RESIDENT ALIEN. Tour to 31 March.
Tour
RESIDENT ALIEN
by Tim Fountain
Touring to 31 March
Runs 2 hr One interval
Review Hazel Brown 26 March at Nuffield Theatre, Southampton
A wonderful evening in the company of Quentin Crisp, one of the wittiest men of the 20th Century.Based on Quentin Crisp's New York Diaries and interviews, this play brings back to life one of the wittiest men of the 20th Century. Crisp is played by his friend, Bette Bourne and, though he does not quite have his height and grandeur, Bourne captures the essence of this witty man. For the last twenty years of his life Crisp lived in New York as the eponymous Resident Alien, working until the end, as in England the system is benevolent and the people hostile, whilst in America it is the opposite way round.
Set in Crisp's tatty, filthy New York flat, the play opens with Crisp under the sheets of his single bed – "Never get into a small double bed with a wide single man" – watching daytime TV. This leads into his views on television and fame, "the survival of the glibbest". He then rounds on royalty, Princess Diana in particular, and marriage. "Who wants to wake up beside someone whose first words are: 'and another thing is . . .' . Then onto Joan Crawford who was "radioactive with belief in herself" and, though Mrs Thatcher was a star, "What a pity she never stayed a woman!"
Crisp has a legendary attitude to housework "After four years it doesn't get any worse". However, he has to do 'mousework' each time his homophobic neighbour posts a mouse through the letterbox. In England he was reviled as effeminate but English men don’t even like their women to be feminine, calling them "Old Girl", whereas in America, women are "Sugar, Honey or Baby".
Gradually we learn his philosophy of life, his attitude to sex, camp, work, evening classes and style. Style, is sincerity, the presentation of yourself, not looking forward or backward but inwards. The whole evening is a treat, catch it if you can during the rest of its run.
Quentin Crisp Bette Bourne
Director: Tim Fountain, based on the original Bush Theatre production by Mike Bradwell.
Designer: Julian McGowan
Lighting: Sid Higgins
Tour:
28 March Quay Arts Centre , Isle of Wight
29-31 March Corn Exchange, Brighton
2002-03-28 00:44:59