COTTON WOOL. To 26 April.

London.

COTTON WOOL
by Ali Taylor,

Theatre 503 Latchmere Pub 503 Battersea Park Road SW11 3BW To 26 April 2008.
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 5pm.
Runs 2hr 5min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 7978 7040.
www.theatre503.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 April.

The cold and desolation of winter makes the strongest impact.
Two brothers, bereaved by their mother’s death, and Harriet, up from London to find her father in his Firth of Forth home, meet in a rainy Kirkcaldy. Scottish Callum and less-ordered brother Gussie are both attracted to her, and Callum eventually forms a genuine attachment.

Which is under pressure from Gussie’s jealousy, then his own when he catches them kissing. And even more from their mothers’ death, which overwhelms Gussie. Author Ali Taylor uses the Scottish seal-wife myth, with the brothers’ brief vision of their mother’s body apparently floating in the Forth feeding Gussie’s inability to believe she is dead.

So all three characters feel bereft in some way, searching for something in place of severed links with their parents. No wonder Harriet would like to wrap the lad she comes to love in cotton wool, comfortably safe in a world where December rain splatters through The Lang Toun as external equivalent to the emotional bleakness these young people are experiencing.

Though the performers look older than their characters’ 16-18 range (Victoria Bavister does a good job of aging down a bit with teenage make-up excess) there’s energy in the acting. Owen Williams supplies a facial intensity and puzzled quality that reflect Gussie’s absorption in the seal-wife story he recalls from his childhood, while Joseph Arkley’s Callum looks directly to the future, led towards maturity by his affection for Harriet

Bavister gives her a protective sharpness that melts into emotional warmth, something which also reveals the desolation that’s focused in her father’s ‘phone-call. Scene by scene Taylor’s play has intelligence and individual coherence in its characters, with an intricate mix of dramatic motifs.

What it lacks is momentum; this seems a piece much more clearly thought-out in scenes and states, rather than overall impact. Though the lads burst on the scene at the start of Lisa Spirling’s production, and the bleak suggested sea-wall of Polly Sullivan’s set catches the climate of the town and the characters in winter, the script’s liking for discussion over action and the staging on this abstract set, limit the force of Cotton Wool’s undoubted qualities.

Callum: Joseph Arkley.
Gussie: Owen Williams.
Harriet: Victoria Bavister.
Woman: Catherine Cayman.

Director: Lisa Spirling.
Designer: Polly Sullivan.
Lighting: Tim Mascall.
Sound/Composer: James Drew.
Assistant director: Dan Coleman.

2008-04-15 11:44:22