FACES IN THE CROWD. To 8 November.

London.

FACES IN THE CROWD
by Leo Butler.

Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) To 8 November 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 4pm
Runs 1hr 40min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000.
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 October.

Anti-romance in a compact flat.
Maybe they’re just faces in a crowd but in the minimalist one-bedroom London flat where Joanne pursues the husband who left her ten years ago in Sheffield, she and Dave have very specific business. There’s tension in the air - along with an audience, who sit on ramparts looking down as the action flows between the tiny rooms marked out by floor-surfaces and furnishings on William Fricker and Rae Smith’s compact, pristine set, where only tops of cupboards reveal hints of untidy detritus.

It’s the lives that are really messy. Butler’s various references and contradictions – one moment Joanne won’t have her husband touch her, almost the next she’s climbing naked into bed – are eventually explained by her purpose. If he won’t be a husband, she’s decided as she approaches 40 he’s not going to stop her becoming a mother.

In the seventies Peter Barnes (The Bewitched) and John Bowen (Singles) variously dealt with the separation between conception and sexual pleasure. Butler puts it centre stage – or all over stage, as one and two-handed attempts at sex, hesitant or violent, falter. The final calm is one of exhaustion rather than resolution.

There’s something of Barnes’ wild comedy in the main sexual encounter, performed to a background of an upstairs neighbour’s DIY, though the drilling, bumping and grinding’s no more than is happening on stage. And Dave’s request the neighbour give them some peace could become cause for complaint given the shouting-match that follows.

Butler manages to seem specific while being ambiguous about his characters’ finances and employment, a crystalline unclarity that intensifies the hostility. Claire Lizziemore’s fine-etched, hard-edged production spares the excellent actors none of the harshness of unwilling or unfriendly physical contact, including the psychological pressure as Con O’Neill rages in circles up to an outburst against the noise of the regenerated London he’s been proudly praising.

Amanda Drew gives conviction to Joanne’s resentment, both cold and in eventual hot-flow outburst, and to the expression of feminist defeat in the desperation of incipient middle-age. Both are smarter-looking than the characters think themselves but, then, you can have too much realism.

Dave: Con O’Neill.
Joanne: Amanda Drew.

Director: Claire Lizziemore.
Designers: William Fricker, Rae Smith.
Lighting: Johanna Town.
Sound: Emma Laxton.
Voice coach: Sally Hague

2008-10-26 10:50:58