SMILE: Lowe, Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham till 17 May
Nottingham.
SMILE
by Stephen Lowe.
Lakeside Arts Centre To 17 May 2008.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 2pm 10 &15 May.
Audio-described 15 May.
BSL Signed 14 May.
Post-Show Readings: 13, 14 May
Post-Show Discussion: 8 May.
Runs 1hr 20min No interval.
TICKETS: 0115 846 7777.
www.lakesidearts.org.uk
Review: Alan Geary 6 May 2008.
An intelligent two-hander, and it’s a thriller.
This intelligent new piece from Stephen Lowe, a two-hander and a thriller, is utterly different from his new Brian Clough play, The Devil’s League, currently crying out for performance in Nottingham; but it shares with it that thing called excellence.
In a seaside photographer’s cluttered studio the proprietor (Deborah, played by Tanya Myers), is at work, drinking gin or vodka - water it ain’t. A stranger (Jan, played by Daniel Copeland) comes in wanting a picture. He has a foreign accent and poor English. It soon becomes clear that Deborah was once a famous photographer in a war zone, but now prefers anonymity.
Arguably Myers is too attractive for her part (only arguably - a lot of female war photographers seem to be glamorous), but she captures the hard-nosed world-weariness and seen-it-all cynicism of her character. Her philosophising isn’t entirely realistic but this isn’t that kind of play.
Copeland gives a miraculous performance. He’s sad, ordinary, vulnerable, simple-hearted - and menacing - all at the same time. There’s some of the feel of the character he played in The Caretaker at Nottingham Playhouse in 2006; he even wears an old suit and has problems with his shirt-tail, as he did in that production. The menace in this play comes from Copeland.
There’s slow development at the start, but to have done it differently would have offended the integrity of the piece. It suddenly hits the spot at a highly dramatic moment.
As with all thrillers, it's indecent to give the game away, but there’s hope as well as tragedy in this play
This is an in-house production done in collaboration with New Perspectives.
Jan: Daniel Copeland.
Deborah: Tanya Myers.
Director: Matt Aston.
Designer: Laura Mc Ewen.
Lighting: James Farncombe.
Sound: Drew Baumohl.
Digital Media Designer: Barret Hodgson.
2008-05-08 01:04:26