STAGS AND HENS. To 12 August.
Newcastle-under-Lyme
STAGE AND HENS
by Willy Russell
New Vic Theatre To 12 August 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 12 August 2.30pm no performance 2, 7 Aug
Captioned 8 Aug
Post-show discussion 8 Aug
Runs: 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 01782 717962
www.newvictheatre.org.uk
Review: Ranjit Khutan: 21st July 2006
Night in the toilets doesn't go down the pan.
Impeccably directed by Gwenda Hughes, Stags and Hens invites the audience back to 1975. It’s the night before Dave and Linda’s wedding, and the ritual stag and hen nights are well under way. Only, both parties have chosen to attend the same dance hall; the only thing preventing the disaster of bride seeing groom is the wall between the men’s and ladies’ toilets.
It’s a familiar scenario – ex-boyfriend turns up having made a success of his life, girl reminisces about the ex, friends remind her of her priorities, while her future husband lies drunk, wrapped around a toilet bowl. But behind the play lies observation of social and gender relationships. Russell captures the dialogue, thoughts and actions of these young men and women, and, especially, their rituals and superstitions.
He shows them clutching to the hope that these beliefs will provide them with the security they seek, then shows how they ultimately imprison them in accepted ways of behaviour. ‘If we do not change, tomorrow has no hope for us,’ says some graffiti. The girls laugh, little knowing how true this is.
The stage is spilt between the ladies and the gents toilets. Music suggests the dance hall outside (it’s played by local radio DJ Sam Plank). However, the action occurs in the toilets, as with any nightclub the scene of casualties from the dance hall as girls weep into their Babyshams and Pernod- and-Black, men into their pints of lager.
Hughes’s production responds wholeheartedly to the nervous intensity of Linda, played with excellent conviction by Fiona Dunn. The tension between Eddie and Linda is excruciating and Hughes’s management of this has the audience almost jumping to their feet and punching the air when it comes to a head.
Alison Darling’s fine as naïve Maureen, while Marianne March’s Bernadette left me in stitches (as in her reminiscing about re-enacting a film scene on the beach and the story about the small man that made a pass at her).
The plot’s predictable but the characterisation is excellent, the dialogue authentic; all capturing the atmosphere of a 1970’s northern dance hall.
Maureen: Alison Darling
Linda: Fiona Dunn
Eddy: Andrew Grose
Peter: Daniel Harcourt
Billy: Michael Hugo
Bernadette: Marianne March
Carol: Deborah McAndrew
Kav: Inam Mirza
Frances: Aimee Thomas
Robbie: Joseph Raishbrook
Dave: Steve Hall
Director: Gwenda Hughes
Designer: Lis Evans
Lighting: Daniella Beattie
Sound: James Earl-Davis
2006-07-28 10:50:14