CRUISING. To 1 July.

London

CRUISING
by Alecky Blythe

Bush Theatre To 1 July 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 3pm
Runs 1hr 15min No interval

TICKETS: 020 7610 4224
www.bushtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 June

Actors imprisoned by black boxes.
I was thinking recently that Nina Raine’s Rabbit (at the Old Red Lion) is a script and production well worth a place at prestigious new writing theatre the Bush. Meanwhile that space is given over to this curiosity, which neither as script nor, frankly, acting holds a candle to the usual high-wattage qualities found there.

Theatre company Recorded Delivery had a success with Come Out Eli, formed from the words of Londoners living round an armed stand-off involving police and a gunman. Not only were all the words those of the people interviewed; their voices played in actors’ earpieces throughout the performance, the idea apparently being the actors catch every quirk of vocal delivery as they listen-and-speak.

It might have worked with multiple cameos. But with only 5 main characters in this account of senior citizens’ dating and marriage, the effect is curious and unsatisfying. The little black boxes hanging round the actors’ necks constantly remind of the artificiality. Much more, any attempt to catch the originals’ reality is lost when the performers are roughly half their characters’ age. Jason Barnett tries for some aging and produces the kind of bent-back stereotype you’d expect from a not especially able 13-year old in a school drama improvisation.

Elsewhere there’s no attempt to show anything but youngish actors playing far older people. Is this meant to be real? Deliberately distanced? Or what? Anyway, voice is integral to a whole personality. Devoid of the appropriate physicality (and, indeed, the mental pattern that produces it) word patterns soon seem alien.

Claire Lichie gives every indication of being a capable actor, but the repeated laugh she has to reproduce from the tape seems merely silly. She’s denied any chance of assimilating this laugh into a personal understanding of the character, deciding whether it signifies general nervousness, a desire to please, embarrassment at what she’s saying, or an autonomous reaction etc. As it is, it’s meaningless. The terrific American performer Anne Devere Smith, cited as an influence, uses tapes for her montage pieces - but she has the sense to cast the tapes aside before performing.

Roy/Bernard/Peter/Jack: Jason Barnett
Roberta/Pat/Waitress: Alecky Blythe
Geoff/Dudley: Ian Dunn
Maureen: Miranda Hart
Margaret/Liz: Claire Lichie

Director: Matthew Dunster
Designer: Anna Bliss Scully
Lighting: David Holmes

2006-06-14 01:01:14