Tag Archives: Stefan Hanegraaf

Paper Cut

Paper Cut

★★½

Park Theatre

PAPER CUT at the Park Theatre

★★½

Paper Cut

“Excepting the performances, everything feels a bit “debut”, despite the creative team’s impressive programme credits”

 

Kyle has spent his whole life desperate to be in the army. Idolising his father who was a soldier, he’s sacrificed the possibility of love, both romantic and familial, to ensure his military future. When he meets Chuck while serving in Afghanistan, he starts to wonder if he can have both. But after stepping on an IED, his hopes are upended.

Paper Cut by Andrew Rosendorf poses some important questions about masculinity, family loyalty, and love. The idea that gay men should have had to hide their sexual orientation in order to serve is rightly highlighted as bizarre and destructive, and the idea, too, that romantic love requires sex is called in to question.

Kyle’s relationship with his twin brother Jack is a brilliant example of unconditional love, of caring for someone even after they’ve betrayed you for their own ends. Joe Bollard as Jack is warm and awkward, laughs and tears coming as easily as each other, and he’s a brilliant counterpart to his overly intense brother.

Prince Kundai, who plays love interest Chuck, is charismatic and lovable. Entirely comfortable in his own skin, and endearingly sincere, it’s easy to see how he and Kyle might slip from friends to lovers.

Tobie Donovan, playing Harry, another love interest, is sweet and ridiculous. He’s got great comic timing and even gets a few laughs where I’m not sure there was supposed to be one.

While the plot itself is gritty and melancholy, the script feels a little too sentimental, relying on clichés and long…meaningful…pauses. Callum Mardy (Kyle) seems to get the bulk of these staring-off-in-the-distance speeches about the meaning of serving your country and so forth, and it overrides the genuine tragedy of his story, with him coming off a little ridiculous.

The script’s final lines, for example, completely diminish the fervent conversation that preceded them, as Kyle and Chuck look out at the sunset: “If you could go back and change anything, would you?”/ “So much.” The end. It’s just a bit lazy. And it’s a shame because in Mardy’s moments of levity, irony and even anger, he shows his capabilities, but he’s let down by the script’s sap.

Sorcha Corcoran’s design, a simple wooden backwall with a row of inbuilt storage chests, works fine, serving its practical purpose of hiding props and keeping the stage clean. That is, until the penultimate scene when before, in the cover of dark, the stage is scattered with gold confetti. This all comes to make sense when the final scene takes place on the beach, but less so when we’re in Jack’s apartment. Why not just wait a minute, and scatter the confetti directly before the beach scene? Or, given how minimalist the rest of the set is, why do it at all?

Lucia Sanchez Roldan’s lighting design is inoffensive: Strip lights hang from the ceiling, changing colours throughout. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with the story though, and seems a bit “designy” for the sake of it.

Excepting the performances, everything feels a bit “debut”, despite the creative team’s impressive programme credits. That said, there’s plenty to work with, and nothing a bit of red ink couldn’t fix.

 

Reviewed on 12th June 2023

by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Stefan Hanegraaf

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Leaves of Glass | ★★★★ | May 2023
The Beach House | ★★★ | February 2023
Winner’s Curse | ★★★★ | February 2023
The Elephant Song | ★★★★ | January 2023
Rumpelstiltskin | ★★★★★ | December 2022
Wickies | ★★★ | December 2022
Pickle | ★★★ | November 2022
A Single Man | ★★★★ | October 2022
Monster | ★★★★★ | August 2022
The End of the Night | ★★ | May 2022

 

 

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I Woke Up Feeling Electric

★★★

Hope Theatre

I Woke Up Feeling Electric

I Woke Up Feeling Electric

Hope Theatre

Reviewed – 6th February 2020

★★★

 

“a fun and imaginative take on the Sci-fi genre from first timer Robson”

 

How did we ever cope before the likes of Alexa and Siri being there to aid with (almost) every aspect of our lives? Some may say perfectly fine thank you very much. However, there’s no denying they are slowly taking over. Jack Robson’s playwriting debut, I Woke Up Feeling Electric, inventively looks at how they control our day-to-day in a playful yet thought-provoking way.

What if your home assistance AI was actually, well, rather human? Bertie is one of the originals. He’s been here a long time, giving his owner Charlie all the help and information he needs. He loves his job. He lives for his job. But then again, he’s never had reason to doubt it before. Until Vita comes along. Vita is a newer, more intelligent model who invades Bertie’s space and rocks his world. Trying to get to grips with his lively intruder, Bertie is forced to reassess everything he has so far come to know.

This is an interesting new take on the ‘robot resisting its job’ storyline, à la the likes of Blade Runner, and Westworld. Basing it around the home assistance type AI of Alexa and Siri, which is being used by more and more of us, makes the play far more relatable, and as a result, far more fearsome. Much in the same vain as TV show Black Mirror strives to make you feel. The humanising of AI is something that undoubtedly could happen in the near distant future.

Jack Robson plays the neurotic, uptight Bertie with perfect rigidity, much like a quintessential, English butler. Think Jeeves, with a touch of foppish Hugh Grant. A stronger change in character when rebelling against the system would have been nice to see, but this is more likely an issue with the writing or the direction. Christine Prouty has a clearer, much neater shift in persona from vivacious to clinical, reversing the trajectory of Bertie. Both actors give energetic performances that are highly watchable.

The simple yet effective set design (by Giorgia Lee Joseph) of the bare black box theatre, save for a few rows of UV, fibre-optic looking strips running along the walls and floor, evokes the technological no man’s land that Bertie and Vita are trapped inside. It immediately conjures up the stylistic motif of the classic Sci-fi movie, Tron, transporting you into a futuristic paradigm.

As well performed and as strong a concept I Woke Up Feeling Electric is, the writing doesn’t always live up to the rest. The ending feels underdeveloped and rushed, whilst the bickering between the two AI’s eeks out too long, where more emphasis on a driving plot line is needed. Regardless, this is still a fun and imaginative take on the Sci-fi genre from first timer Robson. It certainly makes your paranoia around Alexa even greater!

 

Reviewed by Phoebe Cole

Photography by Stefan Hanegraaf

 


I Woke Up Feeling Electric

Hope Theatre until 22nd February

 

Last  ten shows reviewed at this venue:
Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story | ★★★★★ | April 2019
Uncle Vanya | ★★★★ | April 2019
True Colours | ★★★★ | May 2019
Cuttings | ★★★½ | June 2019
The Censor | ★★ | June 2019
River In The Sky | ★★★ | August 2019
Call Me Fury | ★★★ | September 2019
It’s A Playception | ★★★★ | September 2019
The House Of Yes | ★★★★ | October 2019
Hamlet: Rotten States | ★★★½ | January 2020

 

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