SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION. To 8 May.
Manchester
SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
by John Guare
Royal Exchange Theatre To 8 May 2004
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm & Sat 4pm
After-show discussion 6 May
Runs 1hr 40min No interval
TICKETS: 0161 833 9833
www.royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 April
Elegant, fluent production of a fascinating play.The Exchange auditorium's whited-out for this production, a double-sided Kandinsky painting swinging over the stage providing the only colour. It's ingenious of designer Julian McGowan. The play's centred on the chic minimalist home of exclusive art-dealer Flanders Kittredge and wife Ouisa, a WASP world into which irrupts a young Black man claiming to be victim of a knife-attack, college friend of their son's and son himself of pioneer Black Hollywood star Sidney Poitier.
The late Stanley Milgram, author of Obedience to Authority which suggested people will, if given official approval, inflict pain on others, created the notion of 6 Degrees of Separation' Anyone's related to anyone else through a chain of 6 people maximum (all you need is to find the right half-dozen). Guare links it to the story of David Hampton, who pretended to be Poitier junior (when Hampton sued for use of his life in the play, Guare seemingly became very aware of how separate things can be kept the case eventually collapsed).
The big barrier in the play is between the successful in their gilt towers and the streets below where faker Paul (magnificently portrayed by O-T Fagbenle, with smooth switches between consumately assumed social ease and an edgier street-world) continues to operate his scams. This is no self-interested Robin Hood; he's willing to con the poor when he can.
Moving from the Exchange Studio to its main stage, courtesy of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation's support for selected young directors, Michael Buffong shows great confidence in his staging. Precious objects the Kittredge's fear stolen are brought on by gloved flunkeys to show they're safe decluttering the stage and emphasising the Kittredges' easy affluence.
Hampton had a simple motivation in suing Guare, but the dramatist rightly won. He transmuted a news story and a theory into a vivid picture of society divided by wealth, and differentiated by generation. It's a picture with a garishly comic edge; suddenly, it seems, all New York's cognoscenti want to be in a film of Cats.
Buffong, McGowan and team, with a strong cast, make this a brief, absorbing evening.
Ouisa Kittredge: Lisa Eichhorn
Flanders Kittredge: Philip Bretherton
Geoffrey/Detective: Paul Greenwood
Paul: O-T Fagbenle
Doorman/Dr Fine: Michael Roberts
Hustler/Doug Fine: Andrew Langtree
Kitty: Caroline Gruber
Larkin: Howard Ward
Tess Kittredge: Lucy Chalkley
Woody Kittredge: Patrick Connolly
Nen/Rick: Alexander Campbell
Trent Conway: Mark Wells
Elizabeth: Claire Little
Director: Michael Buffong
Designer: Julian McGowan
Lighting: Johanna Town
Sound: Steve Brown
Dialect coach: William Conacher
Movement: Shobna Gulati
2004-04-26 10:24:28