AALST. To 19 May.
London/Scotland
AALST
by Pol Heyvaert new version by Duncam McLean
Soho Theatre To 28 April
Mon-sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 4pm
BSL Signed 27 April
then Tour to 19 May 2007
Runs 1hr 15min No interval
TICKETS: 0870 429 6883
www.sohotheatre.com (London)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 April
Documentary trip into an unknowable heart of darkness.
Cathy and Michael Delaney would be a disaster waiting to happen, except it’s already happened. They hired a hotel room, where they killed their 2 children. Are they merely perpetrators, or further victims, and if so, of what?
Hardly of the state, which showered them with handouts, despite Michael’s moonlighting. What about the consumer society, which they used to acquire 3 TVs and 5 stereos on instalments they never paid? Their anxiety under judicial interrogation eventually makes way for defiance; how can they be accused of lacking money-management skills when they’ve had the state pay for so much? How can Cathy be accused of stealing clothes when no-one asked her for the receipt?
Aalst is named from the Belgian industrial town where the original of this case occurred in 1999. Duncan McLean’s English-language version was made in close contact with director Pol Heyvaert, who created the piece for Belgium’s youth-focused Victoria theatre company.
Cathy and Michael sit on chairs, speaking their answers into microphones as a voice, mixed judge and prosecutor, asks detailed questions, at times tucking moral disapproval into the interrogation.
They have no identifiable mental condition. Yet they see no viewpoint but their own. A clue lies in their childhoods. He moved from children’s home to young offenders’ institution, she faced sexual abuse. Neither state nor family served them well.
Two weeks into their relationship, Michael started hitting Cathy. He explains how a slap is a way of not hurting her. She says she married him anyway because she loves him. They say they love each other.
Kate Dickie and David McKay’s detailed, intense performances rightly leave an ambiguity over how much her tense features and fitful grasping of the mike-stand, his frequent working of the mouth muscles, is anxiety, pure fear or calculation. Cathy repeatedly sounds as if she’s flatly reciting learned answers and her description of their crime as “horrific” sounds devoid of feeling. Michael seems ingratiating, giving the answers he knows are wanted.
.
Though the soft musical underscoring and lighting changes insert a theatricality which works against the reality, Aalst remains terrifyingly gripping throughout.
Cathy Delaney: Kate Dickie
Michael Delaney: David McKay
Voice: Gary Lewis
Director/Designer: Pol Heyvaert
Lighting: Paul Claydon
Sound: Matthew Padden
Composed: Das Pop
Assistant director: David Overend
2007-04-21 08:37:07