ME AND THE KING tour till 2 November

Touring: Motionloco
see www.motionloco.co.uk for tour details

Runs: 2hrs. Interval: 20 mins
Review: Ranjit Khutan: Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton. Wednesday 1st November 2006

Glimpse into a dark and surreal world

Smoke billows out from behind a red curtain and ripples of excitement pass through the audience as we eagerly await the appearance of The King. With a dramatic opening, Terrence Mann’s Elvis appears – hair quaffed, hip shaking and showing off with a very convincing impersonation.

The play follows the tale of Harry Smith Jones who has taken a room in elderly Mrs May’s home. An unexplainable damp patch on the carpet, an Elvis doll and a collection of Elvis records, remnants of the previous occupant's belongings, haunt him. His attempt to throw them away is intercepted by the appearance of Cheryl, who likes Elvis, and prompts him to keep them. He anally records conversations in his tape recorder in the attempt not to forget events. But there are shadows in his memory – he can’t remember some things – referring to the experience as “a lunar eclipse, half is there, half isn’t – I know its there, it’s like me”.

This is a dark surreal world where most of the action appears to happen at night and in which the set unnoticeably changes from one use to another as characters appear and disappear through and under it. This environment is complemented by a soundscape created through the use of magical stuttering snares and tempo changes in Sirconical’s soundtrack. The surreal nature of the play is also emphasised by Terence Mann’s Harry Smith-Jones’s tall, quirky and nervous Woody Allen-like character. Shuna Snow also has many scene stealing moments as Kathleen who hosts the ‘sing-a-longa-venus’ night, and as the old Mrs May.

Writer/directors Mann and Routhwaite explore the notion of personality and look at how memories form our personal identity. They use Elvis and the metaphor he once quoted – ‘the worlds a stage on which each of us plays our part’ - to explore how we all play parts in our everyday lives and how we are all therefore in constant transition. Me and the King asserts that we may not quite know who we are, that we may be a little lost and, in accepting this view, we may then journey to find ourselves. Sounds a little hippy-fied, but the play’s dream-like qualities enable a world to be created that draws you in and allows you to question your personal identity and that of the characters we see in the play.

Harry smith-Jones – Terence Mann
Mrs May / Cheryl / Kathleen – Shuna Snow
Vance / Jeff – Richard Oldham

Director: Terence Mann & Julia Rounthwaite
Dramaturgy: Lee Beagley & Leigh Symmonds
Set Design: Paul Kondras
Lighting Design: Thomas Weir

2006-11-13 09:36:15