RIDERS TO THE SEA/IN THE SHADOW OF THE GLEN/THE TINKER'S WEDDING. To 4 June.
London
RIDERS TO THE SEA/IN THE SHADOW OF THE GLEN/THE TINKER'S WEDDING
by J M Synge
Southwark Playhouse To 4 Jun e 2005
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 3pm
Runs 1hr 35min One interval
TICKETS: 08700 600 100 (24 hours)
www.southwarkplauhoue.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 May
Well-presented revivals of three fine Synge miniatures.These brief plays are among the finest examples of what can happen when dramatists take the advice to write about what they know. There's truth as well as anecdotal wit in these 3 plays of Irish rural life over a century ago; vivid reality against the background of tradition. Long-held beliefs and the incidents of daily living harmoniously co-exist.
Riders is perhaps the best example, the most compact of tragedies. The sea is a means of survival but also a cause of death. So it's been, and might go on being, forever. Evidence of one son's death arrives, to be concealed from the mother, followed by news of another, heralded by a spectral vision of the dead and soon to die riding together. It's bathed in Synge's poetic dialogue, rough-hewn like the hard-working country folk he portrays yet with a sound and rhythm that give the sense of something beyond the immediate.
Actors Temple (an organisation providing skills enrichment) and Public Theatre bring Charlotte Gwinner's capably performed productions to a suitable venue in Southwark Playhouse, its low roof providing a claustrophobia emphasised by a door that opens only for bad news, and ultimately, a corpse, to enter. The busyness of the younger women contrasts the detailed struggle and grief of Marty Cruickshank's mother, seeing the last of her menfolk go.
The other plays are comic in Glen a tramp looking for shelter happens on a loveless widow seeking consolation while her husband's body is still warm in the room. Warmer than she thinks in contrast to Riders here's a looked-for death that hasn't exactly happened.
From death to a wedding, though The Tinker's Wedding doesn't go ahead as planned, either. A Priest, surprised on the road, demands his fee for transacting a hedge wedding between the near-silent Tinker and his would-be bride Sarah Casey (Lesley McGuire in a bright performance leaving no doubt who'll keep the intended marriage afloat while her love sets to his trade). Cruickshank provides a wily old mother while George Innes' Priest finally shows the clergy can pull off a trick of their own.
Riders to the Sea
Maurya: Marty Cruickshank
Bartley: JD Kelleher
Cathleen: Lesley McGuire
Nora: Alisa Arnah
In the Shadow of the Glen:
Dan Burke: George Innes
Nora Burke: Alisa Arnah
Michael Dara: JD Kelleher
Tramp: Timothy Morand
The Tinker's Wedding:
Michael Byrne: JD Kelleher
Priest: George Innes
Mary Byrne: Marty Cruickshank
Sarah Casey: Lesley McGuire
Director: Charlotte Gwinner
Designer: Ben Stones
Lighting: Emma Chapman
Sound: Yamina Mezeli
Assistant director: Fiona Clift
2005-05-29 12:55:17