This is a fine production of a brilliant script. First performed in 2005, Love by Patricia Cornelius presents a love triangle between Annie, Tanya and Lorenzo.
Annie is a sex worker. Tanya and Lorenzo live off her earnings and, in exchange, give her what she needs. They give her affection, and protection. The only thing Tanya and Lorenzo seem to have in common, apart from a desire for Annie, is the demand that she continues to work and bring in the cash. Between Annie’s two lovers, we’re tempted to trust Tanya more, but we don’t automatically assume she’s morally superior to Lorenzo – and that’s indicative of the wonderful richness of the script.
Cornelius has a wonderful ear for the vernacular. These down-and-out characters speak in the highly-modal, subtlety-free assertions, repetitions and retractions which are the linguistic province of society’s rejects. In particular, Lorenzo’s ethical statements display the binary certainty of one only too familiar with perpetual reprimand. Cornelius offers the poetry of the underclass, of the inarticulate, and in its unflinching truthfulness, these characters are granted the dignity we too often deny their real life counterparts.
Director Megan Sampson elicits admirable performances from the cast.
Izzy Williams as Annie is poignantly vulnerable and naive, but tempers these qualities with a hunger for life that enhances the pathos of her situation.
Georgia-Paige Theodos as Tanya powerfully evokes the toughness and isolation of a woman marginalised for being who she is.
Rhys Johnson as Lorenzo is gloriously high energy, part puppy, part crocodile.
We’re presented a nuanced psychological portrait of each character, and an evocation of the fraught world in which they inhabit. It’s one of brutality, sometimes unthinking, sometimes not. The characters show little awareness of wider sociological or political issues; their marginalisation is so complete that they seem almost incapable of viewing themselves as victims. Only rarely is the myopia of their narrow world transcended: once, in Lorenzo’s cruel taunting of Tanya that society has a place for him, but refuses one to her; and in the final moments of the play, when Annie tries to make sense of what they are, in imagery that’s as surprising as it is sad.
Apparently, this is based on an “enduring” Greek myth, but whatever that myth is, it hasn’t endured in my myopic world.
But, unquestionably, Iphigenia in Splott is one of those gritty, working class British plays that Australian theatre loves. Effie has a drinking problem. And she’s aggressive, in the way those who have substance abuse problems, or are marginalised, sometimes are. She tells us about a couple of months in her life, and challenges us to see her as a someone of value.
In this colossal monologue, directed beautifully by Lucy Clements, Meg Clarke plays Effie, and does so wonderfully, finding the humour and sharing the heartbreak.
On the most obvious level, the piece is a powerful plea for empathy, a passionate and engaging reminder that the person you might want to avoid on the street is a person all the same. Effie acknowledges that this can be difficult, joking that she’s sometimes herself uncertain about her boyfriend’s claim to full humanity.
The piece also floats the idea that Effie’s problems are societal, that she is somehow representative of those who have suffered because of political mismanagement.
Written by Welsh playwright Gary Owen, it was first produced in Britain a decade ago, and perhaps it’s outgrown its origin. This is not a criticism of the piece per se, but a reminder, that like Greek myths, stories belong to their context. Effie talks a lot about “cuts”, and I can guess at the sort of policies she means, but the piece doesn’t give the background to assess whether these “cuts” are the result of hardhearted corruption, or were simply unavoidable. No doubt, it would’ve been far clearer to an audience in Cardiff in 2015.
Ultimately, Effie gives the impression that someone else is to blame for her situation, and that’s why she’s angry. But we’re also shown her making poor choices, and she herself criticises her boyfriend for complaining about all the shit on the street, turds he hasn’t picked up after his own dog.
It can be a mistake with a piece like this to assume the sole character is a truth-teller, some sort of Greek oracle. Drama works on the dynamic that no character has such a monopoly; that’s the form’s deeply humane vision. Only in the shallowest of drama is one character wholly right and the others wholly wrong. Monologue is no different. We’re not being asked if what Effie says is the Truth, but why it might be the Truth for her – that’s how we grant her the personhood she demands, and so deserves. (And, no, I’m not saying we don’t have a responsibility to help the marginalised, but am suggesting we shouldn’t confuse political engagement with simplistic readings of the dramatic form.)
Some audience members might thrill to Effie’s final dark, threatening statement, but it’s not some clarion call to action, but rather an expression of who she is, in all her pained bewilderment. If she is an oracle at all, she is in the way oracles enduringly are: their predictions will come to pass, but in ways far more disturbing and tragic than we can imagine.
Written by Jen Silverman and first produced in 2016 in the US, there’s certainly more than a whiff of the Brontes about this.
There’s a dissolute called Branwell. There’s a newly arrived governess. There are sisters, whose father was a minister, and at least one of whom wants to be a famous author. There’s a surly servant. There’s someone locked away in the attic. There is a large, ever-present, dog. And, of course, there are the moors, bleak, bare and stretching far away.
But don’t be mistaken, this is no bio-drama. (The Brontes are never mentioned.) It’s a glorious, hilarious, deeply moving postmodern celebration of …. some of the Brontes’ most passionate concerns.
Right through the nineteenth century and up until modernism, the English novel famously pursued realism. But there were fascinating variations on the form. Dickens played with the comic. Collins played with the criminal. The Brontes played with the dark. What makes, say, Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights standout is their embrace of the Gothic, their obsession with the dangerous, often unacknowledged, darknesses deep within us.
In The Moors, the darkness being plumbed is the disturbing link between love and control. Mistress of the house, Agatha, controls her brother, and wants to control the new governess. She also just wants her. This pattern is repeated with the dog and a moor hen.
Yes, there are talking animals. And there are musical numbers. And a heap of humour.
There’s also mischievous play on theatrical conventions. The perplexed governess is perpetually told that the one room (the only room) is another. The sole servant acts as though she were two different servants. Time doesn’t flow at its usual pace – well, at least not when you’re writing a diary, as is the younger sister who desperately wants to be a famous author.
So, how do all these mischievous comic tricks combine with the Gothic?
It certainly makes for an extraordinarily entertaining night of theatre. (The 110 minute show doesn’t seem slave to Time’s usual habits, but rather zips through like that wanna-be novelist’s diary.)
But, curiously, these mischievous comic tricks don’t result in a parody of the Gothic. Indeed, they don’t even weaken it. (The story of the fraught relationship between the dog and the hen is made more enthralling by its anthropomorphic element, refusing us a glib disapproval of certain disconcerting behaviours, and so ensuring the emotional impact of the conclusion.)
Perhaps the mischievous tricks suit our postmodern sophistication. It could be argued that the Gothic dwindled into mere adolescent horror as soon as we acknowledged the existence of the sub-conscious, and so Silverman’s tricks are merely the spoonful of sugar that makes the quaint old genre more palatable to contemporary tastes.
Or perhaps her tricks are an expression of the Gothic spirit itself, impishly revealing a previously disguised darkness. Each of the key moments in this play are driven by something one of the characters has written or a story one of the characters tells – and that hints at the location of the darkness being probed. In our post-modern culture, we’re hyper-aware of the telling of narratives, and we proudly claim agency over our own. We rightly critique the dominant narrative, for its bias, for its blindness, but how closely do we consider the narrative with which we wish to replace it? They told a Tale, we say, but as we tell ours, almost unbeknownst to us, it comes to be Truth.
Silverman’s tricks highlight this tussle of Tale and Truth. And, in this tussle, both are torn, exposing the blood and bone beneath. Perfect Gothic.
Director Jessica Fallico knows exactly the gift of a play she has and presents it magnificently.
The cast are brilliant. The scenes between the dog and the moor hen are riveting. As the bird, Jasmine Sarkis superbly encapsulates that most disquieting of mixtures: wonder and openness, born of and blighted by inexperience and ignorance. Michael Giglio, as the beast, perfectly balances warmth with neediness. As the ever-changing servant, Brittany Macchetta is splendidly nimble; with terrific use of voice and movement, she slips seamlessly between sullen and deferential. As Emily, the newly arrived governess, Georgina Dula presents a fascinating journey, taking the character from vexed bewilderment to daunting agency. Kalani Guillien is outstanding; as Agatha, mistress of the house, she is unapologetically imperious, yet deeply complex. As the younger sister, Hudley, Emily Smith excels; giddy with childish excitement and misplaced enthusiasms, she is a comic delight.
Paul Gilchrist
The Moors by Jen Silverman
presented by Dancing Dog Productions in conjunction with Waterloo Studios Theatre Sydney
Philosophers as great as Plato, Augustine and Foreigner have all wanted to know what love is.
So, a title like this has genuine swagger. Are we, finally, to be given a definitive answer to the greatest of questions?
No.
This is L-O-V-E is an anthology of playlets by American dramatist Allan Staples, here somewhat loosely linked together by a connecting piece written by director Kai Paynter.
The playlets are all about love (romantic love, that is) and they’re all either very funny or very touching – but, of course, no definitive answer to the question What is love? is being offered. It’s more of a shot-gun style scatter sample. Any overarching theory, if one were ever worth attempting, is up to us. (I’m not sure if the playlets were originally intended to be grouped together.)
The eleven-strong ensemble are a little uneven, especially in terms of vocal work, and the changeovers between the playlets would benefit from more pace and pizazz, but the writing is beautiful and some of the performances are magnificent.
A couple process some daunting medical news. Kate Jirelle and Kirk Hastings work brilliantly the surprising humour, and Jirelle as the woman facing the diagnosis finds a gloriously honest and deeply moving vulnerability.
Another couple suspect they may be pregnant, despite having a decidedly unserious relationship. With Georgia Britt and Dominic Di Paolo, the gags fire, but both actors also offer emotionally inspiring performances: Britt presents a poignant dignity and Di Paulo an unexpected chivalry.
Two men bump into each other at an airport. Why did their romance fail? Alex Baum and Rhett Wilks superbly portray the heady mixture of residual resentment and ongoing chemistry.
Presented by The Americas A Theatre Company, there’s an intriguing focus on the USA. During each playlet, a photo of a recent American president is projected on the upstage wall. I was unsure whether these were meant to place the playlets in time. On occasions, I could draw a connection between the concerns of the particular playlet and the policies of the pictured president, or with events during his term, but often I couldn’t. I certainly didn’t need to see a two metre tall projection of Trump’s face.
This focus on the USA is curious, because it positions us to ask if the aim of the piece is to present love as it is experienced American-style. (It’s also quite brave, because since at least the 1940’s, Australian audiences have hardly been deprived of American culture. It’s only recent political events in the northern hemisphere that have left us wondering if America was always more foreign than we assumed.)
But perhaps that’s the point: despite the recent turn in American politics, both disturbing and bewildering – its people are still people, who like us all, worship before the great mystery of love.
Paul Gilchrist
This is L-O-V-E by Allan Staples (with Kai Paynter)
Presented by BearTiger Productions in association with The Americas A Theatre Company
At the Loading Dock Theatre, Qtopia, until 15 March
A rabbit is hit by a car and now lies injured on the road. A crow waits for it to become carrion, in order to consume it.
In a brave and laudable snub to trendy woke identity politics, writer and director Leon Ford casts humans in the animal roles.
As the titular rabbit and crow, Sophie Gregg and Justin Smith are brilliant. Philip Lynch is equally superb as another crow who later attempts to join in on the action. With enormous skill, they play Ford’s amusing script, finding the magic in every moment, and achieving both humour and pathos. (All you performers who identify as crows and rabbits, notice has been given. The days of lazily asserting you’re entitled to the role simply because you’re a bird or a small furry animal are over. From now on, you might have to try actually acting.)
The humour of the piece comes from various mechanisms. One is simple anthropomorphism. We delight in the conceit that the animals speak in our vernacular, display our peccadillos, and face very human problems. (It’s a vein of humour long mined by cartoonists. The artists working for The New Yorker, for example, have especially excelled in it.) It’s a genre that both gently mocks humankind, but also expresses joy at the non-human Other. (Who hasn’t been enchanted by the absolute amorality of cats?)
Another comic mechanism is dramatic irony. Neither the rabbit nor the crows understand human aspirations and human technology, but I suspect a small percentage of the audience do.
So, is it allegory, fable or just fun?
It certainly brings to mind Aesop and Orwell. But it also evokes the ancient Greek poet Archilochus and his claim “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” In Ford’s 50 minutes of fun, it’s the crow who knows many things, who is an individualist, an opportunist, an obfuscator, a chancer. The rabbit knows one big thing: love.
You might argue that the tension between these two worldviews is a false dichotomy, that life is not simply a choice between the individual and the community, and that any such reductive binary belongs in a children’s book – but to quote someone with even greater moral authority than a theatre critic: “Unless you become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (And that allusion offers me a segue to a speech the rabbit gives concerning the afterlife; it’s a superb parody of eschatological wishful thinking.)
The other tension Rabbit & Crow plays with is that between choice and inevitability, between the things we can change and the things we can’t. Must crows eat carrion?
Perhaps the piece gets itself into a bit of a corner here. When much of the humour comes from the sense that the animals represent types, and when our overarching belief is that the animal world is utterly innocent because it’s without a moral dimension, the presentation here of an ethical dilemma might be hard to swallow (like road kill.)
But something else is on offer, or more accurately, not on offer. As the play doesn’t actually represent people, that is, specific human characters, we’re not offered the option to respond to it in the following, time-honoured, tired manner: This play is a criticism of all those people who claim they have no choice, when they indubitably do. This play is a criticism of all those people who resist moral progress, when they assert it’s against the “nature of things”. This play is a criticism of all those people who maintain the immutability of the “nature of things”, when they’re simply defending their own privilege. This play is a criticism of all those people who are not people like me!
Rabbit & Crow denies us this easy out, as the sheer playfulness of the script, and the magnificence of the performances, lifts it into universality.
The premise of Don’t Save Me is so thought-provoking that it almost makes redundant the actual writing or production of the play.
Jade (Holly Mazzola) is dying. Her husband Pat (Ben Itaba) secretly records their conversations, so she can be brought “back to life” by AI.
Does Pat have the right?
Written by Karina Young and directed by Nelson Blake, the focus of the play is primarily, and narrowly, ethical.
But when Jade discovers Pat’s plan, and objects, his response is a flat But you’ll be dead – which doesn’t quite trump all further argument, but feels awfully close to doing so. The dead, after all, don’t have rights. (You can lie about the dead, but you can no longer libel them.) And, with little time left, and that time to be inevitably filled with physical suffering, Jade’s insistence on her rights seems odd, an unacknowledged avoidance strategy as against a justified indignation. (Life perceived solely through the lens of rights is particularly barren. As victims of blind circumstance, which we all ultimately are, rights offer little counsel and even less consolation.)
And, with its sights firmly on ethics, the play sidesteps more interesting ontological issues. Instead of Should we do it? how about Could we do it?
The answer to the second of these questions is not only dependent on technology, but also on what we think it is to be a person. Are we just a collection of relatively consistent words and behaviours? If so, AI is perfectly capable of replicating us. However, vitally aware of our own agency, our freedom and the endless dynamism of being alive, we resist such a reductive vision of personhood
But the experience of love raises a thorny problem. We love particular people. Or, if we’re talking romance, solely one person. Based on what? Their relatively consistent words and behaviours? If that is so, Pat’s reductive AI plan is disturbingly little different from his choice to marry Jade in the first place!
And that’s why a deeper psychological exploration would have been fruitful. We don’t see Pat make the decision to record his wife. He’s already doing it before the play begins. We don’t see him so overwhelmed by the sheer wonder of his wife’s existence, that in the mad hope it might continue, he desperately clutches at straws. Similarly, when Jade discovers Pat’s plan, her response is merely anger. It doesn’t seem to occur to her to seriously consider why her husband might be tempted. She’s too focussed on her supposed rights to openly face the awful, bewildering mystery of ultimate loss. (Even when she asserts she is scared of death, we aren’t shown her fear, only her anger that her husband has failed to recognise her emotions.) For most of the 90 minutes of the play, the characters are remarkably unchanging, altering only in mood rather than outlook – and that’s a pity, because character development is a terrific dramatic tool to explore the moral, philosophical and emotional complexities of any thorny issue.
Indeed, the characters appear to be deliberately infantilised: her sister (Raechyl French) attempts to bribe her way back into Jade’s trust with ice-cream; the married couple’s dream holiday is Disneyland; they build a pillow fort in the loungeroom; and their relationship appears to consist of home cooking, including the baking of cookies, and watching reality TV on the couch. (Admittedly, the last of these could be an invitation to consider authenticity, after all, the play is about AI.)
But why are they such static children?
It functions as a powerful portrait of fear, of debilitating terror before those two most dreadful agents of change: Technology, control of which we’ve lost, and Death, whose measure we never had.
Paul Gilchrist
Don’t Save Me by Karina Young
presented by Puncher’s Chance Co in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre Co
Despite being a delightful device for the creation of joy, running through this piece is a melancholic sense that the scene is less welcoming of drag kings than it has been – or, more importantly, might be.
And, judging by this production, that’s a real pity.
This is a thoroughly entertaining hour, and a magical celebration of life’s richness.
Directed by Kaz Therese and written by Therese & Danica Lani in collaboration with the cast, it’s part-sharing and part-performance.
The four cast members begin by asking each other to name a world famous drag king. They come up with few contenders. (Though the suggestion of Joan of Arc is marvellous food for thought; as one cast member says, the Maid of Orleans definitely would have been a they.)
In amusing and affecting anecdotes, the cast members share personal stories of the joy of being a drag king. They also perform some of their own routines. As “Chase Cocks”, Chris McAllister delivers some terrific stand up, replete with some needle-sharp one-liners that puncture all parochiality. As “Jim Junkie”, Becks Blake performs a hilarious movement piece, playfully both burlesquing and saluting masculine swagger. Danica Lani as “Dario di Bello” presents a glorious lip-synced pop duo and dance number, in which the performer brilliantly takes both the (conventional) male and female roles. Angel Tan as “Fine China” offers a moving personal sharing, accompanied by themselves on a very evocative violin.
We’re told You can be any gender you want to be. And this is a golden reminder that life is larger than lethargy and fear might make it.
We’re told There are different masculinities (and even as a supposed straight cis-guy, that’s encouraging; I admit, as I limped home after the show with my bad back, I did try to put on a bit of a swagger.)
Though I present as a theatre critic, I identify as a philosopher – and I find the performative aspect of personal identities absolutely invigorating.
There are prejudices in our culture asserting that conscious performance is indicative of inauthenticity. However, WB Yeats (with his dramatist’s hat on) points out that performance is vital for a full life. For example, performance is the fundamental element of an ethical life. To act ethically is to act in a way different to our first, unthinking impulses. Goodness is something we perform.
But, what if you are accused of not being good? That there is something problematic about your identity? Essentialism becomes an understandable temptation: I was born this way, you respond.
No doubt true.
But like all our truths, only a partial one.
We are creatures of time; it’s the element in which we exist. And, as Catherine of Siena would say, The fish is in the sea, and the sea is in the fish. We’re not independent of time; we don’t swim through it immutable and unchanging. Not only with salt does the ocean permeate all, but with its very openness. We only ever know who we are incompletely, because who we are contains also who we might be.
And not merely who we become; that’s just a more sophisticated form of essentialism. The joy of the dance is not found only in its final step.
Embrace the play, the potential, the delicious possibilities….
Yeats (this time with his poet’s hat on) asks of essentialism How can we know the dancer from the dance? And the subtext is clear Why do we need to?
They Will Be Kings is life affirming and enriching, and wonderful fun!
Paul Gilchrist
They Will be Kingsby Kaz Therese & Danica Lani in collaboration with the cast,
This is new Australian work and it’s a Victorian Gothic comedy. Such bold choices are always invigorating.
Set in the London of the late 1800’s, it tells of a desperate mother (Megan Elizabeth Kennedy) who begs a mad scientist (Tommy James Green) to enact a dreadful procedure.
In the broadest sense, the Gothic is a response to the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution – and to the extraordinary technological developments that followed. Often the Gothic is a plea: Not so fast! Be wary where all this is leading! Don’t so glibly dismiss the wild darkness within us!
It’s interesting how the Gothic changes through the nineteenth century. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), it’s a warning against intellectual hubris; be careful what you do with this newfound science. By Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) the warning has changed; now it’s an assertion that our rational scientific world view is limited, blinding us to the dangers that lie beyond its myopic vision. Shelley says be wary of the power, Stoker says don’t overestimate it.
Turpentine by Tommy James Green is closer to Shelley’s work thematically, but because it positions itself as comedy, the Gothic beast’s bite is softened. It’s tempting to see it simply as the unadulterated opportunity for larger than life characters and some entertaining mayhem.
Directed by Katherine Hopwood Poulsen, the cast energetically commit to the craziness. Vocal delivery (excluding that of the mute, played by Freddy Hellier) would benefit from more variety, both for the sake of emotional impact and comedic effect, but also for audience comprehension. Though the decision to set the play in London allows resonance with the grand tradition of the Gothic, I wonder whether an Australian setting might have freed the performers from the accent work that limits the production’s impact (though enhances its intended silliness.) As the piece stands, references to British colonialism effectively employ the Gothic’s ability to gaze into the darkest chambers of the human heart, but considering our nation’s troubled history, a change of setting wouldn’t diminish the potency of a similar, but more local, exploration.
Despite its playful intention, the piece takes its narrative structure seriously: it’s a genuine two act play, rather than a mere cavalcade of comic nonsense. Act One invites us into this wild Gothic world and cleverly sets up the events of Act Two. (Though I wonder if the dramatic question of the first act could be further clarified by establishing earlier the reasons for the doctor’s reluctance to perform the procedure. Let the question be whether the bereft mother can convince him despite what he fears. We know the procedure is impossible in the real world, but by introducing its nature and consequences earlier we know the rules of the game being played, and so can give our attention to the human truths that game serves to highlight. Note how Shelley’s Frankenstein spends little time on how the monster is created, directing our focus instead to the very real human experience of hubris and its terrible repercussions. My suggestion would also giving meaning to the doctor’s first act babbling, positioning it as a recognisable avoidance strategy, rather than merely colourful characterisation.)
Yes, I know, I’m indulging in that most annoying – and pointless – of dramatic criticisms: describing the play I wish had been written, rather than discussing the play that actually was. We critics think we’re specialists, though we’re only ever called in for the autopsy.
Design by Alex Baumann and James Shepherd is especially evocative, establishing a world of potions and poisonous pleasures. Sound design by Kyle Stephens deals ingeniously with the curse that occasionally strikes this theatre, and which its name in glorious honesty acknowledges. If external noises do intrude, an ominous rumbling thunder disguises them, while simultaneously suggesting the frightening secret tensions which are the Gothic’s speciality.
I mentioned an autopsy before, but I don’t want to suggest Turpentine lies cold on the slab. It’s deliciously audacious, with the potential to be truly electrifying.
Drama is in love with the productions of time, to misquote William Blake. Drama is an artform concerned with duration. Unlike, say, lyric poetry or sculpture, drama represents what happens next.
This was done and so This followed, and then This … and so on. As Arthur Miller has suggested, drama is the artform that portrays the chickens coming home to roost.
As a consequence, dramatists have long been attracted to historical stories. (Shakespeare wrote plenty, over a third of his output. But more on him later.)
Song of First Desire is set in Spain, and through intertwined stories, explores the ways in which the Civil War of the 1930’s continues to cast a dark shadow over that nation. If war is hell, then civil war is its innermost ring (to borrow from both Sherman and Dante.)
One strand of the story tells of a Columbian immigrant who comes to contemporary Spain and finds himself working in a house with some rather scarred occupants. The other strand of the story is set in the same house, but in 1968, nearly thirty years after the Civil War, but while the nation was still controlled by Franco’s victorious fascists (a dictatorship which lasted until at least 1975.)
The characters in the two story lines are personally connected, but I have to admit it took me a long time to figure out exactly the nature of those connections. Now, I know that there are members of the audience who like to have something to think about while the characters onstage are just talking – but for me, having to pay attention to the present action while simultaneously attempting to draw the connections with the past was a multi-tasking challenge: not so much chewing gum while walking as putting together a 3D jigsaw puzzle while riding a unicycle. Homer is rightly blamed for inventing the flashback, and it’s probably worth noting that Shakespeare maintains a healthy abstinence from the technique. (What happens next? always being a more interesting question than Why did that happen?)
But having said all that, this production is one hour fifty minutes long without an intermission – yet the time flew, and offered the glorious, heartrending vistas born of such flight.
Writer Andrew Bovell and director Neil Armfield are Australian theatre legends, and masters of the craft, and this piece is utterly enthralling. The four-strong cast (Kerry Fox, Borja Maestre, Jorge Muriel and Sarah Peirse) are brilliant, embracing the challenges of doubling and creating remarkably vivid characters in each of the two storylines.
If Bovell is more interested in disrupting a story’s chronology than, say, Shakespeare, it’s possibly because as a modern he’s working our contemporary interest in historical sociology. We knowing our present is a product of our past, but is it also its prisoner?
In Song of First Desire several characters suggest there are some doors to the past that should be left shut, but they say it in such pained desperation we wonder if it’s a word of the wise or a cry of the wounded.
Now, I know there are members of the audience who like to have something to think about after the characters stop talking – and Bovell’s powerful play is a provocative invitation to consider our own nation’s dialogue with its past. As a society, do we consciously forget in order to move forward? Or do we consciously remember in order to heal? And is either of these options actually psychologically possible?
Though no Spaniard, French philosopher and later mystic Simone Weil volunteered for the Republicans in their battle against the fascists in the Civil War. And though not concerned exclusively with the history that each of us carries, she wrote a line that resonates with Bovell’s vital interrogation, and which here I’ll paraphrase: What’s taken from us does us harm; what we relinquish does us good.
In the war between the generations, the final result is inevitable. All that’s in doubt is what the victors will learn from the vanquished, before they too ultimately join the ranks of the defeated.
Jack Holden’s Cruise was first performed in 2021 in London. A young gay man works at a phone help line. An older man calls, and is disgruntled to be answered by such an inexperienced responder. Already annoyed at one of the older gay men working at the centre, the young man is taken aback. The tension between the generations is established.
This is a 90 minute monologue, with Fraser Morrison playing an astounding number of characters. Morrison’s control of voice and movement is superb. It’s an absolutely extraordinary performance. (And credit must also go to his terrific support team: director Sean Landis, accent coach Linda Nicholls-Gidley and movement director Jeremy Lloyd.)
The basic set up of the piece is that the older man tells the younger man his personal history, of his time in Soho in the 1980’s. It’s parties and promiscuity, dancing and drugs, and true love… and true love’s awful nemesis. There’s oodles of charm, plenty of humour, and at the dawning of that cruelly indiscriminate plague, distress, dread, and soul-deep sorrow.
As an outsider to this world – I spent the 80’s not in dance clubs but in libraries – a piece like this is a beautiful gift. To witness a community in the process of building itself, to observe it openly constructing its history, is a wonderful privilege. (Self-indulgent digression: While in those libraries, I was learning about love in a way very different to that of the characters in Cruise, reading the history of mysticism, first in Christianity, then in Judaism, then Islam and then from further east. So, History and Love – where the lesson is that Eternity is in love with the productions of Time, to quote William Blake.)
And that’s the glorious wisdom of this piece: by knowing our history, by knowing the sorrows and solaces of those who came before, we gain the strength to step into the future. And what’s more, knowing our place in Time is the best preparation for the joys which seem to transcend it.
Paul Gilchrist
Cruise by Jack Holden
presented by Fruit Box Theatre in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company
Theatre Red 