MEAT & TWO VEG. To 27 March.

Tour

MEAT & TWO VEG
devised by Cartoon de Salvo

Cartoon de Salvo Tour to 27 March 2004
Runs 1hr 35min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 March at mac

Ingeniously-staged, intelligently referential and very enjoyable.It's a tribute to the young members of Cartoon de Salvo that their study of an age their parents probably knew as children 1950s England comes over so convincing and fresh in this devised show.

Though the trio acting are not, mainly, those who devised. Neil Haigh and Sophie Russell, joining the already much-travelled, highly-praised show for this spring's revival, have made their roles their own, alongside core Cartoonist Brian Logan. They seem to the manner born, though it's Twelfth Night rather than Hamlet this piece refers to.

It's set in the grey world of 1950s England, a simplified view of that world offsetting close-up character relationships. Black, white and grey, with washing hung across the stage while the audience enters, this is an England taciturn, phlegmatic and routine-bound. The routine involves multiple pots of tea, with dad sitting silent and unresponsive behind his newspaper. The tea-tray's such an essential ritual it extends just where an interval ought to be to tea and cakes for the audience.

But this post-war life, complete with memories of a drowned brother for young Violet, isn't secure. The teapot itself announces the sound of a new Youth, a world away from the prim propriety of Violet's outer life - when the lid comes off the pot, rock n' roll surges out, to the family's surprised alarm.

Meanwhile, an undisclosed mix of thoughts about her missing brother and sexual stirrings lead Violet to cross-dressing and a romantic triangle with Orson and his unloving-beloved, the posy Olive. Shakespeare's romantic flourishes are damped down to the rainy, restrained climate of fifties Britain, and the lines of washing becomes a maze for secretive shadow-play, for separating characters or revealing them in close, confined groupings.

Acted with concentration and a merciful reserve, making each move significant particularly in the case of Neil Haigh's sister/brother performance which retains an enigmatic sense, both echoing Elizabethan boy-actor performances and reflecting Violet's sexual voyage - what might have seemed an impossible clutter becomes amazingly flexible: never, in the field of theatre history, has so much been made of so few spaces.

Performers:
Brian Logan, Neil Haigh, Sophie Russell

Director: Alex Murdoch
Designer: Becky Hutst
Lighting: Doug Kurht
Sound/Composer: Craig Byrne

2004-03-10 08:01:29