A MADMAN SINGS TO THE MOON. To 9 October.
Edinburgh
A MADMAN SINGS TO THE MOON
by Mark Thomson
Royal Lyceum Theatre To 9 October 2004
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described 30 Sept, 2Oct 2.30pm (+ touch tour 12.30pm)
BSL Signed 5 Oct
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
TICKETS: 0131 248 4949
www.lyceum.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 September
A play that will hold you in its grip.No mainstream British theatre has done more to open itself to its community than the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. Yet I heard one complaint, from a man at the foyer Reception desk indignant about the price of a cup of tea. It was (some years ago) 80p, compare with the 30p he was charged at "the Centre".
Theatre staff listened with tolerant amusement, hard-suppressed smiles and a few quick eye-to-eye glances. Yet the man had a point. Pleasant people all, they were having to cope with a minor culture-shock.
We make daily assumptions about people, as does Tania, serving in the fashionable, glitzy basement Bliss Cafe. When dishevelled Kenny enters for a cup of tea, among the smart clientele he is the only one asked to pay upfront. When she asks what kind of tea and suggests Engish Breakfast, he thinks she's trying to sell him a meal.
Unlike Kenny, the Leeds man did not produce a gun and no-one was held to account. But Kenny's aware he's being patronised and the gun (its existence and previous use being skilfully integrated into the drama) is his way of stating he's had enough from life and wants to start understanding.
Lyceum artistic director Mark Thomson has revived his own play, just as Musselburgh's Brunton Theatre then-artistic director Mark Thomson premiered it during the 1999 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. If you can have auto-nepotism, this must be it. We can only be grateful.
Edward Lipscomb's perfect set - style suddenly rendered ridiculous by circumstances, contrasted by stone and rain outside - juts forward on the Lyceum stage. In the Brunton's pit it looked more confined but it still makes its point.
On a first viewing the play most likely is absorbing as ever. A second look reveals a few limitations - a carefully-calculated, but at times too neatly-patterned revelation of the hypocrisy, selfishness and inadequacy of the complacent cafe-society lives, some unlikely switches in Kenny's approach. And waitress Tania is conveniently insensitive at the opening in a way that suggests her current role in her real, acting career is about what she's suited to.
But it scarcely matters, especially when the nature of Kenny's recent life comes to the fore. And when director serves writer, and cast serve both, so well. Tony Cownie, head cocked wonderingly, face expressing pain or fury, keeps up the energy and sympathy for the hand that holds the gun (less easy five years on, when real hostage-taking has upped the stakes unimaginably).
Estid Barton makes her affluent housewife more than the stereotype this least-developed character could become, while Phil McKee manages to give his self-centred spin-merchant a moral voice.
Then there's Andrew Dallmeyer, tremendous as the academic who studies the stars rather than singing to the moon, and stumbles unknowingly into the middle of this hostage drama. Arcing between periods of inarticulacy (if he were a media don, it would be sound-bites by John Cage) and comic puzzlement, he opens eventually into a spell of beautiful eloquence. With deliberate movements, face settling from bemusement to calm and a voice to match, he provides the thematic crux and lyrical climax of a play that should surely have further life.
Kenny Wright: Tony Cownie
Tania: Jenny Ryan
Frank: Phil McKee
Polly: Estrid Barton
Crawford: Andrew Dallmeyer
Voice of interviewer: Jennifer Black
Voice of Jack McIver: Mark McDonnell
Director: Mark Thomson
Designer: Edward Lipscomb
Lighting: Jeanine Davies
2004-09-25 17:50:57