DAYS OF SIGNIFICANCE. To 29 March.

London.

DAYS OF SIGNIFICANCE
by Roy Williams.

Tricycle Theatre To 29 March 2008.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 4pm & 26 April 2pm.
Captioned 27 April.
Runs 1hr 35min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7328 1000.
www.tricycle.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 March.

Play of insignificance.
Though normally a sane voice in the maelstrom of modern playwriting, Roy Williams has cut adrift from sense in this RSC-commissioned response to Much Ado About Nothing. What sort of starting-point for a new play is it, anyway, to be “commissioned” (if not quite conditioned) to respond to another play. The result suggests such responding wasn’t uppermost in Williams' concerns. The play never leaves the drawing-board, and what’s there is pretty dispiriting.

It’s especially rich since the RSC’s recent Much Ado turned the political struggle of 1953 Cuba into a colourful ethnic background for its comical frolics. Now Williams shows young White working-class Londoners, two of whom are about to fight in Iraq (contrasting Shakespeare’s socially elevated officers returning victorious from a conflict). They fight each other, taunt the police, and exchange sexual aggression with young women as tanked up and aggressive as their male counterparts.

But the men win hands-down in the foul-mouthed department, ceasing repetitive obscenities only to spew-up over each other, or exposepenises as signs of sexual prowess and in order to relieve their bladders. Amid this, with a nearby late-night burger-stand owner offering an older voice of occasional reason, de-romanticised events recalling Much Ado’s love tricks are played out.

This is followed by a brief section in Iraq, much of it video material, all showing violence. A war-crime somehow occurs, though amid the terse, shouted dialogue and poor sound quality of the video, it’s hard to work out precisely what, or how one of the young men ends up dead, the other on trial.

In the long final scene, set at a wedding, unaccountably taking place in a London hall that looks bombed-out itself, the pissing, spewing and swearing continue, as the play finally tries to work out questions of responsibility and (since that’s a tall order for most characters here) blame. But it’s sunk in a morass of its own street-cred, which Maria Aberg’s production keenly encourages. The acting’s upfront and strong, the fights dangerously exciting, but the more the piece strains to be lifelike and significant, the more contrived and unconvincing it becomes.

Donna: Venetia Campbell.
Vince/Darren: Ricky Champ.
Lenny: James Clyde.
Hannah: Claire-Louise Cordwell.
Tony/Sean: Danny Dalton.
Ben: Jamie Davis.
Jamie: Craig Gallivan.
Steve: Simon Harrison.
Trish: Pippa Nixon.
Dan: Luke Norris.
Clare: Beverley Rudd.
Gail: Lorraine Stanley.
Bouncer/Brookes: Mark Theodore.

Director: Maria Aberg.
Designer: Lizzie Clachan.
Lighting: David Holmes.
Sound: Carolyn Downing.
Movement: Laila Diallo.
Voice coach: Charmian Gradwell.
Fights: Malcolm Ransom.

2008-03-20 03:30:04