FEN/FAR AWAY. To 19 June.

Sheffield

FEN/FAR AWAY
by Caryl Churchill

Crucible Studio To 19 June 2004
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat Thu 2pm Sat 3pm
Runs 2hr 15min One interval

TICKETS: 0114 249 6000
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 June

Barren land and night-fears yield fruitful drama.Set in very flat' Norfolk, Caryl Churchill's 1982 play is a mosaic. Some characters are seen once only like the Japanese businessman at the opening, whose yen for rich Fenland soil is a means to enrichment, in dollars or yen. Other characters recur, though with little plot development. Each scene adds an image to the big picture, giving a sense of lives lived separately or in chance collusion, in open land where dominant rural poverty finds itself alongside incoming riches. A mood of depression hangs over this food-bearing territory.

Halfway through, offsetting the businessman, appears the Ghost of an angry agricultural labour, haunting the modern farmer. He's haunted too by the reality of taxation, selling the family estate to a landowning conglomeration whose smart representative offers a big cheque along with honeyed words about tradition. Then there's the failed attempt of lovers to escape a lack of nerve wise for people who'd be lost in a big city.

These lives are played out in snapshots, expressed with terse directness, between two banks of audience and two plots of potato-bearing soil. From the start the back-breaking job of gathering these spuds is clear, with the tough forewoman, a young worker experiencing a moment's determination for freedom and another eager to break his back faster by earning money for collecting her potatoes as well.

A splendid cast catch the grim, glum scope of a land and life that crushes the human spirit into conformity. All play like an ace team, with unremitting intensity. Feelings aren't expressed they're suppressed or they boil over, without delicacy or control. Simon Cox's production rightly sets heated moments straight against the inexpressive aggression of emotional non-catharsis. Production comment' isn't needed.

Far Away retains its gnomic power in Cox's pairing as a brief, powerful shock, its concealed horror under domestic calm intensified by the even-paced quiet of the performances. Valerie Lilley's adult explaining away night-time brutalities to a child, the peaceful manufacture of decorative hats which acquire newly menacing implications when worn by a silent chorus: this is the force of evil wearing the smiling face of democracy.

Fen
Angela/Shona/Miss Cade/Mavis: Kirsty Bushell
Val/Ghost: Jacqueline Defferary
Wilson/Frank/Mr Tewson/Geoffrey: Alan Drake
Boy/Mrs Hassett/May/Becky/Alice: Kathryn Drysdale
Japanese Businessman/Shirley/Deb/Margaret: Valerie Lilley
Nell/Ivy/Mrs Finch: Cherry Morris

Far Away

Joan in Scene 2: Kirsty Bushell
Joan in Scene 3: Jacqueline Defferary
Todd: Alan Drake
Joan in Scene 1: Kathryn Drysdale
Harper: Valerie Lilliey

Director: Simon Cox
Designer: Gemma Fripp
Lighting: Guy Hoare
Sound: Nick Greenhill
Movement: Lee Lyford
Dialect coach: Penny Dyer
Fight director: Terry King
Assistant director: David Newman

2004-06-16 15:07:38