MISSING PERSONS: FOUR TRAGEDIES AND ROY KEANE. To 25 February.
London
MISSING PERSONS: FOUR TRAGEDIES AND ROY KEANE
by Colin Teevan
Trafalgar Studios (Studio 2) To 25 February 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 2.30pm
Runs 1hr 15min No interval
TICKETS: 0870 060 6632 (booking fee)
www.theambassadors.com/trafalgarstudios
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 February
Explosive emotions contained within a little room.
On designer Cleo Pettitt’s wooden boards, Greg Hicks brushes a bare foot through the surrounding water. Hicks isn’t known for dipping his toe; the resoundingly heroic is his style. Trafalgar Studio 2’s intimacy and Colin Teevan’s quintet of monologues allow the actor to show his resources in quiet intensity. The sudden bursts of rapid speech, the eruption of fury are there, but not dominant.
Here are people of today, reflecting Greek mythology. The earliest gods provide the story of a man castrating his father, the son’s milder nature contrasting the older man whose inheritance turns out his own mutilation. With sexual democracy the loving Ariadne becomes a yearning male pleading through the language of flowers, while vengeful Medea relives in a deserted husband using access to his children to express unspeakable love and overpowering, destructive revenge-lust (Medea’s poisoned gown parallel stretching credulity, despite Teevan’s best efforts).
Like a satyr play’s rude comedy after ancient tragedies, the closing RoyKeaniad relates the football star’s no-show at the 2002 World Cup to Greek hero Achilles’ refusal to leave his tent at Troy. Shakespeare showed Achilles’ behaviour has a comic decadence and Hicks’ football fan, speaking through Guinness and substantial whiskey chaser, echoes this in his inebriated seriousness.
Suitably, this is the only non-reflective character. Elsewhere the dialogue either debates with an unseen character or has the speaker provide another’s responses. Nowhere more than in the finest section, the sustained story of an IRA enforcer whose time has past, refusing to die by his own hand when disposed of by the newly-respectable, chauffeur-driven generation of Republican.
The characters’ emotional extremity is mirrored in the crazily-angled path no-one could possibly tread to this end of the road. Throughout, Hicks complements his rich, deep voice, stirring in its intensity and implication, with detailed physicality. Facial expression predicts or catches up with words as the mind races or clicks into gear, glances or spasms signal disgust or distress. The most violent character stretches forward like a ship’s prow. And the glory of the performance lies in detailed reaction, creating the big emotional world of each little play.
Performer: Greg Hicks
Director: Sarah Chew
Designer: Cleo Pettitt
Lighting: Tony Simpson
Sound: Jack Arnold
Costume: Mia Flodquist
2006-02-10 10:43:48