GEOFF DEAD: DISCO FOR SALE. To 8 November.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

GEOFF DEAD: DISCO FOR SALE
by Fiona Evans.

Live Theatre To 8 November 2008.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Thu 2pm.
Runs 2hr One interval.

TICKETS: 0191 232 1232.
www.live.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 November.

Theatre of the people, for the people.
There’s an “All female creative team” headlined in the free-sheet newspaper-style programme for this Live Theatre/New Writing North co-production. That’s counting the assistant director, but excluding male lighting, sound and music contributions. Which shows you can’t believe everything you read in the papers.

This is one of two new fact-based plays about Deepcut, a Surrey army base where four recruits allegedly committed suicide (though official army accounts wouldn’t survive the first third of a decent piece of crime fiction). What happened remains likely to stay uncertain.

But a documentary-style play (necessity has mothered some inventions in the dialogue) also raises questions. Actors are in the pretending business and good ones - with which Deborah Bruce’s production is filled - convincingly fake sincerity.

If Geoff Gray, for example, said all Deka Walmsley speaks as “Geoff Gray”, was it with the same intonations and mannerisms? And would the words and gestures make the same impression from both people? The Live actors are used to influencing an audience, preparing what they do, and repeating it nightly, which isn’t the way of reality.

Then there’s the strong emotional register Bruce’s production creates when, for example, its light isolates the bereaved, sleepwalking Diana, or, in a final moment shows her, alone, looking fondly at a video, the first moving image we’ve seen of her dead son in his uniform.

Throat-tightening, yes. But the same technical trick was recently used at Hull Truck to conclude Dave Windass’s Sully, rugby hero Clive Sullivan suddenly bursting into on-screen life. Emotion runs high in Geoff Dead too, and almost all on one side. Only an anonymous soldier is allowed a contrary view (itself an implicit admission). It’s well-expressed, in writing and performance, but the character’s undermined when Nick Bagnall takes on another guise.

What’s evident here is the emotional impact this has had on two families, and their resilience in pursuing what seems to them institutional cover-ups. Fiona Evans’ play is in a tradition exploring the individual against forces that were called gods in Greek Tragedy, and in the modern age are all too often the institutions established for our benefit.

Geoff Gray Senior: Deka Walmsley.
Diane: Gray: Libby Davison.
Jim Collinson: Neil McKinven.
Claire Collinson: Chloe Lang.
David: Rob Atkinson.
Soldier: Nick Bagnall.

Director: Deborah Bruce.
Designer: Jo Newberry.
Lighting: Douglas Kuhrt.
Sound: Martin Hodgson.
Music: Olly Fox.
Video: John Lloyd-Fillingham.
Assistant director: Tess Denman-Cleaver.

2008-11-03 02:51:45