JONAH AND OTTO. To 5 April.
Manchester.
JONAH AND OTTO
by Robert Holman.
Royal Exchange Studio To 5 April 2008.
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Thu 2.30pm & Sat 4pm.
Runs 2hr 5min One interval.
TICKETS: 0161 833 9833.
www.royalexchange.co,.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 March.
Finely-wrought parable of an old man and a young.
Robert Holman’s not a man of action, dramatically-speaking. His early plays consisted of quiet conversation in the midst of little outward activity. At best his work has the quality of involving an audience in the characters’ talk; elsewhere, there can be an unhelpful abstraction that demands a lot of patience.
Both aspects are found in this new play. The situation at first seems real enough, with Otto, 62, fearing being mugged by Jonah, 26. Yet our first view of the older man shows him with palms spread against a high wall as if searching out warmth from its brickwork. He’s an unbelieving clergyman, while young Jonah is a single father, pushing a pram and feeding his preternaturally silent baby with care.
In their conversations, which are framed by the wall, but include long central scenes on a hillside with a bench-seat, Jonah is the more active and provocative. Being young, he looks to the future, not only with the baby and his sense of being on a journey, but in seeking explanations. Otto, by contrast, talks of the past or reacts to Jonah’s comments and occasional magic tricks.
Otto’s ready to give in, to hand over money, while Jonah retains the right to refuse or take only some on conditions of his own. The difference is encapsulated as Otto falls asleep on the bench, enabling the younger man to remove most of his clothing and assume it himself.
Holman demands his plays be taken on their own terms. Expectations of action, even of events causing other events in the usual way, are confounded in his slow-breathing scenes, where character behaviour and responses must be taken for their own value. For some the play will be overpoweringly static; for others it will develop a strong sense of poetic coherence.
That’s certainly encouraged in Clare Lizzimore’s finely-judged production. Ian McDiarmid can be an effervescent, explosive actor. Here, this power is held-in, resulting in unusual intensity, matched by Andrew Sheridan who gives Jonah the powerful calm of someone determined to seek out in life only what matters to his own sense of values.
Otto Bannister: Ian McDiarmid.
Jonah Teale: Andrew Sheridan.
Director: Clare Lizzimore.
Designer: Paul Burgess.
Lighting: Richard Owen.
Sound: Claire Windsor.
Magic consultant: “Magic” Matt Windsor.
2008-04-01 14:18:21