HELMET. Edinburgh and tour to 9 June.

Scotland

HELMET
by Douglas Maxwell

Paines Plough at the Traverse Theatre to 30 March 2002, then tour
Runs 1hr 5min No interval

TICKETS (Edinburgh) 0131 228 1404
Review Thelma Good 12 March

Great graphics, different levels, intriguing game quirks,engaging moves and characters. In a computer game shop at the close of the last day of trading, owner Sal’s waiting for his wife to return from the bank. Skinny, nerdy teenboy Roddy, aka Helmet, comes in and the play covers their hour together. Ameet Chana as Sal and Tommy Mullins as Helmet are the high-five cast who director John Tiffany and movement director Allan Irvine have popping, zapping and giving ace performances of Maxwell’s high scoring script.

Neil Warmington’s exaggerated perspective electric blue and purple set takes us straight into the strong virtual reality of the play. Framing the front of the stage, computer generated graphics show the two’s energy levels rise and fall, and pink hearts pop and break or float up to return a life in the wicked computer game animations. Sal and Helmet find doing one another down draws strength away, while - corny but true - being good to each other and themselves energises both. Game type movement enters into the action with flips and spins as they die and reenergize through the game.

It’s technically accomplished with lighting and computer wizardy complimenting the play’s excellent structure, and artistically very strong in all aspects. Douglas Maxwell’s play is structured in computer game style. But with its rerun of certain scenes, sense of waiting and lost characters it also echoes some of the strongest plays of last century. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead, Huis Clos, The Bald Prima Donna and of course Waiting for Godot.

At the top level are Ameet Chana and Tommy Mullins, giving highly paced, warmly humorous performances, their mastering of the game of life superbly directed by John Tiffany. Compulsive as all the best computer games, I wanted to them to replay when it came to game over. I can see the TV potential, and the Helmet game has its opening screen already snappily harddrived by Arts in Motion.

Sal: Ameet Chana
Helmet: Tommy Mullins

Director: John Tiffany
Designer: Neil Warmington
Lighting: Natasha Chivers
Sound: Brian Docherty for scientific support dept.
Movement: Allan Irvine
Digital Animations: Arts in Motion

2002-03-18 00:04:05