SHALL I KILL MAMA? To 29 September.

London

SHALL I KILL MAMA?
by Trevor Thomas

Blue Elephant Theatre 59a Bethwin Road (entrance in Thompson’s Avenue) SE5 0XT To 29 September 2007.
Tue-Sat 8pm
Runs 1hr 40min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 7701 0100.
www.mysoace.com/blueelephanttheatre
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 September.

Mother knows best in a Camberwell beauty.
If there’s a more cantankerous character on stage than Lavern Archer’s Mama at Camberwell’s Blue Elephant then I hope never to meet them. Mama calls university lecturer son Bunter - he’s Graham by baptism, but was a fat boy; she’s summoned him home for a rare visit as she wants his help with a spot of euthanasia.

Underlying the manipulations that gradually reveal the pair’s relationship (no wonder author Trevor Thomas’s first novel The Laundryman was crime fiction) is the ‘joke’ that for all his business qualifications, the son has been a practical disaster in financial and personal life, while Mama’s a millionaire and knows how to get her way.

Thomas artfully reveals personal histories and allows both characters to fill out without straining or distorting the natural action. Humour and anxieties flow naturally into each other. And his outcome is neither a get-out nor the uncertainty Ibsen uses for a similar situation at the end of Ghosts.

He does this by focusing less on what Bunter will do than on his motives, for Mama uses her will (in both senses) to force a quick decision. And he provides new contexts for the outcome, first in a false ending, secondly in Mama’s way of addressing her son - you need to see the whole play to appreciate how it all works out.

Thomas also uses the final form of the eulogy mother and son were writing at the start to show how Mama’s way wins the day, and how history can be rewritten without involving a single lie.

Though Anton Phillips’ production doesn’t always smooth the silent moments, often linked to Mama’s pain, it gives the actors space to blend the play’s moods into a convincing whole. Victor Romero Evans moves from Bunter’s opening horror at his mother’s plan to open up the man’s weaknesses and fears, while Lavern Archer’s Mama is a splendid creation. Enthroned in her armchair, she commands the room, provoking and prodding, missing nothing, cunning, obstinate and so oftenright; she’d clearly rule any roost provided. Thomas provides a well-wrought drama; Archer crowns it with a star turn.

Mama: Lavern Archer.
Bunter: Victor Romero Evans.

Director: Anton Phillips.

2007-09-23 21:30:27