MARGARET DOWN UNDER. To 27 November.
Tour
MARGARET DOWN UNDER
by Alastair Cording
Eastern Angles Theatre Company Tour to 27 November 2004
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 October at Archbishop Sancroft High School Harleston Norfolk
Vivid depiction of dark and light, moral degradation and integrity.Take the deepest breath you can then down you go into the deep dark. No-one can accuse Eastern Angles of taking the easy route with this story of convict life on the voyage out and on arrival in early 19th century Botany Bay. Ship-hold purgatory under a tough captain precedes the hell of an Australian colony ruled by a drunken, lecherous army Captain whose word, backed up by lashings and punishment squads, makes transportation a consignment to slavery. Only the strongest wills stand out against this coward made bully by institutional power.
Margaret Catchpole, the Suffolk servant imprisoned then sent to Australia despite her master's pleas, turns out the strong moral force in the second of Alastair Cording's plays chronicling the life of this Suffolk servant 200 years ago.
Karren Winchester's performance as a woman who will not surrender her moral integrity, provides the play's dark picture with contrasting streams of light. From the abstracted interior pain aboard ship, to the hatred in her face that subtly modulates to horror as she realises how a child came to die, Winchester explores the heart and mind of a woman who refuses to compromise.
Not for her the accommodations with authority reached by Lizzie, a street-prostitute from 8 who's learned only drink and sex can help her survive, or Rose whose genteel manner soon wears through to equally manipulative sexuality and fearful self-preservation.
Ivan Cutting's production, touring on a small mobile set, conjures images of a sailing-ship, sex and lashings shadowed on its sails, and the penal colony's contrast of scorched earth. Some performances are technically stiff, but there's good work from Neil Summerville, doubling Margaret's concerned Suffolk employer and the cowardly, bullying MacAllister as well as Martin Belville (a sly and sullen sailor, then Barry, Margaret's nemesis turned protector, who grows in moral and physical stature) and John Langford as a sturdy Scottish ship's carpenter - two men who sail the world for Margaret.
It's not surprising; Cording, Cutting and Winchester create one of drama's great servant-class characters, to stand alongside those in Our Country's Good and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
John Barry/Sailor: Martin Belville
James Ross/Convict: John Langford
Sailor/Soldier: Lewis Matthews
Rose: Sadie McMahon
Lieutenant Bewliss/Settler: Michael Strand
Cobbold/Captain MacAllister: Neil Summerville
Lizzie: Ceri West
Margaret: Karren Winchester
Director: Ivan Cutting
Designer: Rachel Downey
Lighting: Fiona Simpson
Sound: Bryan Hoyer
Music: Pat Whymark
2004-10-10 12:19:16