LE MARIAGE. To 19 July.

London.

LE MARIAGE
by David Lescot.

Arcola Theatre (Arcola 2) 27 Arcola Street E8 2DJ To 19 July 2008.
Mon-Sat 8.15pm.
Runs 1hr 15min No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7503 1646.
www.arcolatheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 July.

Apparent over-predictability undermined.
Not only the title’s French. There’s something rational, discursive and neat about the situation this piece proposes, with its laying-out of a series of monthly meetings between husband and wife, each no more than a day, each dedicated to one aspect of a relationship.

Each to be noted by The Woman (such generic, general names) so she can accumulate details of her husband’s behaviour to recount to the authorities in a France newly toughening its immigration laws, ferreting-out marriages of convenience which have provided foreigners with residence rights. Meaning people like The Man can be deported.

David Lescot’s play (acted by a pair who could doubtless do the whole thing in French if required) occupies the Arcola’s smaller space as Southwark Playhouse holds Unstated, a broader-brush look at modern England’s behaviour on asylum.

That employs a range of theatrical techniques. Lescot uses just one, the disruption of his, and of The Woman’s, apparent plan. First she notes everything in punctilious detail. Each scene, played with clinical precision in front of a screen projecting its theme, is most orderly. Even the Woman’s removal of some clothing is neat, discretely done at the side of the stage, leaving neatly-piled garments.

Then things change. The projections continue appearing, announcing a one-word subject. But not the ones originally proposed. And nothing happens. On to the next. Then the next. She’s there; but The Man is absent. Just as the relationship’s begun thawing, if still within the terms of their agreement, it’s clear the disaster she, the secure French national, expected has happened.

The Man has been seized, presumably deported into anonymity. What we see is the impact on her, as scenes fall to near-zero content, blank and passing as her life. The final taking-off of clothes is less decorous (though still hardly indecorous).

Her life, perhaps to her surprise, is empty as the play’s later scenes, creating a quiet mirror of character and structure, bringing about the end of certainty, for The Woman and the audience watching the chic anonymity of Lescot’s play, Michael Gielata’s production and James Macnamara’s suitably economical, whited-out set.

The Woman: Miriam Heard.
The Man: Karim Saleh.

Director: Michael Gielata.
Designer: James Macnamara.
Sound: Edward Lewis.
Voice work: William Trotter.
Assistant director: Lucy Taylor.

2008-07-09 14:47:27