. It’s a claustrophobic space, and outside all we can hear is rain pouring down (sound design Peter Power).

Occasionally the pace is too slow, and the piece as a whole does feel longer than it needs to be. But the actors help to carry it through. Rhys Dunlop plays Pa, perhaps the character most in pain, still reeling, apparently living more in the past than in any kind of future. He delivers a particularly moving performance as the story unfolds. Barry is played by Colin Campbell, again another very convincing performance, whilst Conor Madden plays Cusack, the new father of the group, who has some lovely moments although begins acting drunk too early which makes the mid-point of his performance feel repetitive.

Each actor takes a turn to morph into Liam and deliver a monologue in three pieces which tells the story of what really happened the night he died. All three actors are at their best as Liam, lively and energetic and sad.

Flights, written by John O’Donovan and directed here by Thomas Martin is a poignant play about grief and about male friendships. It’s about the way that people change as they get older, set in an Ireland none of them are quite ready to leave.

 

Reviewed by Amelia Brown

Photography by Ste Murray

 


Flights

Omnibus Theatre until 29th February

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
The Orchestra | ★★★ | January 2019
Lipstick: A Fairy Tale Of Iran | ★★★ | February 2019
Tony’s Last Tape | ★★★★ | April 2019
Country Music | ★★★★ | May 2019
Othello: Remixed | ★★★★ | June 2019
Lone Star Diner | ★★★ | September 2019
Femme Fatale | ★★ | October 2019
Fiji | ★★★★★ | November 2019
The Little Prince | ★★★★ | December 2019
The Glass Will Shatter | ★★★★ | January 2020

 

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