PAINS OF YOUTH: till 17 August
London
PAINS OF YOUTH
by Ferdinand Bruckner translated by Simon Day
bac studio 2 To 17 August 2003
Tue-Sat 8.30pm Sun 6.30pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7223 2223: boxoffice@bac.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 July
Forceful moments but curiously reserved overall.
It's useful to be reminded how angsts we think only bother us today, took possession of people in other societies here, the oppressive hierarchical middle-class life of pre-Great War Germany.
Katie Read and her cast grasp the sense of these characters and vitally their relationships. The bullying, pimping Freder, the bright star Desiree who has broken from him, Maria and Irena who come to war over Petrell. It seems they're rooming together, medical students (all or some) attended by household servant Lucy. She appears to thrive naively as Freder moves her into thieving and prostitution.
Passions wreck lives, yearnings and desires don't match - leading to bitterness, arguments and fights. It must once have been a sock in the jaw for heroic idealisations of student life. Now, it can be linked both to Frank Wedekind's probing of teenage sexuality in Spring Awakening and modern realism, which varies with social changes, not human ones..
Physical and verbal violence breaks out between those in love as well as rivals. One character's forced to the ground, her hair tied round a bed-leg to leave her humiliated. Bruckner comes as close to depicting rape as he dared. The only sustained tenderness and care is between two of the women. Finely performed, it avoids the trap of seeming a romantic escape. But caring too can lead to violent argument and conflict.
So strangulating, and distorting is this life that Desiree, first seen revising for medical exams, can listen in silent amazement to young Lucy's absurd confidence that a street pick-up can't make her pregnant, yet want to rush to follow her into casual sex. Eventually, the tensions lead to inevitable catastrophe.
For all the vivid moments, there's a curious tentativeness to the production. Despite Miranda Nolan's attic-level cityscape, stylish and atmospheric, there's little sense of these characters' existence outside the room where they collide, or of the agendas they carry between scenes. There's plenty of youth but the pain remains vivid in the moment, without giving the necessary sense that it endures.
Maria: Elaine Heathfield
Desiree: Miranda Raison
Irena: Roisin Rae
Freder: Mel Raido
Petrell: Danny Babington
Lucy: Sarah Manton
Director: Katie Read
Designer: Miranda Nolan
Lighting: Matt Veitch
Composer: Richard Blair-Oliphant
2003-07-30 09:05:27