PORT. To 30 November.
Manchester
PORT
by Simon Stephens
Royal Exchange Theatre To 30 November 2002
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 4pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
TICKETS 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 23 November
A brilliant new play with a knockout central performance. This powerful piece starts and ends in a car. From the opening, mother frowningly concentrating on the flat from which dad's chucked them out, kicked in the back by little brother Billy, there's no doubt about 11 year old Rachel's lively mind.
Her life's going to be ordinary enough, as a supermarket worker looking for a flat in industrial Stockport's Edgeley. But from the inquiring child surfaces a young adult who, through the adversities of ordinary life, shows herself extraordinary. As with Brecht's Chalk Circle Grusha, tough circumstances bring out character strengths.
Millennium eve in a Derbyshire hotel is destroyed by her violent husband, Kevin. It's an achievement that Stephens has us believe in this unsuitable marriage. Few scenes in theatre are more harrowing yet inspiriting than the one where Rachel, her evening and hotel room ruined, lies on the floor phoning her brother, caring for his welfare amid her own distress.
Most characters come and go; mother disappears, friends and husband fall away. Her marriage broken, she revisits a boyfriend Danny, now married with a child, nervously hinting she wants him to live with her. You sense, if he did, he'd get to start up the business he dreams of. But, of course, he won't. No-one's giving Rachel a silver spoon. Just once, maybe, she takes one for herself: when gran refuses the money to help Rachel buy her dream-flat. Stephens leaves us to work out where the deposit money come from.
His script's beautifully-judged in what it states and implies. Only the end – back in the car with 24 year old Rachel at the wheel – has a sun-rising conclusion which feels slightly forced: an end to this continuing story is tough to bring off.
Stephens and director Marianne Elliott inject some sympathy into every character: the lonely old man who exposes himself in the park and lashes out with sexual insults at young Rachel, has done good. Even Kevin feels justified in his jealous rage.
If Arthur Miller created a modern tragic hero in Death of a Salesman, suffering, resilient, life-affirming Rachel is a modern heroine. And, in Emma Lowndes, Marianne Elliott has found the perfect actor. Technically detailed and assured, emotionally fully at grips with Rachel, her performance (amid a fine cast) makes vivid a whole personality with whom we can suffer and fear, yet also find optimism and joy.
Rachel Keats: Emma Lowndes
Billy Keats: Andrew Sheridan
Danny Miller: William Ash
Christine Keats/Anne Dickinson: Siobhan Finneran
Jonathan Keats/Kevin Brake: Nicholas Sidi
Lucy Moore: Rachel Brogan
Chris Bennett: Colin Parry
Ronald Abbey/Jake Moran/Man in Home: Fred Ridgeway
Director: Marianne Elliott
Designer: Rae Smith
Lighting: Jon Buswell
Sound: Ian Dickinson
Fights: Renny Krupinski
Voice work: Wyllie Longmore
2002-11-26 15:50:40