ICONS. To 4 August.

Scarborough

ICONS
by Christopher William Hill

Stephen Joseph Theatre (Restaurant) in rep to 4 August 2004
Runs 1hr No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 August

Smart talking and with a nicely unwinding plot.This is a story of ex-lovers turned star-crossed museum curators. Lia, returned to her Russian roots, works in dreary Minsk, her museum only having money to hang one icon. Aaron is in well, Leeds. He has a brand-new Museum of Modern Warfare but can't find the exhibits to buy.

Out of this Christopher William Hill makes a lot of neatly turned satirical points. Patches of dialogue sound like a sparring match - understandably, given the characters' past relationship and present institutional interests. The story develops into her attempt to sell his new museum a highly personal Hitler item, introducing plot elements and satire on museum-goers' interests.

Holocaust material downstairs will be forgotten while the Nazi chic upstairs grabs all the attention. None of this is out of kilter with preceding discussion (rather deliberately organised but good fun) about the trend to turn museums into places of easy-view entertainment.

Yet, while macabre items such as the Hitler memorabilia may be more subject to cultural tussles than more significant things, it somehow seems too trivial, and not quite credible, for the dealings built around it.

Yey it's only when Hill has his hand on his characters' hearts that dialogue, and therefore performances, tend to flatten out into exposition. This happens rarely enough for Laurie Sansom to keep the momentum in a production which brings theatre in the round to the Stephen Joseph restaurant.

Patrick Myles is highly efficient, though without either the grizzled experience or fast-track commitment to career and jargon that would go with someone who runs a museum. Claudia Elmhirst, having been glammed up by cosmetics in Love's A Luxury, and dowsed by old clothes in A Chorus of Disapproval is now smartened by spectacles.

Lia's sharp comments on grey people match well with the bright, broad pink collar emerging from beneath her own grey suit. Elmhirst gets to munch a decent Danish pastry too. Well-deserved; her neatly gradated performance shows burning moral conviction underlying Lia's coolly passionate, manipulative surface. And her sharp intelligence makes Hill's bared ripostes seem natural to the character.

Lia: Claudia Elmhirst
Aaron: Patrick Myles

Director: Owen Lewis
Designer: Pip Leckenby
Costume: Christine Wall

2004-08-07 02:18:02