LIFE AFTER LIFE. To 8 June.
National Theatre
LIFE AFTER LIFE
by Paul Jepson and Tony Parker
Lyttelton Loft In rep to 8 June 2002
8pm 1,3,4 June 9.15pm 5-8 June
Runs 1hr 30min No interval
TICKETS 0207 452 3000
Review Timothy Ramsden 30 May
Bringing lifers to life by documenting the people behind the headlines: a bumpy ride at times, but scrupulously performed.And now, what have we here…? In the Lyttelton's busy 'Transformation' season, just 5 weeks old, this montage of intercut monologues, based on Tony Parker's interviews with life-sentence British prisoners, is production number 4 - third in the new, studio-like Loft space (long may it continue, after this season).
The good-value (£2) script-programmes are helpful in looking back at the individual story threads. And in working out who is who: Paul Jepson's characters neither introduce themselves – being faithful to the words they used in Parker's sessions with their originals – nor address each other.
As a report on violent crime, the piece is very calm. Daniel Ryan's Alan offers the greatest threat of violence in his bearing, but when the emotion comes it's a collapse into tears. And John Woodvine's rich-voiced Edgar, the gracious elderly gentleman who ends the show by offering 'a nice cup of tea', is curiously the most dangerous. There's a grim Kind Hearts and Coronets humour to the gradual realisation of what lies behind his self-exculpatory stories of casual fatalities to the women in his life. Would you accept the tea he offers with such suavely rich-toned charm?
It's a self-sacrificing job for an actor, bound by an original's words, communicating with no-one else on stage. William Osborne is fascinating as a matchstick model-making child murderer, sectioned for his own safety, placidly accepting his life sentence. Sadie Shimmin's polite reserve is such I'm still unclear what crime she committed.
The script allocates uneven amounts and individual stories seem revisited at arbitrary moments, with some left unvoiced for overlong periods. There's reason, though, for the long opening silence of Richard Lintern's Philip, silently staring through a barred window before calmly, but not coldly, relating his tabloid-shocker killing of his son, paralleled by loving care for his daughter.
The actors speak a script fashioned from a book based on interviews with their characters' originals. How much they're trying to recreate those people, how much develop a new being from words on the pages, is unclear. But all end up creating understandable individuals with assured conviction.
Paul Arrowsmith: Rupert Holliday Evans
Frank Jones: William Osborne
Alan Robinson: Daniel Ryan
Valerie Scott: Sadie Shimmin
Edgar Johnson: John Woodvine
Philip Derbyshire: Richard Lintern
Director: Paul Jepson
Designer: Rachel Blues
Lighting: Pete Bull
Sound: Neil Alexander
Company Voice Work: Patsy Rodenburg/Kate Godfrey
2002-05-31 11:45:30