JULIA PASTRANI. To 21 April.
London
THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE TRAGIC LIFE AND TRIUMPHANT DEATH OF JULIA PASTRANA THE UGLIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD
by Shaun Prendergast
Zygo Productions at bac (Studio 2) To 21 April 2002
Tue-Sat 8.30 Sun 6.30pm
Runs 1hr 10min No interval
TICKETS 020 7223 2223
Review Timothy Ramsden 14 April
Life's one big blackout when you're cut off from the normal scheme of things.A theatre going dark is usually one with no show. But saying that down at bac they've nothing to show would be misleading. Battersea's innovative theatre powerhouse has discovered theatre in the dark – which, judging by Zygo's offering, is notably different from a radio play.
When your subject is the ugliest woman in the world, it saves on cosmetics, prosthetics or a lot of tact at auditions. Sitting in absolute black – eyes never accustom to outlines and it takes a nimble, strong-nerved actor to move around the seated audience – the imagination creates its own figure. It's likely to be one that contrasts with the sweet voiced Julia we hear, who sounds more enticing than the showman Lent who marries and exploits her as a sideshow-freak upgraded to centre-stage.
So good a means of entry is she into the paying public's purses that when she dies in tortuous childbirth – five and a half hours after her baby's death – Lent has her embalmed (grisly details as we sit in the dark) and continues to tour her, deprived now even of her name, on display.
There's more than practicality to the blackout. In the 19th century more than now, transported across nations to display her exterior, Julia had to isolate her identity, keeping something separate from the gawping crowds and the husband-manager who controlled her public identity and her life - about which he largely kept her in the dark.
An audience feels similarly helpless, stuck in our seats (there's a safety protocol if anyone needs to leave midshow), as voices cry their decisions and throw arguments across the spaces, coming from we know not where next.
Then, too, there's the bustle of Julia's life. It's not the old adage about radio plays having the best scenery – perhaps because of the spatial impact of the voices there's no time to invent scenes. But the sense of time hurtling Julia along in its slipstream is intense. This is a form of theatre that encourages concision.
And, at least you're not tempted to miss the performance through reading the programme.
Julia: Nicola Winterson
Lent: Martin Fisher
Countess: Eva Marie Bryer
Showman: Tim Gebbels
Director: Andrea Brooks
Sound: Daniel Tomlinson
2002-04-18 16:52:50