OVERVIEW: I was most impressed by the number of people that had been brought in to watch this night of new writing. Vertical Line Up is doing a fantastically worthwhile thing, but they need to expand their outreach program and get the word out to more and better writers because the quality was lower than what I would have expected from a London new writing night.
Frankly, I can’t think what compelled showcase director
Jake Murray to pick up Hendrik Elstein’s Pal
Street Boys excerpt and think that it would be good to showcase. Without
any recognisable purpose or dramatic arc, Sean Turner’s direction adds
over-exaggeration and a trumpet player in to make it more interesting. But,
without making the stylised approach strong enough to be visually engaging, the
nothing-ness of the dialogue shines through undeterred, while Turner’s approach
prevents his actors from making anything of their parts.
Tina Jay’s London
Boys feels very amateur – both from a writing and acting point of view.
Shifting the focus of your eyes manically from left to right does not emotional
tension make. The piece felt predictable and staid, and the lack of any
chemistry between the actors was mirrored by dialogue that felt all the further
away from naturalism because it supposedly adhered to it.
Robbie Best’s Honeybees
had an unusual approach to paedophilia. We see young children unfairly
manipulating situations with strangers to land them as paedophiles, keen to get
a gold star for bringing another one in to ‘justice’, while well-to-do parents
are keen to sign their darlings up because it gives them access to an exclusive
social group. I enjoyed the play’s premise. However, both the acting and
dialogue were generally a bit crude – apart from Kate Sawyer who plays the part
of the responsible staff member with precision and comic flair.
From the title alone, I was dubious about Sevan K.
Greene’s Lucifer Ex Machina, but
actually I was pleasantly surprised – his piece showcased the best dialogue of
the night. There were definite blips where things jut didn’t work, but both the
writing and idea had potential – it was set in purgatory and before Lucifer’s
bi-aeon (or some other suitably long amount of time) re-trial / appeal. There
were some good moments of comedy, quite nicely brought out by Ed Nash’s
direction. Stevie Raine, who played Lucifer, imbued his character with a pleasing
depth and nuance, as well as some good comic timing and understated delivery
for the scripts wittier moments. I was disappointed by the crude writing
employed for Lucifer’s persuasive tactics – here was a perfect opportunity for
Greene to open our eyes to how easily we can be unwittingly flattered into a
compromising position, and he didn’t take it.
Nick Myles’ The
Angel of Tomorrow was the best piece of the lot, I thought. William
McGeough performs the monologue piece about a (sort of) transvestite giving powerpoint
self-help presentations. Ostensibly to help others but really to get over his
own suicidal depression, quite a lot of the social commentary was astute and
witty. I quite liked the non-PC piss-take critique of those who have leapt onto
the self-help bandwagon for commercial, lonely, or self-motivated reasons.
There were also moments that were commendable because of what Myles knew he
could leave out – trusting the audience to get what you mean is half the
battle. Of all the pieces, the content was most appropriate to the night. Natasha’s
comment about us all being ‘liberal atheists’, and his self-referential comment
about the play’s meta-theatricality, showed that Myles definitely did know his
audience.
No comments:
Post a Comment