MODELLING SPITFIRES.

York

MODELLING SPITFIRES
by Vanessa Rosenthal

York Theatre Royal Studio To 24 June 2006
Runs 1hr 35min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 June

New play, older players proves a worthwhile combination.
There are theatre cxomppanies for women, ethnic groups, people with physical disablities of mental impairment, and specific sexualities. Yellow Leaf Theatre Company is one of a very small number focusing on age (if we leave out the somewhat different factor of this country's multiple youth theatres). Its core members are theatre professionals aged 60+, a group that probably provokes less tolerance than any other. They aren't a special case. They aren't different. They are just old. Yellow Leaf effectively challenges the idea there's no more than character parts and half-remembered lines to the mature performer.

Anita has that through having brought up a daughter (now pregnant and living upstairs with loud CDs for company) and looked after a recently-dead parent. She's about to sell the costly, inconvenient old family house when she brings brother Maurice there, after his years in care. 40 years ago he was the family's brilliant son, a world potentially at his feet. But his life was skewed by schizophrenia. Now he's still flying his model aircraft with childish delight. But his fixed idea soon sees control slipping from the initially-confident Anita's hands as he determines to stay in their home (willed to them equally) with ex-patient Janet as his wife. For the fixed tenacity of his mind, strengthened by a turning from anything unacceptable, gives him a tactical advantage over his sister.

Calling this play unambitious isn't meant as an insult. It doesn't come over with the grip of the psychological thriller its publicity suggests it's meant to be. There isn't a threat so much as the kind of problem families can encounter, especially when property's inherited. There are lots of things that might be taken further, crises that might be approached between these characters (and the unseen daughter).

But in its own arena the play works well enough, with Rosenthal's Anita shouldering the anxieties of sanity, Dee Whitehead blithely happy as the newcomer into the old house and Chris Wilkinson capturing the fine gradations of childish delight, moments of sudden distress and firm-minded certainty in Maurice.

Maurice: Chris Wilkinson
Anita: Vanessa Rosenthal
Janet: Dee Whitehead

Director: Alan Meadows
Lighting: Keith Tuttle

2006-06-25 16:23:29