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Artefact and Something Unspoken

Artefact and Something Unspoken

★★★★

The Playground Theatre

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ARTEFACT and SOMETHING UNSPOKEN at The Playground Theatre

★★★★

Artefact and Something Unspoken

“Together they are a delicious meditation on mid-century hidden desire”

Artefact / Something Unspoken intertwines two pieces of forbidden love, sharing a set, actors, and sapphic tensions. I took along a plus one who was not a date, but also not not a date, and leaning into liminality is the best way to experience this double bill.

The opening piece is Artefact, new writing from Rena Brannan. The piece imagines Betty Ford, of the eponymous clinics and First Lady duties, rediscovering a letter from a roommate from her dancing days.

It is set in July 1964, around the time Betty Ford had a psychiatric break before seeking help for her addictions. The piece suggests the letter, the Artefact, may have had something to do with this.

Artefact is dense with text and reminiscence, with rich, clever lines. Sophie Ward, as Betty Ford, delivers these in a captivating performance of the monologue. She roams around the audience cabaret tables, the central aisle, the (working!) bar to stage right, and the ballet studio platform to stage left, always demanding the audience’s full attention and at one point, their seat.

Sarah Lawrie, who performs as Grace Lancaster in Tennessee Williams’ Something Unspoken, is also part of the set for Artefact. Her arm crashes out from under the central stage platform clutching the found Artefact, before taking up position behind the bar, and finally as a stand-in for Betty’s old roommate in a lovely silhouetted pas de deux with Ward.

The lighting and direction across the two pieces (Steven Dean Moore and Anthony Biggs respectively) is used cleverly, almost as a character in itself. The swinging of a hanging bar light marks Ford’s descent into addiction, and opposite side lights add punctuation whilst relaying a conversation with her mother.

Artefact merges into Something Unspoken with Amanda Waggott taking the main stage platform as grande dame Cornelia Scott. Tara Kelly’s costumes and stage design immediately places us in classic Williams territory, the home of a fading Southern Belle.

Something Unspoken is one of Williams’ more obscure plays, a short and efficient one act that rips apart the facade of a gentile scene to reveal the emotional churn beneath. It studies the codependent relationship between the outwardly fierce Cornelia and her secretary, the submissive Grace, at the crux of an election to their local United Confederate Daughters chapter. Cornelia wishes to be handed the title of Regent ‘by acclimation’, or she threatens to resign entirely.

Her refusal to confront her vulnerability and the prospect of rejection has isolated Cornelia from friends, associates, and her secretary. This loneliness has eaten away at her until her fraying threads snap in a confrontation with Grace, where she demands Grace starts voicing the ‘Something Unspoken’ between them.

Grace dances around Cornelia’s demands, filling silences with music from the victrola gramophone, or is saved by the ringing of the telephone that updates Cornelia with proceedings from the Confederate Daughters.

Sarah Lawrie plays Grace with shaking nervousness and a touch of ethereal distance, perhaps a continuation of her ghostly role in Artefact. However, she looks too young to have been encased for fifteen years with Cornelia Scott after a first marriage. Amanda Waggott manages to convey the chinks emerging in Cornelia’s boldness and ferocity well. Accents sometimes are less American South and more South Yorkshire, but this is rarely a distraction.

The set on the main platform perfectly encapsulates the old world faded glamour, with metallic roses suspended above the chintzy breakfast table. Stacks of records and the gramophone surround the stage, providing unsteady columns and barriers to navigate.

The two pieces work well as a double bill. There are several echoes outside of the underlying destabilisation of forbidden love, with the 4th of July a prominent motif. Together they are a delicious meditation on mid-century hidden desire; a heady evening to share with your more-than-friends.

 


ARTEFACT and SOMETHING UNSPOKEN at The Playground Theatre

Reviewed on 15th September 2023

by Rosie Thomas

Photography by Jonathan Pang


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Picasso | ★★★ | January 2023
Rehab the Musical | ★★★★★ | September 2022

Artefact

Artefact

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Picasso

Picasso

★★★

The Playground Theatre

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PICASSO at The Playground Theatre

★★★

Picasso

“A glimpse of the potential of what Tate can achieve with the piece, we long to break down the door and see more of the full picture”

 

Pablo Picasso’s father started taking him to brothels in Southern Spain at the age of thirteen, instilling in the young man a sexual desire that would prove to be a burden but also an inspiration throughout his career. He would go on to have two wives, a good half dozen celebrated mistresses and countless lovers. Some of his most iconic works feature these subjects, so it is no surprise that they are also the subject of many books, plays, films and popular music.

According to Terry d’Alfonso’s “Picasso”, the artist’s insatiability and tenuous hold on fidelity is rooted in his relationship with his mother; and the betrayal he felt upon his sister being born when he was two years old. The birth is graphically and anatomically described, but more so the sense of betrayal that little Pablo felt. Peter Tate, who bears a striking resemblance to Picasso, pulls back a thin, gauze curtain to reveal himself, addressing the audience as though he were presenting mitigating circumstances in a court of law. It is done with a curious mix of self-congratulation and self-deprecation, the former unfortunately outweighing the latter. We occasionally catch a twinkle in Tate’s eye but for the most part we get a fairly unsympathetic portrayal of the character. What the writing does show, however, is the contradiction between the respect for Picasso’s legacy and the disrespect for his use and abuse of women.

Originally staged at the same venue in 2017, Tate has since dispensed with the supporting cast, adapting the piece into a one man show. The women are still present as projections onto the flowing back curtain, like silent movie stars. We miss the substance, though, and feel that their voices are taken away to be manipulated by Picasso himself. This could be a deliberate ploy by Tate, but it strips our sympathies further.

The narrative comes from beyond the grave and is directed to the audience, almost like a lecture at times, – often focusing on the women. “You ladies here are lucky I am already dead”. Self-assured and poised, Tate mixes Picasso’s lines and those of his women, and adds generous doses of background information. But given the short running time we are offered just sketches. Olga Khokhlova, his first wife, who left Picasso after he had impregnated his model and mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter. Dora Maar followed, or rather overlapped. The personalities fail to come across in this staging. There is no real sense of the significance of these formidable women; especially Marr, who was the one who fiercely challenged Picasso – emotionally and intellectually. We also briefly see art student Françoise Gilot, and one of Picasso’s last loves Geneviève Laporte. And finally, there is Jacqueline Roque who, forty-five years his junior, became his second wife.

It is like keyhole theatre (is that a phrase? If not, I’ll take the credit for coining it!) in that we get a restricted view of Picasso and the women in his life. A glimpse of the potential of what Tate can achieve with the piece, we long to break down the door and see more of the full picture. Whether it is budgetary or artistic criteria that relegated the female roles from flesh to fantasy, the voices need more than just one channel. But it is a channel that, under Guy Masterson’s direction, is bravely and charismatically explored by Tate. A bit of a tease though – we ultimately feel that something is being held back. Either that, or Tate needs to be given a freer rein to really take this role by the horns. A tantalising taste of what could have been is finally revealed in the stunning final moments.

 

 

Reviewed on 26th January 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Brigitta Scholz-Mastroianni Nux Photography

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Rehab the Musical | ★★★★★ | September 2022

 

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