ALMOST NOTHING/AT THE TABLE. To 28 February.

London

ALMOST NOTHING/ AT THE TABLE
by Marcos Barbosa translated by Mark O'Thomas

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs To 28 February 2004
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 4pm
Runs 1hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000/5100
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 February

Spare yet provocative dramas in magnificent productions.These one-acters suggest Marcos Barbosa has an elusive style, violence sneaking up in the middle of life, well-matched in Roxana Silbert's spare productions, where looks and silences interplay with speech.

In Almost Nothing a respectable couple's small-hours tension has a shocking cause their shooting of a knife-wielding street-child. Its four briefish scenes sandwich two showing the impact of this on the couple with two nudging the action forward, a visit from the boy's mother fobbed off with money and from an investigator, who nearly eases their minds about further repercussions. Then offers to remove the slight possibility of trouble by rubbing-out the urban-poor mother, herself almost nothing' in Brazilian society.

It's the world of City of God, bourgeois affluence next to, yet miles from, low-echelon poverty. The couple are sucked from accidental to deliberate killing by silence; as Karl Johnson's smilingly relaxed Kasar knows, having to say yes is harder than not having to say no.

The impact's clear in the final scene, Ewan Stewart's Antonio cheerfully getting on with life, Nina Sosanya's Sara curled silently against the impact of what's been done in their name. The play's moral weight's charted in Sara's troubled, reflective expression, though all she does explicitly is try to walk out on the decision-making, something Casar's too experienced to allow. All the acting's strong, but Sosanya's deeply-felt, detailed performance considerably enhances the written character.

It's hard to pull the same trick twice on an audience and At the Table's hidden horror is soon an open secret sexual abuse at a boys' adventure camp. The all-male cast - including teenage brothers, one suffering, the other inflicting, abuse - play with fine-controlled detail. Barbosa acutely jumps decades forward to confront two sufferers as adults, one left with the duty of confronting the now-released chief.

The play's strength lies in the sense of a complex spread of corruption and guilt, disabling parts of the psyche years afterward the only person untroubled is the one originating it all. Again, it's splendidly directed, the unspoken rightly playing an important part in an area where silence and secrets are destruction's allies.

Almost Nothing:
Antonio: Ewan Stewart
Sara: Nina Sosanya
Vania: Lorna Gayle
Kasar: Karl Johnson

At The Table:
Castro: Karl Johnson
Inacio: Jonathan Timmins
Father: Ewan Stewart
Bruno: Robert Timmins
Marcio: Mido Hamada
Luis: Mark Bonnar

Director: Roxana Silbert
Designer: Anthony MacIlwaine
Lighting: Chahine Yavroyan
Sound: Matt McKenzie
Assistant director: Tiffany Watt-Smith
Company voice work: Patsy Rodenburg

2004-02-15 12:32:48