FROZEN: Lavery, at the National Theatre

FROZEN is currently running at the NT. It was originally producted at Birmingham Rep in May 1998.

Rod Dungate's review from Plays and Players of the original Birmingham Rep production.
FROZEN really is an extraordinary work: dealing with a brutal topic and brutalised people, Lavery has a delicacy of touch which is breathtaking.
I get extremely angry when terrible crimes are committed and the perpetrator or perpetrators are called Evil, as in 'The Face of Evil': the press and media use the word as if Evil exists independent of us and commits such crimes of its own volition. The criminal becomes the vehicle or embodiment of a force so powerful that it becomes concrete. I get angry, because to use the word Evil in such a way kicks the responsibility for such crimes into some kind of never-never land, absolving us from all culpability. If we are indeed all part of one another, if we believe there is such a thing as Society, then we must all take our share in the blame for the crime. Of course, of course, criminals must be punished for their crimes, but none of us in entirely blameless.

Ralph, the male character in Bryony Lavery's play, is a paedophile and child killer. Her play investigates or discusses some of the above issues: it looks at the way violence and loss can destroy. Incredibly Lavery draws out our sympathy for all her characters: in a great theatrical coup, our moment of greatest sympathy, or rather, perhaps, empathy, with Ralph is the moment when he can no longer bare to live with himself. Moreover, the play finishes on a tiny, welcome ray of hope.

FROZEN really is an extraordinary work: it is, in Lavery's hands, a perfect match of style and content of medium and message. Dealing with a brutal topic and brutalised people, Lavery has a delicacy of touch which is breathtaking. This delicacy is complimented perfectly in Ruari Murchison's set and Tim Mitchell's lighting. In Murchison's set the play takes place in a white square, no frills, no flourishes, everything hard and unfussy. The set appears to float like an island. Onto this island the characters enter through a curtain of light beams: we seem to be watching memories and half memories, perhaps nightmares we can't quite lock away.

Lavery has chosen a no-nonsense style for her play: for the most part the story unfolds in a series of brief monologues, emblematic of the characters' isolation. This is a style that I usually feel dissatisfied with, but this playwright is in complete control of her medium: Lavery does not allow her chosen style to control her drama, for non-monologue scenes spring up like occasional flowers on wasteland.

During the action of the play three characters act out their involvements in Ralph's story: there is Ralph himself, there is the murdered child's mother, Nancy and finally there's Agnetha, an American psychologist investigating Ralph.

Tom Georgeson plays the killer, Ralph: a difficult job. Ralph has a shutter erected between himself and his self, yet Georgeson never, for a moment, loses us. His portrayal has a genuine naiveté about it which shows us in action how Ralph is not completely engaged in what he's doing. he places perfectly Lavery's repeated use of oddly positioned' hard' word 'obviously', 'my centre of operations', 'logistically', 'investment'. Josie Lawrence is the American Agnetha. Lawrence carries out this role with a coolness and pose that we know from the outset is a fragile shell. In this respect, though very different, she has much in common with Ralph. This shell cracks from time to time during the play and the result is painful: at the end, however, Lawrence shows Agnetha coming out of the shell and the result, then, is quite different.

Anita Dobson is Nancy, the murdered child's mother; hers is the richest journey to travel and Dobson leaves no stone on the road unturned. Lavery has a delicious sense of humour and it emerges in this role. Dobson controls the tone of her performance with great skill so that the humour is never underplayed and the tone of the play is never undermined. Even in the vast Rep main auditorium Dobson manages to portray a believable, human-sized mother: at one moment she talks to the audience as if she's a gently music-hall comedian, at another she scales the heights of enormous human emotions.

Bill Alexander's production is beautifully orchestrated: indeed the p0lay leaves you not with a feeling of depression but with the feeling of completeness you have after a great performance of a great piece of music.

Nancy: Anita Dobson
Ralph: Tom Georgeson
Agnetha: Josie Lawrence

Director: Bill Alexander
Design: Ruari Murchison
Lighting: Tim Mitchell

2002-08-17 21:41:22