GRASSES OF A THOUSAND COLOURS To 27 June.
London.
GRASSES OF A THOUSAND COLOURS
by Wallace Shawn
Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) To 27 June 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.45 Mat 30 May, 13 June 3pm .
no performance 25 May.
Audio-described 13 June 3pm (+Touch Tour 1.30pm).
Runs 3hr 15 min Two intervals.
TICKETS 020 7565 -5000.
www.royalcourttheatre.co.uk
Review: Carole Woddis 21 May.
Self-indulgent – or what?
Wallace Shawn likes to keep us guessing. Is he a great playwright or a self-indulgent one? The Royal Court season dedicated to him has already seen a handsome revival of his 20-year old play, The Fever, converted from a monologue for a male actor to one performed by a woman, giving it a whole new emphasis.
Shawn himself used to perform it and Shawn the performer is now to be seen in his latest – a three and a quarter hour monologue with female assistance.
At least, that’s what it feels like. As with the opening of The Fever, a character addresses the audience, invites our collusion with a reading of his memoirs – in this case Ben, a smirking, self-satisfied scientist - and proceeds to subject us to a lengthy account that veers between a Grimm fairy tale, Woody Allen at his most egocentric, T S Eliot fantasising about his cats as if on ecstasy, and a spot of de Sadean excess to add spice.
That we can’t return the favour is no surprise. This combination does not add up to an ecstatic evening, but rather a laborious one in which Shawn’s evident sense of irony – particularly men and their preoccupation with their male member – outlives its usefulness.
Is it a lengthy – sorry to keep using that word; obviously caught it from the play – satire on male sexual fantasies – or a dystopian nightmare on the looming environmental crisis? Maybe both for, when Shawn, with his ingratiating Hitchcockian smile, is not going on endlessly about his orgasms with human or feline females, he interleaves that self-indulgence with some brilliantly-realised visions of a self-destructing world where animal and human life are all suffering from terminal digestive problems caused precisely by scientific and agricultural interference.
What with death and destruction, bestiality, murder and frequent accounts of intense vomiting, the three hours, despite director Andre Gregory’s deft video touches, feel like slow Chinese torture.
I don’t doubt the honesty of Shawn’s message – the desire to prick the conscience of the smug `fixers’ and `doers’ of this world. But I do question the medium.
The Memoirist (Ben): Wallace Shawn.
Cerise: Miranda Richardson
Robin: Jennifer Tilly.
Rose: Emily McDonnell.
Director: André Gregory.
Designer: Eugene Lee.
Lighting: Howard Harrison.
Sound/Composer: Bruce Odland.
Projection: Bill Morrison.
Costume: Dona Granata.
Hair/ Make-Up: Angelina Avellon/Julie Ruck.
Fight director: Rick Sordelet.
Assistant director: Natalie Ibu.
Directing consultant: Cindy Kleine
Grasses of a Thousand Colours has been produced in association with The New Group, New York.
2009-05-25 01:50:19