SAVED OR DESTROYED. To 30 April.
London.
SAVED OR DESTROYED
by Harry Condoleon.
bac (studio 2) To 30 April 2006.
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 6pm.
Runs 1hr 40min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7223 2223.
www.bac.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 April.
This really is worth seeing. No, ‘really’. In reality,…
If, like the late Harry Condoleon, author of this 1994 play, you were an end-of-20th-century writer in New York, the world was your Auster. If, though, you’re fed up with playwrights forever writing about nothing but writing and the theatre, you’ll soon heave an agonised sigh here, when lighting and accents suddenly change to show what had gone before was all part of rehearsal.
If so, you might be better off with the sort of torpid melodrama being rehearsed. But the multi-dimensionality of Paul Auster, interweaving self-conscious art and apparent suspension-of-disbelief story, is reflected in Condoleon’s on/off play-within-a-play. The soapy suds of family complexities, glossed over in commercial material (pregnancy, abortion, adoption, cancer: the stuff of life and death), are refracted into the purportedly serious ‘reality’ of Kondoleon’s actor-characters.
By the end young Karin’s pregnancy is as ‘real’ as the ‘real’ actor Anne’s tumour, which keeps doubling her up in agony. In the first reality section Vincent explains the author lets the actors use their own names for the characters. Later, cast members pick out supposed audience members and explain the spectators’ thoughts.
But they aren’t talking about members of this audience, and of course these actors aren’t using their own names. And the way everyone crowds round Anne when the pain strikes could be a sign that humanity takes over outside melodramatic scripts. Or, that actors are skilled at speaking what they ought to say and hiding what they feel.
Speaking what they feel happens when Maurice catalogues for Vincent the reasons why he never invites the young man round to his house. It’s part of Vincent’s vanity (showing so well in his ‘character’ Vincent) that he sees nothing wrong in the list of behaviours.
This kind of layered reality is exciting when first met, remains so for some time then palls as an over-obvious device. So there will be different audience reactions to this neatly-played production. If, finally, it adds up to less than might at first have seemed possible, it remains an intriguing-enough journey for those who’ve not passed this way too often before.
Ivan: Dan Waller.
Karin: Octavia Mackenzie.
Anne: Gigi Burgdorf.
Maurice: Hugo Cox.
Vincent: Alex Sabga.
Lucille: Ashley McGuire.
Director: Andrea Kantor.
Lighting: Anna Watson.
Costume: Anna Bruder.
2006-04-24 15:00:01