LUV To 15 August.
London.
LUV
by Thomas Sainsbury.
Tristan Bates Theatre 1a Tower Street WC2H 9NP To 15 August 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm.
Runs 1hr 15min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7240 6283.
www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 3 August.
This writer deserves a stronger director.
This is fascinating and frustrating.
Writer Thomas Sainsbury’s scenes flow speedily in short televisual scenes which incrementally identify the fluidly insubstantial world of image, fame-obsessed youth.
Every age has satirised its own superficiality and cruelty, but Sainsbury’s play takes its place in making transparent the instant gratification of the Facebook generation, and the almost-as-instant problems an obsession with glamour and celebrity brings. As Michelle says when things go wrong, she has 667 ‘friends’ on the site but none of them bothers about her.
Yet much of this 75-minute show feels embarrassing, owing to the frequently poor quality of the performances. Lines are underpowered (a mutter or a whisper can make a point, but only when it's given the apt amount of expressive energy), consonants are missed – making sentences unclear – and in some of their minor roles cast-members doubling energetically come up with unconvincing voices. Areas – acres, I’m tempted to say – come over as on-the-spot improvisation.
What the script needs is taking in hand by a separate, strong-minded director who will persuade the actors to kick out the bad habits and guide them to more purposeful performances.
Yet, the play’s fascinating also for exposing the cruelty running alongside the glamour-model of life. Over-confident Jacques sees nothing wrong in getting a chat-room conquest to make three journeys from Birmingham to London, giving wrong addresses then refusing to answer the door (the economical way this is shown, the victim walking in a semi-circle from his laptop, pausing then completing the circle back to it is one of director Sainsbury’s better ideas).
It’s a world of instant demands, where ignoring medical advice in the quest for ever-more ‘beauty’ leads to disaster, where experience is instantly turned over to glossy magazines and where Reality TV bites back when reality finds its way in.
And the actors have moments that gleam through, like Aidee Walker, calming from a bust-proud ladette to a doctor, while Daniel Blacker shows a capacity for comedy yet also a sense of underlying menace as a stalker who believes his compulsive behaviour earns the right to the response he wants from others.
Ricki: Daniel Blacker.
Jacques: Sean Hart.
Michelle: Sara Pascoe.
Gemma: Aidee Walker.
Director: Thomas Sainsbury.
2009-08-05 00:18:24