2000 Feet Away. To 12 July.
London.
2,000 FEET AWAY
by Anthony Weigh.
Bush Theatre To 12 July 2008.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 3pm.
Runs 1hr 30min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7610 4224.
www.bushtheatre.co.uk (Run sold out - ask box officwe about returns).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 June.
New angle on American Gothic.
They stand, plain folk and plainsfolk, in front of their clapboard house, the farmer and his wife, all-American and Midwestern in Grant Wood’s picture ‘American Gothic’. But the man and boy looking at it in a Chicago gallery suggest something less wholesome. Yet the man, known only by the picture’s initials, AG, is the piano-playing son of Iowa parents who annually win a prize by lining-up as identikit people for the annual competition.
The man dares the boy to hit the picture, setting-off the alarm. And alarm runs through Anthony Weigh’s drama. AG’s known as a child-molester, though he denies it. And Iowa law prevents him going within 2,000 feet of any children’s establishment When he’s given into the local deputy-sheriff’s charge, the lawman’s small-town life takes on nightmarish tinges.
In Joseph Fiennes, he’s as thin as a rake, but repeatedly warned about getting fat. Hardly surprising as folks ladle him with syrup on pancakes, doughnuts, cookies, burgers and he almost chokes on peanuts. His custody of AG opens up a world of non-innocence, from the old resident of a shabby motel who challenges his mental fantasies, to young people.
There’s sexual suggestiveness in Kirsty Bushell’s characters, especially her propositioning motel Manager, Kevin Trainor’s born-again burger-seller, whose leering manner suggests what he was born again out-of, and the Girl whose dolls lie ignored amid her sexually precocious talk.
Throughout, Fiennes’ Deputy retains a polite detachment from the people who’d feed him up or marry him off. It’s as if locals will do, or see, anything that helps them conform him to their prejudices. This is an unimaginative and restrictive society. AG’s ma and pa may be cracker-barrel perfect but their son’s reputation still brings them excrement dumped on their doorstep.
Josie Rourke’s acute direction points up the disturbances in this place through Weigh’s dialogue flurries. There are fine performances, in which Ian Hart’s AG, puzzled, fearful and, pleasant-seeming and therefore that) stands out alongside Fiennes. Finally, these two reach Chicago, referring to Canada across the water, escaping the bounds of prejudice, if still leaving questions for their separate futures.
AG: Ian Hart.
Boy: Joe Ashman/Oliver Coopersmith.
Byron/Resident: Roger Sloman.
Nan: Phyllis Logan.
Deputy: Joseph Fiennes.
Woman/Manager: Kirsty Bushell.
Waiter/18 Year Old: Kevin Trainor.
Girl: Charlotte Beaumont/Miranda Princi.
Director: Josie Rourke.
Designer: Lucy Osborne.
Lighting: James Farncombe.
Sound: Emma Laxton.
Assistant director: Abigail Graham.
2008-06-29 11:00:53