BROKEN ANGEL. To October.
Young People
BROKEN ANGEL
by Lin Coghlan
West Yorkshire Playhouse Schools Company Tour to October 2003 School performances only
Runs 1hr No interval + workshop
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 July at Sandford Primary School
Fine, srongly-acted revival broadens the scope of this young people's play.Lin Coughlan's play for young people (or Theatre in Education piece as it might once have been called) deals with' the issue' of alcoholism. But, in Gail McIntyre's full-force and finely acted revival it is far more wide-ranging and deeply expressive than that description makes it sounds.
The show announces itself to Irish music with a wordless section where the three actors transform their clothing or search around Emma Williams' set blue-sky background, if hardly sky-blue lives lived in front, plus an earth-mound littered with giant, jutting-out whisky bottles.
It's eventually clear they're searching their memories, for Di and Col, seen as 11-year olds through most of the action, are meeting as promised 20 years on. As for Col's dad, Digger' Thompson, his silent presence in the later time demands more thought.
For he's the one addicted to drink. It's broken his marriage Col's absent mother seems to have left her daughter many pieces of advice about her father but didn't stay around to help the girl. Nick Stanley finds all the tones Coghlan gives the character bullying or wheedling to get a drink though a hard-drinking Irishman's close to cliché, especially contrasted to his sober daughter's soft English tones. These Col presumably acquired from mother as best friend Di speaks with a robust Yorkshire accent.
Their voices neatly image the two girls' interestingly varied characters Di, all practical and active, Col imaginatively reflective. It makes for a thrilling contrast come the end (though it's a point possibly less likely to be picked up by the intended 10-11 year old audiences) when the adult Col looks back on Digger in hard-voiced judgment.
Her bitterness is possibly founded on waste more than hate and her unequivocal statement that nobody made him drink grows from her agonising years as a child trying to steer a difficult parent.
It's Di who gives Digger's memory its angelic aspect, reminding her friend how a quiet act of kindness showed underlying love. Eve Robertson's selflessly-portrayed Di offsets Sara Bienvenu's emotionally forceful Col, with her young girl's half-hidden sorrow and excuses.
A subsequent hour's workshop could only follow-up a few matters, but Sandford Primary's years 5 and 6 whose keen attentiveness puts many theatre audiences ot shame - produced practical work that showed keen appreciation of this fine production.
Di: Eve Robertson
Col: Sara Bienvenu
Digger: Nick Stanley
Director: Gail McIntyre
Designer: Emma Williams
Composer: Julian Ronnie
2003-07-20 13:13:53