BROADWAY IN THE SHADOWS. To 4 November.

London

BROADWAY IN THE SHADOWS
by David Salter based on the works of O Henry and Al Jennings

Arcola Theatre To 4 November 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7503 1646
www.arcolatheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 October

Supreme tales of life behind bars and on the boards.
Forget the shadows; this show deserves to be in the brightest spotlight. It’s a fine amalgam of narrative, theatricality and performance. The setting is Ohio Penitentiary, toughest of old America’s prisons. Why that’s the setting for stories by O Henry and Al Jennings emerges as events progress.

Novels are difficult to make work on stage; short stories are often more successful. Especially when, like these, they provide strong situations and a narrative punch. Many are, naturally enough, about crime and punishment, but some have a theatrical setting. These are signalled by red plush, offsetting the brick walls and iron bars of the set trundled around the Arcola’s sizeable stage, contrasting the blank inhuman spaces with a sense of life and warmth.

But little is as you expect in these dramatised stories. There’s a surprise moment of humanity by a guard escorting a prisoner to jail; a theatre double-act discovers unrealised motivation behind their businesslike arrangement; a pair of impoverished lovers devise ways of buying each other Christmas presents with unforeseen results. In what may be the punchiest story of them all, reality and dream run parallel in a cracksman’s life.

These pointed anecdotes greatly gain from the context David Salter’s script provides, filling in the lives and hopes of the prisoners relating them. And there’s a magical mix of styles. The most outlandish tales attract the greatest theatricality: lovers’ notes passed via a tap-dancing messenger, a Chaplinesque tramp’s frustrated attempts to gain the warmth and food of prison told, aptly, as a silent-film. Yet the most serious piece (and fine anti-capital punishment propaganda it could be) receives the simplest telling.

The prisoners become familiar as people as they relate their stories; even a change of coat, at start and end, acquires its point. Unsurprisingly, David Salter’s direction is alive to his material’s best interests. And he has gathered an excellent cast of young and mature actors. At least 2 provide technically outstanding work, while the older ones especially make their inmates seem truly inhabited, smoothly or craggily thoughtful. Book now; with work like this, any empty seat is a crime.

Cast and full credits not available.

Director: David Salter

2006-10-20 01:50:29