BELIEVE. To 2 February.

London.

BELIEVE
by Matthew Hurt.

New End Theatre 27 New End NW3 1JD To 2 February 2008.
Tue-Sat 9pm, Sun/Mon 7.30pm
Runs 1hr No interval.

TICKETS: 0870 033 2733.
www.newendtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 January.

Individually and collectively sharp: a journey through women in war.
And, when there’s a war on, what about the women? Matthew Hurt has taken four women from Old Testament or Torah times, presenting them in the context of modern conflict. Bombs explode around the prostitute usually known as Rahab (perhaps she’s in for rehabilitation here; though, as she helped the side that wrote the history, she’s already favourably recalled). Bathsheba gives an account of sexual liaison with King David on a modern officer’s desk. War here is contextual, rather than direct in impact.

Later women move further from contemporary realism. Judith, the sexual fifth columnist who, when her city’s Jewish rulers relied passively on God, seduced and decapitated enemy general Holofernes, is given a stylised dance, seven-steps matching Salome’s seven veils, each identifying a cause for hatred, until her knife-stoke seems made at God Himself.

Finally, Hannah is presented without any modern environment, an Apocryphal mother who saw her seven sons savagely slaughtered before facing an equally horrendous death, rather than betray God by (in Hurt’s version) eating pork.

There’s contrast and progress in the piece, the agitated Rehab and dancing Judith alternating with two still figures, the seated Bathsheba and standing Hannah. And the first two, the nervous prostitute waiting to see if the Jewish spies she hid will fulfil their promise to save her house when their army attacks plus the officer’s wife whose authoritative manner barely conceals a sense of guilt, contrast Judith’s determination and Hannah’s resolution.

Overall, the women represent a journey to the centre of war: from accidental (and ultimately protective) involvement, through the widow sitting with her dead husband’s ghost to the risk-taking activist and the woman who loses everything but, and for, her faith.

Linda Marlowe makes each contrasted woman vivid, from mouthy cockney Rehab through upper-class Bathsheba and driven Judith to the woman whose determined faith finds comfort in blood, smoke, her persecutor’s growing desperation and her sons’ readiness to die. Her dark costume contrasted by the bright red cloth binding her wrists (ironically mirroring Rehab’s underwear), Marlowe’s Hannah achieves intensity through stillness and certainty, the culmination of these strongly characterised portrayals.

Rehab/Bathsheba/Judith/Hannah: Linda Marlowe.

Director: Gavin Marshall.
Lighting: Mishi L B.
Sound: Mishi L B/Deeperred.
Choreography: Jacqui Chan.

2008-01-21 15:36:08