HOUSE. To 25 February.

London

HOUSE
by Daniel McIvor

Finborough Theatre To 25 February 2006
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 3.30pm
Runs 1hr 25min No interval

TICKETS: 0870 4000 838 (24 hr, no booking fee)
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 February

As comfortable as cuddling an anaconda, a gripping 85 minutes.
This is a virtuoso performance, a terrific, no holds barred, terrifying performance. Who wouldn’t be gulpingly searching for the Exit signs when glued by Victor’s stare? Victor has no home: his house is shared with a woman who has no time for him, being into paid sexual dominance with most of her husband’s office colleagues. His therapy group – oh, yes – is full of people he despises, none more than its leader. As for his theatre audience, he can calculate our responses, moving among us from his raised platform to intensify the tension his presence creates.

Victor exists by negatives, denying any emotional response within himself, always describing others’ responses. His house, group and stage may be his 3 homes, but none is really a home. His talk is all on threatening ‘I know where you live’ lines, using his insight into others, reading their reactions to gain a sense of power and instil fear. At least, that’s how it feels from the second row.

Daniel McIvor’s play’s imported from Canada, and Trevor White gives it a superb English airing – if that’s the term for so claustrophobic an experience. His eyes staring magnetically, his face shaped at key moments by a smile that contorts his features, threatening rather than sharing amusement, the movements sharp and violent (he chucks 2 chairs off-stage before sitting on a 3rd, identical one), his Victor is someone who demands everyone in range becomes absorbed in the Black Hole of his life. Someone for whom domination is the only way of relating to anyone – while for his wife it’s merely a job (and possibly compensation for having Victor in her life).

He dares us to find it amusing he’s in (so to speak) septic tanks, but as the verbal pus pours from him, it’s the contrast between this job and his original design to become an engineer that defines his overall failure. McIvor’s forceful blast is delivered with graduated levels of grab-and-release in a production by Josie Le Grice that lets the truth seep slowly out from behind the ghastly mask White’s Victor presents to the world.

Victor: Trevor White

Director: Josie Le Grice
Lighting: Christoph Wagner
Sound: Martin Poyntz-Roberts

2006-02-09 00:10:11