AIRSWIMMING by Charlotte Jones. Etcetera Theatre

London

AIRSWIMMING
by Charlotte Jones

Lizard Republic at Etcetera Theatre, Camden To 25 November 2001
Runs 1hr 30min No interval

TICKETS 020 7482 4857
Review Timothy Ramsden 18 November

Revival of a fine first play with performances that offer more clarity than detail.With a National Theatre hit soon to transfer to the West End, plus radio, TV and film work, Charlotte Jones scarcely need promotion. So Lizard Republic is doubtless fulfilling its aim, 'to offer opportunities to young practitioners in all aspects of film, television and theatre production', in terms of its actors and technical people. A good aim, it's unearthed some capable performers – and into the bargain revives a splendid first stage play.

Jones writes brief scenes which, for once, don't make for lumpy drama. They are key to a structure which counterpoints two pairs of forcibly confined young women. In the 1920s Persephone and Dora are in St. Dymphna's hospital for the criminally insane, being defined as moral imbeciles. Moral imbecility seems to have meant embarrassing one's respectable family by becoming pregnant. The punishment is lifelong incarceration. The survival tactic, as Dora says, is, 'to sit squarely at the centre of each moment.' Overcome time by denying the continuity of time. Deprived of the world, create a world. Go swimming with confident breaststroke, though there's no water to hand. It's safer that way, though ironically Michaelides' characters both reach a watery death.

As Persephone's relationship with the outwardly confident Dora develops over the decades, the two are contrasted with their latter-day counterparts, Porph and Dorph. And, as the twenties shade into the seventies, the one couple morph into the other. Both actors carry off the contrast between the characters they play yet make the final identification believable in a magic realist sort of way.

Vicky Jones' production is brisk, though the frequent rapidity of speech means a loss of colouring in the dialogue. Johnson is affecting as the initially nervous newcomer to the formidable 1920s institution and displays a lightness of manner as the happiness-spreading, Doris Day adoring Porph. Her ill-fitting blonde Doris wig suggests the play-acting which also surfaces in the friends' air-swimming.

A painted St Dymphna stares out in vapid garishness from James Tovell's tiled set. The horrors done in her name are handled with a light but sure touch which is recognised in a sympathetic, if not definitive, revival.

Persephone/Porph: Frances Johnson
Dora/Dorph: Sarah Michaelides

Director: Vicky Jones
Designer: James Tovell
Lighting: David Wragg
Sound: Nick Price

2001-11-20 02:34:44