KATHERINE DESOUZA. To 27 May.

Birmingham

KATHERINE DESOUZA
by Nick Stafford

Birmingham Rep (The Door) To 27 May 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat 18 May 2.45pm
BSL Signed 23 May
Post-show discussion 23 May
Runs 2hr 5min One interval

TICKETS: 0121 236 4455
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden

Possibles and probabilities in an unknowable world.
Four people are imprisoned in this play’s dark, constricted world. Its bare, raised platform is surrounded by a shiny strip suggesting water – which is also the last thing heard on Jon Nicholls’ soundscape. But water here means death and indicates guilt. The only character not to mention water is a brusquely efficient prison-warden, reading a red-top yet ever-watchful for minor infractions of visiting regulations.

Their feelings make the others vulnerable. What’s stored inside Kevin Cross, jailed as a serial-killer of women, only leaks out suggestively out at the end. Her memories have brought Fay to see him, recollections from her apparently neutral adult life of happier times in childhood.

David Desouza is tracking Fay in hope she’ll find, through Kevin, information about his adult daughter Katherine’s disappearance. This mystery is never solved in terms of a conventional crime story’s facts. Instead, its emotional consequences are explored, revealing the uncertainty of human experience. Nick Stafford fascinatingly contrasts hard evidence and personal feelings. No wonder the least emotionally-involved character seems to sees things most clearly.

Friendships are alliances of the lonely. If Katherine is the drama’s unseen thread, the ever-visible Fay, ricocheting between the three men’s interpretations of reality, is its focus. She’s the only one whose words we can trust throughout, and the person constantly presented with new choices and dilemmas. These women, absent and present, are both of concern, indifference and possible contempt to the various men.

Emma Pallant’s tall figure exudes reasonableness and a resolution that asserts itself amid Fay’s alternating happiness and anxiety, her doubts about her safety and others’ words. Russell Layton’s physically imposing Kevin suggests a secret violence without ever confirming it; inasmuch as Stafford provides the solution, it’s through a moment of dreamlike ambiguity. Paul McCleary’s Desouza has the slight stoop of pre-occupation, and the impassioned reasonableness this actor so well conveys.

Ged McKenna completes the fine cast in Gwenda Hughes production, with its sense of urgent feelings on the rein of a complex reality, helped by Matthew Wright’s black box set, Simon Bond’s stark lighting and the frequent undercurrent of Nicholls’ quietly insistent score.

Kevin Cross: Russell Layton
Fay White: Emma Pallant
David Desouza: Paul McCleary
Emile: Ged McKenna

Director: Gwenda Hughes
Designer: Matthew Wright
Lighting: Simon Bond
Sound/Composer: Jon Nicholls

2006-05-19 11:22:05