JAMAICA HOUSE. To 11 April.
Lancaster.
JAMAICA HOUSE
by Paul Sirett.
Duke’s (The Round) To 11 April 2009.
Mon-Sat 8pm. Mat 11 April 3pm, 1 April 10.30am no performance 10 April.
Audio-described 27 March.
Runs 1hr No interval.
TICKETS: 01524 598500.
www.dukes-lancaster.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden
Yet another odd couple occupy an hour without hitting the heights.
This play’s gone down in the world. I first saw it last decade during a Greenwich and Docklands Festival, performed somewhere around the 19th floor of a time-expired East London tower block. It is, after all, set way-uo in a soon-to-be-demolished high-rise.
Demolished any minute, in fact. The dynamite’s been wired-up and young Naz, finding his feet in the world of work, for his uncle, is doing a final safety check.
Enter fly-in-the-ointment, Jean. She moved into the flats when they were still populated by nice people and wants to spend a few moments alone there. Naz can’t allow that, even after trousering her worldly wealth (£80 plus loose change) as a bribe. That takes away a bit from his earnestness for procedures, but everyone has their price – and their secrets. Jean certainly does; a memory represented by the clothes she produces from her shopping-bags and lays out across the floor.
Writer Paul Sirett knows his East London audience, never going too far or too fast. There are a few spurious moments, as when Jean brandishes a knife before offering her innocent explanation for having it. Such things somehow seemed less false when the ‘theatre’ was somebody’s ex-home, arrived at in small groups by lift, and when Jean’s potentially suicidal rush to the balcony happened a vertiginous distance in the air, rather than a foot or two up on a raised stage.
The views, over the Thames corridor, or into the skeletal bathroom helped condition mood too. But it was always an amiable piece, slightly strung-out to its one hour duration.
Still, it fits the Duke’s more conventional, yet intimate and welcoming Round. Skilfully-directed by Gwenda Hughes, who ran North Staffordshire’s New Vic for several years, and knows how to handle pace and space when the audience encircles the action, it’s well-performed by Darren Kuppan as the eager young demolition-trainee and Hazel Maycock as the insistently tricky older woman. Sirett’s updated aspects, notably a post-9/11 passage, help realism without adding to the situation. It’s well and good enough, for anyone who finds an hour’s entertainment reasonable value for their ticket-money.
Naz: Darren Kuppan.
Jean: Hazel Maycock.
Director: Gwenda Hughes.
Designer: Alison Heffernan.
Lighting: Brent Lees.
2009-03-27 14:18:10