FIRST NIGHT. Forced Entertainment to 6 December

Tour

FIRST NIGHT

Forced Entertainment on tour
Runs 2hr 5min No interval

New tour 2 May-13 June 2002

Review Timothy Ramsden 5 December at The Place, London

Performance at its most challenging and demanding – hard core rather than soft-centre. It's not what Noel Coward meant by a first night. In Forced Entertainment's terms any performance resembles a first night, confidence and panic somehow holding each other stable as actors and audience meet with the simultaneous possibilities of clash or rapport.

Performance superimposes the revealed and the concealed. Eight figures with ludicrous make-up at once defining and disguising their features line up with grins that stretch around a fortress of white teeth. Five men wear an identity-hiding uniform of suits and shiny shirts. Three women wear glamorous frocks, scythed away across the legs; what they reveal emphasizes what they conceal.

Tensions exist on stage, between men and women, and between those who have their act together and the one who steers material into paranoid areas. One man holds another's face in an armlock, forcing him to a microphone to entertain. This image of double-act tension eventually resolves into the power relationship of ventriloquist and dummy.

Performing demands concentration; no-one turns their back on an audience, even to exit. And it's nervy; the slow death of a comedian's act is denounced by another performer. The group drags her off, protesting; to speak criticism voices the fear of failure.

The audience comes in for most attention. The dangers of suspended disbelief are explored as a clairvoyance act grows increasingly threatening, predicting how individuals will die. The performer's egotism is displayed too; actors carry cards spelling out 'Welcome', 'Mystery' and 'Illusion. During an over-extended speech of stage egotism enjoining us to forget everything but the show, even the other cast members walk out. The last remaining bears the letter 'I'.

Behind the egotism lies the performer's contempt for the spectator, expressed in another overlong (never has Forced Entertainment been so skewed towards the first word of its name) diatribe that deliberately confronts the audience.

This isn't what Noel Coward's fans would have meant by a first night either. Perhaps the final joke is that the existence of this show depends on spectators accepting its definition of entertainment. Whatever they think of each other, actors and audience become a part of each other's existence.

Performers:
Robin Arthur
Jerry Killick
Richard Lowdon
Claire Marshall
Cathy Naden
Terry O' Connor
John Rowley
K. Michael Weaver

Director: Tim Etchells
Designer: Richard Lowdon
Lighting: Nigel Edwards
Sound: Found Sources

Tour:
2-4 May The Place London 020 7387 0031
8-9 May GRAN-teater for dans Aarhus, Denmark +45 8940 4040
14-15 Gulbenkian Studio Newcastle-upon-Tyne 0191 230 5151
24-25 May KunstenFESTIVALdesARTS Brussels +32 (0) 70222199
29 May-1 June Wiener Festwochen Vienna +43 1 589 2222
12-13 Schauspielhaus, Festival Theatreformen Hannover +49 (0) 511 99991111
15-16 June Kunstlerhaus MOUSONTURM Frankfurt +49 69 40589520

2001-12-06 10:45:30