SILENCE: Buffini, Bham Rep, till 6 April

Birmingham

SILENCE: Moira Buffini
Birmingham Rep, The Door: Tkts 0121 236 4455
Runs: 2h 15m, one interval, till 6th April
Review: Rod Dungate, 22nd March 2002

Teeming distant history brought vigorously alive – a witty play with real attitude in a taut, tough production
Buffini's play was first performed at the Door and National Studio in 1999. And here it is back. In the meantime it must have been away on a kind of Play Health Farm, it's now leaner, fitter, funnier and (I'm pleased to say) on occasions downright bolshy. It is a play about gender and power, about a clash between a vibrant pagan view of life and the stifling effect of organised Christianity: it is a witty play with real attitude.

Set during the reign of Ethelred (England's Dark Ages), the story centres around the marriage of Ymma, a young noblewoman (daughter of a Saint no less) exiled to England. King Ethelred marries her off to Cumbrian Lord Silence to punish her. In order that Silence can become a suitable husband, a friendly monk ('I'm a priest - my name's Roger' an hilarious Christopher Staines) tutors the Lord in the ways of Christianity. But, we learn later, there is more than Christianity Silence needs to be the husband Ymma should have. Meanwhile, as they say, in another part of the Court, pathetic, whining King Ethelred is gradually learning his Christian duty through murder, mayhem and torture.

The thing that marks Buffini's play out is its teeming sense of distant history brought vigorously alive to become a play for today. It's not so much the gender power struggle of the play that speaks (though it's always useful to be reminded) but the sense of fear the characters express about their existence. As Agnes (Ymma's maid) says at the conclusion – repeating one of the play's leitmotifs – 'The inevitable fears of our times, living as we do on the edge of destruction.' Buffini is touching a raw nerve – reflected in, say, Pullman's rich young peoples' HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy and the Churches' preposterous reactions to it.

Anthony Clark has produced a tough, taut play: Rachel Blues has designed with a stark and flexible economy. Together they enable the company to produce striking image after image – church pews to become a cart, a king's bed that is his prison too, a prison that becomes a dictator's throne.

Elizabeth Marsh's Ymma is a mystery of great opposites. At once fragilely statuesque and stiff as steel. She is given to wild and dangerous tempers: Marsh's expression changes from iconic Madonna-esque to ugly viciousness in an instant.

Cast:
Ymma: Elizabeth Marsh
Agnes: Joanne Moseley
Eadric: Nicholas Beveney
Silence: Maeve Larkin
Roger: Christopher Staines
Ethelred: John Flitcroft

Director: Anthony Clark
Design: Rachel Blues
Lighting: Andrew Fidgeon
Sound: Den Whiskens

2002-03-22 10:06:22