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Us Two

The Space

Reviewed – 22nd January 2020

★★★

“well rounded performances under competent direction”

Presented as a “work-in-progress”, playwright Lucinda Borrell, together with director Therese Ramstedt and actors Karina Cornwell (Lizzy) and Kara Stanley (Beth) have courageously invited audiences to view Us Two after approximately twenty hours of rehearsal. It is usually a dramaturg, and not a critic, who watches and takes notes for the company at this point, and these notes are not generally shared with the public. But I’ll try to wear both hats for this review, in the hope that these observations will be helpful to the company, while also of use to the audience.

Us Two is a timely script about the perils of friendship between women during the #metoo era. Borrell has created a situation in which two old friends find themselves on opposite sides when Lizzy, a journalist, exposes Beth’s husband Charlie as a longstanding sexual predator. As a result of Lizzy’s articles, Charlie has been jailed for rape, and fired from his job. Because he is a public figure, media interest has spilled over onto Beth and her children. Deep in denial about her husband’s offences, Beth invites Lizzy for lunch. Lizzy accepts, hoping that she can present evidence that will force Beth to come to terms with her husband’s wrongdoing. It’s a compelling dilemma, with echoes of the Harvey Weinstein story. Borrell, a journalist herself, creates believable characters in Lizzy and Beth.

That’s the plot. But the actual playing out starts as a very leisurely fight between two women about—what? We know that Beth and Lizzy have reached a breaking point in their relationship, but we do not understand exactly why for some time. Instead the women rehash moments in a shared history until it becomes clear that while Beth settled down with Charlie (in an idyllic marriage, she says), Lizzy has continued her freewheeling single ways. The confrontations between the friends in a restaurant are punctuated with voiceovers, or monologues at a microphone under a spotlight, in which both characters fill in some of the missing information. Is Beth really as unaware of Charlie’s predatory ways as she claims? And what of Lizzy’s own experiences of sexual harrassment (or worse) that she isn’t telling Beth? Is she really as objective about Charlie’s crimes as she claims? The drama comes to a head when Lizzy finds that Beth has been recording their conversation in hopes of gaining material that can be used in Charlie’s upcoming appeal against his sentence.

This is such rich material, that ambiguity in setting up the plot, and skirting around the actual crimes that have been committed, run the risk of trivializing the stakes for these two former friends. It’s understandable that Beth would want to protect her family—particularly her children—but there’s scarcely room in an hour to explore all the complexities of her denial. The character risks seeming unsympathetic to appalling crimes. And without revealing the actual details of Charlie’s chief offences until late in the play, we wonder why Lizzy thinks it important enough to meet with Beth in the first place. More importantly, the audience needs more time to understand Charlie, and how men like him operate. He’s a significant character, even though he never appears on stage.

In many ways, the play that was performed last night is already a complete production. Us Two at The Space has a set, lighting, sound—and two actors in costume, off book, giving well rounded performances under competent direction. That’s an impressive achievement for so little time in the rehearsal room. The audience was invited to give written feedback at the end of the show, but perhaps a better idea might have been to have a question and answer session afterwards with the team. This is also something that a skilled dramaturg could facilitate. I am sure audiences would welcome the opportunity to discuss such cutting edge material.

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Therese Ramstedt

Us Two

The Space until 25th January

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Chekhov In Moscow | ★★★★ | August 2019

The Open | ★★★ | September 2019

Between Two Waves | ★★★ | October 2019

The Prince Of Homburg | ★★★★ | December 2019

Click here to see our most recent reviews

★★★★

“The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception”

Kleist’s The Prince of Homburg, written around 1810, is a play shot through with ambiguity and altered states. It was also seen, at the time of its creation, as a direct challenge to the authority of the ruling classes. Now recognized as one of the masterpieces of German theatre, the play is rarely seen on British stages, and not just because of the difficulty of rendering this work into English. Neil Bartlett’s translation, however, does a fine job of capturing Kleist’s unique energy of expression and style. So what The Prince of Homburg is actually about? In many ways, the play is essentially unknowable. But on the face of it, it is a story about a soldier whose response, after being tricked into a waking dream where he is crowned with a wreath of victory, is to promptly go into battle, disobey his orders, and—win a great victory for his side.

After the battle (often the end of the story in a more conventional play) is where this drama really begins. Kleist sets the audience an intriguing puzzle: since the Prince did not know whether he was awake or dreaming when he was crowned with the victor’s wreath, can he be held responsible for disobeying orders to achieve the dream? Is his commanding officer, the Elector, really to blame, since it was he who set up the whole scene for his own amusement? This enlightened despot disingenuously argues that he must follow the law when the courts sentence Homburg to death, but then the officers in his army rebel. When the Princess Natalie, who has fallen in love with Homburg, makes an impassioned plea for her lover’s life—it is not her emotions that carry weight with the Elector, but her cleverly nuanced argument that he will look bad if he allows a man of honour to be executed for following his heart. At this point the Elector caves of course, but sets up a poison pill for Homburg. The Prince must now decide whether to make the expedient argument to save his life, or do what a man of honour would do, which is to sacrifice himself willingly for his country.

Kleist pulls off a remarkable sleight of hand with this material, managing all these reversals of fortune in a way that undercuts expectations, while paradoxically heightening the audience’s experience through the dramatization of highly ambiguous dream states. In these states, the characters confront all the big stuff like life and love; death and immortality. Coupled with crafting a language uniquely suited to these dramatic innovations, Kleist engages the our imaginations, and our sense of what is possible in the theatre. The Prince of Homburg is like Hamlet in this regard, in that the more we engage with it, the greater it becomes.

Júlia Leval, freely adapting and directing this production of The Prince of Homburg, has come up with some innovative ideas for casting and staging. The Prince is played by Lucy Mackay, a fine actress, but lacking the experience for such a difficult role. Most of the cast (recently graduated from LAMDA) also seems rather adrift in the stormy waters of Kleist’s rhetoric, though Will Bishop is a confident Elector. A pared down set designed by Zoe Brennan has some beautifully ironic touches—a small bush for the laurel tree that Homburg uses to build the wreath for example, and a small white house that stands in for palaces and churches as well as a throne. Alistair Lax’s sound design helps to heighten the dream sequences.

Don’t miss your chance to see this seldom performed masterpiece. It’s worth making the journey to The Isle of Dogs to see it, and The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception.

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

The Space

Reviewed – 22nd January 2020

★★★

“well rounded performances under competent direction”

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Therese Ramstedt

Us Two

The Space until 25th January

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

The Space

Reviewed – 12th December 2019

★★★★

“The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception”

Don’t miss your chance to see this seldom performed masterpiece. It’s worth making the journey to The Isle of Dogs to see it, and The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception.

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

The Prince of Homburg

The Space until 14th December

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: