PEAPICKERS. To 26 May.
Tour
PEAPICKERS
by Nicola Werenowska
Eastern Angles Theatre Company Tour to 26 May 2007
Runs 2hr One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 April at the Cramphorn Chelmsford
Promising material doesn’t deliver.
Across a quarter-century Eastern Angles has ranged wide and dug deep to explore the identity of its home area of England beyond perceived, or postcard, notions, while increasingly exploring a range of scientific and historical themes in an impressive number of premieres.
Nicola Werenowska’s new play fits both parts of the mandate the company’s developed. Among East Anglian peapicking folk 40 years ago was Susan, whose temperament is echoed by the son returning from present-day America to explore his origins while he attends a Cambridge Conference as a Genetics academic. And he’s Black, causing an edgy racism that shifts into a different unease among some village inhabitants when they realise he’s Susan’s son.
If only a scenario could make a play. Here, relationships are spelled-out but carry no conviction, the characters are dull and clichéd (London lady-of-the-manor incomer Ella) or simply dull. The Genetics material would make a red-top report seem like a learned journal (the voice-over questions at Daryl’s Conference session smack more of personality fanzine than academic colloquy) and the few backplot revelations are hoarily unhelpful.
It’s hardly fair to judge Werenowska, though, on Samantha Potter’s production, which is flat as a fenland landscape and dull as a grey winter day. Characters plod on and off the limited space formed by designer Becky Hurst’s fenland panels (which often offer interest when nothing else does on stage).
The acting is superficial, Anthony Taylor locked in a personal despondency or inquiring urgency that never communicates with the audience, Carmen Rodrigues undifferentiated between past and present and neither Rosalind Porter nor David Mara making much impression of in their comparatively brief roles. Only Anne Kavanagh as antiques-shop owner Marg brings any impact, and that seems down to the actor’s own energy.
As a result the interplay of past and present, the sense of a village community hugging its secrets and their responses when someone tries to prise open the past is little evident as proceedings chug spiritlessly on. The different speeds and instrumentation of the main tune in Martin Fulker’s score create the variety and character missing elsewhere in this production.
Susan/Kelly: Rosalind Porter
Rob/Peter: David Mara
Daryl: Anthony Taylor
Ella: Carmen Rodrigues
Marg: Anne Kavanagh
Director: Samantha Potter
Designer: Becky Hurst
Lighting: Penny Griffin
Sound/Music: Martin Fulker
Costume: Faby Pym
2007-05-01 10:22:05