EDWARD GANT'S AMAZING FEATS OF LONELINESS. To 11 April.

London.

EDWARD GANT’S AMAZING FEATS OF LONELINESS
by Anthony Neilson.

Soho Theatre 21 Dean Street W1D 3NE To 11 April 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu, Sat 3pm.
Runs 1hr 35min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7478 0100.
www.sohotheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 April.

Dark aspects of mind and body in several stage nutshells.
Headlong Theatre’s production, enjoyed by Mark Courtice at its Southampton premiere, now reaches London. It’s another of Anthony Neilson’s studies in relentless nastiness; Neilson’s Aunt Edna must have disinherited him from play 1. But it’s a particularly thoughtful piece, deserting pleasant fare with the comment that “The backwards… haven’t the wit to be nasty.”

Gant catches the cruelty that’s the dark side of Victorian sentimentality, and the interest in the freakishly sensational cloaked by that scientific age’s claim to inquiry and education. Alongside the formal top-hatted, red-curtained politeness of the tiny stage – the make-do tattiness of a touring show that covers its limitations with loud proclamations of colour and voice - there’s the implosion of Gant’s troupe.

His players are both a tight-knit group and people on the margins of society. They make their living by being loud about the unordinary. The more freakishness, the more chance of a living. Pustules that turn to pearls, an opium-den meeting that leads to a voyage to an Uncomplicated guru, and a cast-list within a cast-list that has each of Gant’s four characters acting a set of outlandish characters while also being Him/Herself - each ‘self’ characterised by the unreliable memory of supposed Victorian chronicler Mr Anthony Neilson, who came across the troupe’s dying days.

The loneliness of those on the margins awaits the performers when the theatrical company breaks-up. It happens in the moment when a performer decides he cannot continue with a story, the actual matter piercing through its potential as entertainment. Or when the script vanishes from the mind, leading to the unbearable loneliness of a performer disconnected from both stage-world and audience, mentally flying to some distant terrain peopled by huge teddy bears, reminders of childhood comfort.

Various ends of the earth accompany extremes states of mind in this finely constructed existential horror-show on the borderland of order and chaos. Neilson succeeds repeatedly in surprising with his ideas, achieved through a mix of verbal styles, from high-flown theatricality to the down-to-earth. I can only repeat Mark’s praise for Steve Marmion’s acute production and its thoroughly-characterised, contrasting quartet of performances.

Nicholas Ludd: Paul Barnhill.
Jack Dearlove: Sam Cox.
Madame Poulet: Emma Handy.
Edward Gant: Simon Kunz.

Director: Steve Marmion.
Designer: Tom Scutt.
Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth.
Sound/Composer: Tom Mills.
Assistant director: Jack McNamara.

2009-04-06 01:37:25