BLOOD MOON. To 26 January.

London

BLOOD MOON
by Nicholas Kazan

Living Art Theatre Company at The White Bear Theatre To 26 January 2003
Tue-Sat7.30pm Sun 4pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval

TICKETS 020 7793 9193
Review Timothy Ramsden 12 January

The grip slips in tentative direction and performances.It's taken 20 years for this American play to cross the Atlantic; many more moons have passed since its final shock revelation first appeared on stage. Think revenge: think Greek. Think families; think internal consumption.

It's based, too, on a true story. A naïve 19 year old's caught up in wicked New York, offered up by her indebted uncle to a voracious criminal, who rents his pad for sex sessions and has people's legs broken. A likely enough Sin City scenario; her act two invite back to her place for aggressor and pandar-uncle brings the unusual horrors.

It's a single-thread plot. Kazan sets the realism up well: Manya's imprisonment by an entryphone with exit security code; her cookery skills - mentioned in act one, established by act two and its grisly denouement.

What's lacking is the production detail needed to build and sustain tension towards each act's differently violent culmination. Steve Harris gives his male characters a sharp, snarl-laugh in Alan's first-act apartment, indicating an agenda of which vulnerably innocent newcomer Manya's unaware. Beyond this, there's little as Manya prattles on like a loved child rather than a desired woman. So she should, though Leila Crerar could give more variety to the prattling.

But the men need to ooze menace; their silent interplay showing her as intended victim. Eric Galati's wholehearted as her uncle, anxiety only briefly apparent. Antony Gray's smilingly withheld manner doesn't contain the force that needs to be apparent under an easy manner.

OK, you don't expect the White Bear to serve up Robert de Niro (though, similar-sized Southwark Playhouse currently has Simon Callow, so who knows?). But Gray's smiles don't convey force secure enough to be relaxed. He asserts self-certainty; the point is, it shouldn't need asserting.

Act two's return bout is neatly contrasted by designer Karen Barker with a slant-walled, smaller space, given an intensity in Manya's half-concealed kitchen operations (definitely, it's her territory we're now in) and eerie candle-lighting for the very opposite of a romantic dinner. Yet the acting is tentative, the conclusion too sudden to register the impact of Manya's revenge.

Alan: Antony Gray
Manya: Leila Crerar
Gregory: Eric Galati

Director: Steve Harris
Designer: Karen Barker
Lighting: Robin Snowdon

2003-01-13 13:51:36