A LIE OF THE MIND. To 6 November.

Dundee

A LIE OF THE MIND
by Sam Shepard

Dundee Rep To 6 November 2004
Tue-Sat 7.45pm
Runs 3hr 15min Two intervals

TICKETS: 01382 223530
www.dundeerep.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 30 October

Dundee won the Scottish Critics' prize for best production last year with Howard Barker's Scenes from an Execution. With this equally tough, rewarding production they must be in line again this year.At first, Neil Warmington's set seems a mess - a heap of elements stuck randomly on stage. In one corner a bed, anonymously suitable both for motel and house. Towards the other side, a hospital bed stuck randomly. A large, raised angular frame at one side outlines a room. A road seems vaguely to run down the stage's centre.

It's all as random as the lives of the people in Sam Shepard's play. Describing the plot (if it can be called that) isn't impossible, but it's pointless. These people are ruled by passions. Obsessions drive them. They can't always explain these things though they're often far from inarticulate they can find speaking to those close to them near impossible. Desire and need rip at their mouths and tear at their lives.

Yet the mood can be surprisingly lyrical, even as action totters on the borderline grotesque. Shepard understands what drives a character to walk interstate in pyjama trousers or have family members arguing over a visitor one of them has wounded, while father and son conduct a comic cross-purpose dialogue about animal or human prey. Towering feelings leading to trivial or devastating actions, which can be concentrated in a refusal to shift from an armchair or a quarrel over possession of a blanket.

James Brining's production finds the play's nuance though its immaculate cast. Dundee ensemble regular John Buick adapts his often comic, low-key style to old Baylor, wrapped tight in his own preoccupations. As his long-suffering wife, Irene Macdougall tactfully rolls out the entire length of her wearisome life in a rising cadence or an inquiring look following a statement.

At the Ensemble's other end new member Samantha Young brings a fragile insistence to Beth, the road-accident survivor who links the families placed distantly across the stage by Warmington's set the logic of which becomes increasingly apparent through a performance that is, but never seems, long.

There's also a fascinating tussle for affection between Emily Winter's young Sally and Ann Louise Ross as the mother who persistently favours her uncaring brother. But this is a magnificent show all-round.

Jake: Paul Blair
Baylor: John Buick
Frankie: Keith Fleming
Mike: David Ireland
Meg: Irene Macdougall
Lorraine: Ann Louise Ross
Sally: Emily Winter
Beth: Samantha Young

Director: James Brining
Designer: Neil Warmington
Lighting: Simon Bennison
Sound: John Scott
Accent coach: Lynn Bains

2004-11-03 09:20:25