HALF LIFE. To 23 December.

London

HALF LIFE
by Filip Vujosevic

Blue Elephant Theatre 59a Bethwin Road SE5 To 23 December 2005
Tue-Sat 8pm
Runs 55min No interval

TICKETS: 020 7701 0100
www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 December

Urban limbo in a land that's going nowhere vividly created.
Last of the Blue Elephant’s Balkan trilogy is this short underground cityscape, filled with overgrown kids, no place to go in life, playing killer competitions on VDUs. Battle’s engaged between teams and the action follows one, lead by nom-de-mouse Killer Belgrade, as they approach white heat with the Terror gang. Their game’s Counterstrike, its mapping of death by gunfire culminating in the grand satisfaction of a final onscreen throat-cutting.

This twilight half-life is played out in a shared environment in Steve Harper’s promenade production. Designer Mamoru Iriguchi’s created a dark chamber, gun-toting figures seen silently carrying out their duties through gauze-doors either side. Yet what’s notable in Filip Vujosevic’s play is the tender quality of relationships between Crooks, his girlfriend Mila and her sister Little Milley, something opposing the hard, exploitative competition world of seasoned players Killer Belgrade and Bole.

Grant Orviss makes a hard-staring, jabbing-voiced leader; Tarl Caple’s the laid-back cynic in the team. This throws the shadings of complexity on to David Newman’s curly-haired Crooks, the nickname (spending so long bent over computers he’ll grow crooked) giving his descent into this world physical expression. Crooks is seen hunched over the machines, trying desperately to work his way into the team.

But he’s also, standing straight, seen out with Mila. Peer pressure sours their relationship, till he’s brought up short as it seems her image killed in the game. But it’s 14-year old Milley, keen to help her sister’s boyfriend and opening herself to abuse by the older lads, who escapes the half-life. She frames the action sitting above the set, the only moments of freedom.

This cast catches Vujosevic’s subterranean counter-culture succinctly, from the young women’s dry-voiced desire to please, through Newman’s still energetic urgency and ambition (no wonder the impersonal voice of authority tells him to go home) to the young men who play boys’ games.

Harper’s production fizzes with irritation, sudden movement and crackling sounds. There could be tighter tension as the grand tournament approaches, and the author’s ending is too pat. But, for its brief duration, Half Life gives an intriguing flavour to youthful disenchantment.

Bole: Tarl Caple
Little Milley: Molly Davies
Mila: Claudia Duffy
Crooks: David Newman
Killer Belgrade: Grant Orviss

Director: Steve Harper
Designer: Mamoru Iriguchi
Lighting: Ben Pacey
Sound/Music: Daniel Biro

2005-12-11 13:00:40