A MIRACLE. To 21 March.

London.

A MIRACLE
by Molly Davies.

Royal Court Theatre (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) To 21 March 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm except 12, 19 March 8pm Mat Sat 4pm.
Runs 1hr 20min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000.
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 March.

Spareness and implication fleshed-out by strong performances.
It isn’t quite a roof-garden, but designer Patrick Burnier’s turned the Royal Court’s top-deck studio into the literal turf for the rural Norfolk setting of Molly Davies’ new play. For some reason the play’s kitted-out with a healthy portion of Irish actors, who cope well with the curves and vowels of East Anglian speech.

These detailed performances, and Lyndsey Turner’s tight direction help conceal the structural and character limitations in the micro-length scenes of Davies’ script. As so often with young writers, an ability to write spare, pointed dialogue and to pour out experience precedes a sense of scenic structure and character development.

This is a young writer’s play about two young people. Well, one principally; single mother Amy. And Gary, a local lad on leave from the desert army. Sorcha Cusack gives reality to Amy’s grandmother with tactful skill, but the character’s observed from outside in the writing, seen only as part of Amy’s life, helping with baby and trying to instil domestic skills.

And Gerard Horan gives Gary’s dad, a farmer fallen on hard times, now working on land he once owned, a solidity that’s hardly in the character. Apart from a neat slice of social tension between him and his one-time employee Val, Rob mainly tramps across the stage carrying huge bags and faces a challenge from the son who's learned his father’s flaw.

It’s in the young people’s relationship that energy flows and characters peep through the curtain of long-reared inarticulate rural reticence, as the two come tentatively together with an unrealistic dream of a new life in Brighton. For he’s due back with the army, she has her baby. In a rare scene of dramatic action Gary might be endangering Amy’s baby, to make the couple’s escape from the open-fields prison-life easier.
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Russell Tovey catches the danger in a short-fused young man who wants stability, while Kate O’Flynn, though looking mature for 19-year old Amy, is admirable as someone treading the border of independence and responsibility, and baby Cara, though unseen, takes on a life of her own in her expressive cries from the cot.

Val: Sorcha Cusack.
Amy: Kate O’Flynn.
Gary: Russell Tovey.
Rob: Gerard Horan.

Director: Lyndsey Turner.
Designer: Patrick Burnier.
Lighting: Nicki Brown.
Sound: David McSeveney.

2009-03-10 02:08:19