Drama
Totalitarianism, police corrup-tion and the pliability of truth are the sinister concerns of Dario Fo's 1970 satire, Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Inspired by the real case of anarchist Giuseppi Pinelli, who fell to his death from a police headquarters in Milan in 1969, allegedly by accident. The play tracks the mysterious visits of a maniacal and protean 'impersonator' to the scene of the incident. The so-called Maniac's interrogations of Pinelli's police interrogators engender an increasingly paranoid climate of guilt and hysteria. The frenetically comic air of the play points only obliquely to the real tragedy and suspiciousness of the 'accidental death' and its aftermath.
In a fresh adaptation that recaptures the slick naturalism of Fo's original, director Luca Giberti has devised a performance of unrelenting pace and vigour. The action is dominated (and arguably controlled) by the Maniac, whose knowingness and flux make him at once reminiscent of a Shakespearean fool, a Greek chorus and - most importantly - of the itinerant, clownish goculatores of comedia dell'arte. Brian Stewart is commandingly frantic and at points burlesque in the part, switching beguilingly between the Maniac's many different personae - cockney geezer, psychiatrist, lawyer and judge, to name but a few - whilst always with the same disquieting air of sardonic mirth.
The Maniac is the dispossessed 'prosecutor' of five policemen, whose distinct personalities come to symbolise the various facets of a corrupt police body. The policemen are perhaps stereotypes as much as characters, yet as such they are highly comical. In the opening scene, the dynamic between John Gaughan's boorish Inspector Bertozzo and Jack Ream's near-mute yet swaggering subordinate is, for instance, brilliantly true to life. Benedict Morrison's Super-intendent is again piquantly suggestive of a bumptious school prefect. One possible risk is that the policemen are themselves too exaggerated and histrionic, stealing the Maniac's thunder a little. That said, they contribute vitally to the play's sense of rising panic and contagious 'mania'.
Giberti has paid careful attention to the movements and tableaux of his characters, achieving a steady balance between urgency and slapstick. The stage design is simple but striking, with one open window acquiring obvious symbolic importance.
This production's forte is its comic irony. The characters are the energetic but ultimately unsympathetic vehicles of that irony, and so the injustice and horror of the play's events emerge elliptically yet surely.
Nobody comes. Nobody goes. It's awful. That's one view on Waiting for Godot, certainly. It's pretty low on plot.
It's also, as this production refreshingly proves, very funny indeed. By using the French tradition of playing Vladimir and Estragon as clowns, rather than tramps (as they are normally portrayed in English productions), Georgina Guy has done something rather canny. This Godot doesn't plumb the depths; you're not allowed to wallow in despair or pity for the two hapless protagonists, eternally waiting for Godot (whoever he might be). Every time you might be just about to feel a twinge of existential angst, you end up laughing out loud instead.
Clem Hitchcock plays Estragon as a distinctly down-to-earth, some-what dim counterpart to Sam Thomas's rather refined, thoughtful Vladimir. Their distinct styles lead to the smallest of problems with their onstage rapport and they don't always keep to the same tempo. But most of the time they are a wonderful double act: fast and furiously funny. The script is packed with wonderful one-liners and come-backs. "How does it fit me?" says Vladimir, trying on a recently discovered bowler hat. "How should I know?" Estragon snaps back. There is something about these two that suggests a married couple, rather painfully still in love: they can't live with each other and they can't live without each other. Like most of Beckett's characters, they are trapped in a hideous paralysis.
Ollie Brock (Pozzo) and Will Pooley as his unfortunate slave Lucky add a welcome injection of slapstick. Although their presence and relationship could be darker and more unsettling, it couldn't be funnier.
Beckett's play is one of the bleakest of the last century, and that doesn't always come across in this spirited interpretation. But this welcome reminder of how unpretentiously funny Godot can be makes it a wonderful evening.
Ah, the Seventies: the decade that taste forgot. Be it the clothes, the music or the naffness of virtually everything else, the era provides the perfect comic backdrop for Mike Leigh's tale of domestic pretensions. Abigail's Party crisply captures and mocks to great hilarity the schisms that arise when the financial standing and resultant social aspirations increase out of proportion to its sense of taste. Obviously such a situation isn't unique to a Seventies setting but the era adds brilliantly to the potency of the comedy.
Beverly (Emma Jenkinson) and Laurence (Tom Viita) are definitely a couple to whom this applies. Beverly is one of the most brilliantly offensive characters in the British comic tradition. Such later creations as Hyacinth Bucket, Jill Tyrell (Nighty Night) and Marjorie Dawes, who are all explorations into the dark side of femininity, owe her a lot. Beverly is a social fascist who is throwing a cocktail party, which she regards as an event to impress more than entertain. She never misses an opportunity to either assert herself, boast about her life, or put down the other characters, and sometimes achieves all three in one breath. Her husband comes in for particular patronising but as he comes across as a wet blanket, it is hard to sympathise.
It would have been easy to over-play Beverly, but Jenkinson ensures the lines are delivered with a subtlety that ensures her intimidating social skills remain scarily true to life; the cocktail party featured has an awkwardness that anyone can relate to. Angela (Serena Martin) is dippy and, frankly, stupid - seeming oblivious to Beverly's pretensions and thus providing a good counterpoint. Her other half, Tony (Davis Cresswell), is clearly disgusted by the situation and fails to return when he goes to check on the eponymous Abigail's party. Abigail's mother, who is at the gathering to avoid the one at her own house, completes the quintet. It is striking how little affection any of the characters show each other - though it might have been nice to see the occassional sympathetic side.
There isn't a weak actor in the ensemble and each character is well developed. My only criticism is that sometimes they don't react sufficiently to each other's provocations and general lack of charm. Although the timing could be sharpened in places, on the whole Leigh's sharp comic moments are delivered and developed with panache. Despite some faults, this production proves Leigh's masterpiece has aged well.
Gateway to Heaven is set in the waiting room to Heaven and we see the unlikely combination of Madonna, Ronald Reagan and Karl, a young aids victim, await their appointments with St Peter to see if they qualify for admission. The waiting room is overseen by an endearing Joan of Arc. If you could ignore Karl's excited jumping about the stage and Madonna's unjustified screeching, Gateway to Heaven had some potential. As the candidates filled in questionnaires about their lives, we did gain insight into their characters, and there were moments of humour and wit.
Credo follows the experiences of the Schlectenheimer family on Christmas Eve. Their son Jonas is called upon to be the next messiah, by a God who looks and speaks like Ozzy Osbourne. This is a family laden with religious issues, and the play explores each family member's problems. The mother's monologue in particular was convincing and emotive, and the actors did seem intent on making the most of their small parts. Issues of religious identity were developed quite well, although in reality it felt more like a snapshot view of a modern and extremely dysfunctional family.
Acting in both plays was a little hit-and-miss, with some as flat as last week's Cola. Overall, both plays had much potential, but the characters were not yet strong enough and the script not mature enough to be able to make the impact the audience requires of such short plays. Late casting seems to have led to the characters being a little awkward in their roles. The balance between serious religious themes and absurd panto-style acting and writing was not fully achieved. This feeling was reinforced by emotions verging on the ridiculous, with actors apparently unable to feel settled in their parts and some lacking any credibility whatsoever. The surrealism of both plays was refreshing and they did explore some interesting issues, but these were inhibited by the essentially amateur nature of the production.
3rd Feb 2005