NATURAL SELECTION. To 31 May.
London.
NATURAL SELECTION
by Paul Rigel Jenkins.
Theatre 503 503 Battersea Park Road SW11 3 BW To 31 May 2008.
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 5pm.
Runs 2hr 15min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7978 7040.
www.theatre503.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 May.
Range of dramatic tones in sinister fable.
Given British theatre’s taste for ironic titles, it’s no surprise that nothing in this play is selected naturally. Now known as West Anglia, even Wales has been tagged with an artificial identity. And the discovery of a missing-link corpse there leads to a contrived ‘heritage’ industry with its new visitor centre, further infuriating a xenophobic group of violent nationalists, funded by wallets stolen from men lured home by young Mash.
Then one victim embroils the separatists in an experiment that latches onto a genetic enhancement programme to create multiple spin-offs of Gary (as the missing-link’s named), not just as fluffy toys but in living form, a plan which the play links to Aldous Huxley’s dystopic vision of the future.
Desperation to bear a child opens people to exploitation by this programme. Who thinks they’re fooling whom? Who is actually exploiting or manipulating whom? And who really has a say in what’s going on?
The strength of Paul Rigel Jenkins’ play lies in its capacity to address these questions, at times with a comic lightness which can be punctured by discovery of yet another serious intention. Even terrorism is laced with humour, given the incomprehension of one of its participants. And there’s incidental satire at the aggrandisement of language in tourist commerce.
Sometimes, thematic insistence undermines the reality of situations. Young Mash must be a dab hand at doses; one drink she drugs takes near immediate effect, another leaves her time to take her victim home from the pub. And not every element fully hangs together, though the commercial experts end up outsmarting the individual malcontents.
Good performances across Tim Roseman’s production, ranging in the West Anglian camp from Alex Beckett’s amiable Joseph, the terrorist who ends up conscientiously handling health and safety, through Lisa Diveney’s comic-edged Mash, the sexy lure who’s waiting to read Philosophy and who ends up holding, indeed bearing, the baby, to Daniel Rigby as Vlad, having to learn to control his right-wing revolutionary fury. Roseman also creates a convincing tension in the marriage of the innocent middle-class pair, well played by Richard Heap and Wendy Nottingham.
Joseph: Alex Beckett.
Fenella: Pandora Colin.
Mr Brain: Alan Cox.
Mash: Lisa Diveney.
Harris: Richard Heap.
Helen: Wendy Nottingham.
Vlad: Daniel Rigby.
Director: Tim Roseman.
Designer: Libby Watson.
Lighting: Richard Howell.
Sound/Nusic: Richard Hammarton.
Assistant director: Joshua Azouz.
Assistant designer: Nicky Bunch.
2008-05-31 01:36:10