LISA'S SEX STRIKE. To 30 November.
Tour.
LISA’S SEX STRIKE
by Blake Morrison based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes.
Northern Broadsides Tour to 30 November 2007.
Runs 2hr 40min One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 November at New Victoria Theatre Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Conrad Nelson proves he’s more than just a pretty melody, but Blake Morrison’s comic gift loses focus.
Sex sells, so Aristophanes’ comedy about women refusing to lie back and think of Athens until their menfolk cease warring, has been revived more than his other comedies.
It’s probably the oldest-ever over-rated play. And the protuberant members attached to the males as sex starvation bites might well have put the idea of extension into adapter Blake Morrison’s head. But Aristophanes’ main advantage, his brevity, is lost in the mix of Morrison’s thematic explorations and Northern Broadsides director/composer Conrad Nelson’s musical sequences.
Admittedly these are the high points, often having the audience cock-a-hoop; never more so than when a row of prosthetic penises take on the aspect of all-singing, all-dancing muppets in a nifty cabaret number.
Cabaret itself makes an appearance near the end, when Morrison finally gives up the attempt to shadow the original and goes all-out for Brechtian political theatre, capturing among other aspects the obscurity of Brecht’s early plays. All along, the piece has been stymied by its predictability. Women are good because they like peace (and just who was it used to walk around giving white feathers to non-combatants in World War I Britain?).
Men are bad, because they fight. Except that these men don’t actually make war, just armaments. And inasmuch as they’re workers, they’re innocent dupes of arms-manufacturer Prutt, who, as a peculiarly literary war-profiteer, hides his trade behind an anagram. And when racial conflict looms, it’s the White males who turn out really combative.
There’s a central schizophrenia to this play, which lacks the Northern pointedness of Morrison’s earlier Kleist and Goldoni adaptations for this company. “I’m Lysistrata. Lisa for short,” Becky Hindley’s rather inactive heroine says. Which is it - Greek or British? Classical references lard occasional lines, then are forgotten. And the archetypal divinities are Roman, Eve Polycarpou’s beneficent, inanely-smiling Pax plus Barrie Rutter’s Mars, muddled over dates then mysteriously recovering a pristine memory.
Nelson’s full-throated production values make fine entertainment, and the whole cast works well. But the clarity of Aristophanes’ direct hit at warring politicians of his day becomes confused, its hard hits muffled in the fun and frolics.
Lisa: Becky Hindsley.
Carol: Sally Carman.
Meryl: Rebekah Hughes.
Loretta: Flo Wilson.
Noor:: Jessica Taylor.
Rukmini: Seema Bowri.
Mama Pax: Eve Polycarpou.
Prutt: Simon Holland Roberts.
Dick: Anthony Hunt.
Will: Michael Hugo.
Iqbal: Chris Nayak.
Amit: Chook Sibtain.
Tyrone: Declan Wilson.
Old Man Mars: Barrie Rutter.
Director/Composer: Conrad Nelson.
Designer: Jessica Worrall.
Lighting: Jason Osterman.
Musical Director: Rebekah Hughes.
Choreographer: Beverley Edmunds.
Magic consultant: Scott Penrose.
2007-11-15 08:25:08