Tag Archives: Steve Gregson

This Beautiful Future

This Beautiful Future

★★★

Jermyn Street Theatre

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This Beautiful Future

This Beautiful Future

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 20th August 2021

★★★

 

“There are two fine performances from both young actors with subtle nuances of character”

 

Five scenes run straight through without an interval in this moving new production of Rita Kalnejais’s 2017 play set in Nazi-occupied France towards the end of the Second World War. Directed by Charles Khalil and designed by Niall McKeever, this production is a two-hander with the two supporting roles of the first production consigned to voiceovers. The scene is set with a welcoming soundtrack of French chanson that segues into German song. And then a familiar tune – Somewhere Over the Rainbow – sung first in one language and then the other.

The opening and longest scene of the play is the most successful. We meet and get to know the two characters. Elodie (Katie Eldred) is a French girl angry with her mother, anti-church, a teenage rebel who flashes her knickers at the window rather than be subdued behind a blackout. Otto (Freddie Wise) is a German soldier, no more than a boy, his father’s medals on his chest and a gun in his hand. The young couple design to meet in the bedroom of an abandoned family home. Elodie expects Mrs Levi, the Jewish owner, to soon return; Otto knows that she will not. Elodie has brought along a picnic – some bread and cheese and a bottle of wine – to share on the edge of an unkempt bed in a bare room as the village outside burns.

Elodie displays her youthful innocence with bare legs and bobby socks, her hair held back in a white band, but her knowing looks and unspoken gestures hint at her desires and to where she will lead the young soldier. It is up to Otto to follow her direction. He has been led into the war by his father, led into Nazi doctrine by Hitler, and now led into bed by Elodie. As the passive partner in this relationship, we see there are other things going on unsaid. Otto is nervous, not only because of what he hopes to get from this night, but because his head is full of daytime horrors. His quick temper hints at the onset of PTSD.

Otto expects to invade England in the morning. Elodie expects to be liberated by the Americans. We hear the shocking nature of what does happen through two poignant monologues but clumsy movement across the illuminated floor tiles inhibits the powerful nature of the narrative.

There are two fine performances from both young actors with subtle nuances of character. Katie Eldred is in full control as Elodie’s desires drive the action forward. Freddie Wise clearly shows us the mixed emotions and confusion in the mind of Otto, despite some unclear diction.

The two final scenes are short flashbacks: how Elodie and Otto first meet, and the couple waking up after their one night together but there is little new to learn. The two actors well deserve their applause at the end and share the acclaim with two charming and delightful symbols of hope and rebirth.

 

Reviewed by Phillip Money

Photography by Steve Gregson

 


This Beautiful Future

Jermyn Street Theatre until 11th September

 

Previously reviewed by Phillip:
Animal Farm | ★★★★ | Royal & Derngate | May 2021
Copenhagen | ★★★★ | Cambridge Arts Theatre | July 2021
Gin Craze | ★★★★ | Royal & Derngate | July 2021
Pippin | ★★★★ | Charing Cross Theatre | July 2021
Romeo and Juliet | ★★★★ | Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre | June 2021
The Money | ★★★ | Online | April 2021
Trestle | ★★★ | Jack Studio Theatre | June 2021

 

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Closed Lands

Closed Lands

★★★

VAULT Festival 2020

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Closed Lands

Closed Lands

Cage – The Vaults

Reviewed – 3rd March 2020

★★★

 

“it sometimes feels that they are trying too hard to make up our minds for us”

 

The fall of the Berlin Wall, over thirty years ago, is still regarded as a momentous event both physically and psychologically. Since then, however, European countries alone have reportedly built over a thousand kilometres of walls along their borders – the equivalent of six times the length of the Berlin Wall. Pan out across the Atlantic and we have the political theatre of Donald Trump’s obsession with his “big beautiful wall” along the US-Mexico border. All very real, but also just as real are the metaphorical walls of bureaucracy that face migrants and asylum seekers across the globe. These are the issues tackled by LegalAliens, a company comprised entirely of migrants in the UK. Fusing poetry with traditional storytelling, movement and multimedia they chronicle humanity’s infatuation with building walls.

“Closed Lands” (translated by Laure Fernandez) is adapted from Simon Grangeat’s short play, ‘Terres Closes’. Grangeat was inspired to write it after witnessing the arrest of the migrant father of one of the children at his daughter’s school. Written as a series of poems from varying points of view, LegalAliens have adopted this format intelligently to avoid the pitfalls of presenting a documentary diatribe. The all-female ensemble – Luiana Bonfim, Daiva Dominyka, Catharina Conte, Becka McFadden and Lara Parmiani – directed by McFadden give voice to the contrasting archetypes, the victims and culprits of the issues surrounding world migration: the politicians, citizens, migrants; the media, the lawyers, the racketeers and resistance. They take turns assuming the various roles while a backdrop of projected news footage fills in the global view.

There are times we feel harangued as all shades of grey are erased from the subject to reveal clear cut, black and white perspectives with no room for debate. Very rapidly we learn the targets of their satire and the subjects of their sympathy, after which the drama – and the humour – becomes somewhat predictable, lessening the potential impact. Where this production is more successful is in its exploration of the figurative walls that are constructed by those with power and that those without are forced to cower behind. In the Western World we (nearly) all rejoiced in the fall of the Berlin Wall, but what is more poignant and powerful is the gradual fall of the invisible wall in people’s minds.

That is the direction LegalAliens is trying to lead us with their thoughtful exposition. But it sometimes feels that they are trying too hard to make up our minds for us. As an audience, we don’t necessarily need converting. However, we do need entertaining, and with its eclectic approach to mixing theatrical styles, “Closed Lands” certainly breaks down the fourth wall to achieve this.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Steve Gregson

 

VAULT Festival 2020

 

 

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