MEN SHOULD WEEP. To 5 November.
Tour.
MEN SHOULD WEEP
by Ena Lamont Stewart.
Oxford Stage Company Tour to 5 November 2005.
Runs 2hr 10min One interval.
Review Hazel Brown 17 September at Northcott Theatre Exeter.
Dour play makes grim theatre.
When first performed in the 1940s and revived in the 1980s, this play received great acclaim, but I found it dour and grim, not helped by some wooden performances. The 1930s in the tenements of Glasgow were appalling times for the people involved and this was reflected in the set and play as a whole. However, I felt not one iota of sympathy for any of the characters, except pity as they had to utter some of the most banal lines I have ever heard.
Maggie Morrison, stuck in a foul and mouldy tenement, struggles to keep everyone in her large family fed and on the rails. She has six children (four of whom we see two young teenagers and an older boy and girl), an aging mother living with her and a husband out of work. Pauline Turner tries to look haggard and put-upon, but she is too young, healthy-looking and pretty for the part. Paul Morrison is by turns silent or woodenly brash as her husband. Even when some good fortune comes along and Christmas is going to be better, there is little release from the midden they all complain about, until the daughter, who has gone to the bad, returns with salvation in the form of a promise of re-housing.
The best acting came from those outside the family: two wonderfully nosy neighbours, Mrs Harris and Mrs Wilson, one large and one thin, and the gloriously sexy Isa, married to the eldest son, who has a great scene where she vamps her father-in-law. Headlice, TB, hunger, thieving, sex, face slappings and the many and various trappings of poverty make their contribution to the plot.
Whilst their situation is all too painfully realistic, leavened by the occasional bout of humour, I found it difficult to believe in these characters, leading to my lack of sympathy for them. From the programme notes, I discovered that in the original version of the play, the husband returned to the bottle, Maggie died in childbirth, Jenny came home penniless, Granny went to the poorhouse, Bertie (one of the young children we don't see) died and Alec murdered his wife Isa now that might have been worth seeing instead of the more anodyne version (from the 80s) reproduced here.
Maggie Morrison: Pauline Turner.
Granny: Jennifer Piercey.
Lily Gibb: Joanne Howarth.
Edie Morrison: Susan Harrison.
Ernie Morrison: Ross Finbow.
John Morrison: Paul Hamilton.
Removal Man/Voice of Mr Harris: Barnaby Meats.
Mrs Wilson/Lizzie Morrison: Anne Lacey.
Mrs Harris: Lynne McCallum.
Isa Morrison/Voice of Marina: Ruth Connell.
Jenny Morrison: Natasha Broomfield.
Alec Morrison/Voice of Man: Mark Wood.
Director: Charlotte Gwinner.
Designer: Michael Taylor.
Lighting: Chris Davey.
Sound: David McSeveney.
2005-09-22 09:21:16