COYOTE UGLY. To 24 July.
London
COYOTE UGLY
by Lynn Siefert
Finborough Theatre To 24 July 2004
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 3.30pm
Runs 1hr 35min No interval
TICKETS: 020 7373 3842
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 July
Sizzling bursts of desire and hate among the North American sands.
The name of Sam Shepard must loom over a generation of American playwrights as Pinteresque' has over a generation of British, as influence, on play, character or dialogue, snaffling away a purportedly individual voice. Still, Lynn Seifert walks foursquare into the trap with her play, now revived by Icarus Theatre Collective.
Here's the desert this time in northern Arizona - well-represented by the sand-covered floor over which audience members have to trek, strewn in one corner with trailer-trash appurtenances. A bed where Andreas is discovered snoring, and disintegrating fridge, source of cool liquor.
Here, too, are isolated characters caught in a routine rooted in emotion and instinct, where small matters are magnified by near-crazed obsession. And no more than Scarlet, the coyote, father-fixated and father's woman hating.
Siefert draws on both the animal, and a Navajo human type. Both are cunning loners and unpredictable tricksters. From the start, Jade Magri moves animal-like over the stage, impulsive and determined, emotionally sparky, needing to be placated. If there's a limit to the performance, it's only a sense of composure lurking within the eyes and facial expression.
Her obsession with minutiae is matched by the older generation, notably Edmund Dehn's Red, whose pride is the car he brings home, from somewhere. For him it's progress and liberation; it all, of course, ends badly. The desert is to remain these people's home.
Into it, still in the Shepard (and traditional dramatic) manner, comes a stranger. Two strangers, though for Dowd it's a homecoming of sorts, despite Scarlet not knowing him. Nothing's straightforward in family groups built on pure emotion. But it's his partner Penny, polite and willing to please, who finds herself caught in this weird, painful and intense world. Lisa Renee copes well with the struggle to maintain some social balance in this maddened milieu.
Siefert's success is in the vivid quality of her characters, caught well by Icarus' cast. It's a tortured, quite fascinating journey, even if one you can't help recalling having made or something rather similar before. If you have, that is.
Scarlet: Jade Magri
Andreas: Annie Julian
Red: Edmund Dehn
Dowd: Callum Walker
Penny: Lisa Renee
Director: Max Lewendel
Designers: Max Lewendel, Chris Hone
Lighting: Alex Watson
Sound/Music: Ben Walker
Costume: Alena Ondrackova
2004-07-11 09:50:48