SUBWAY. To 29 September.

London

SUBWAY
by Vanishing Point.

Lyric Studio Hammersmith To 29 September 2007
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs1hr 25min No interval

TICKETS: 08700 500511.
www.lyric.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 September.

Hymn to humanity from a polarised future.
September is Scottish month at Hammersmith’s Lyric, and Vanishing Point’s Studio show complements the National Theatre Scotland’s main-house Bacchae in originality, flair and purpose. In a fragmented future, Edinburgh’s lively neighbour Leith is divided into gated communities, with their grand private hospital, and the poor who walk around under ever-present camera control that identifies and names them, nanny-stating to extremes, controlling how much of their allowances they can spend on what.

This being Scotland, instant fines are announced for the now totally forbidden act of smoking (though at least no-one has a heart attack, something presumably rarer with the smoking ban).

Sandy Grierson’s excellent Patrick Duggan talks the story’s talk as he walks its walks. At first he keenly points out the different styles of tramping the streets; by the end he’s exhausted after the search for his father and an attempted fight back against the order imposed on Leith’s traditional population.

Grierson registers surprise, alarm, joy and connecting emotions within the narrative and moments of action. These often involve Rosalind Sydney’s nest of characters, their coolness matching the overall contained manner of Matthew Lenton’s production, which soon creates its own vivid dream-world feel.

A seven-strong band of strings, guitars and percussion become players in the scene, rejecting Patrick’s advance, chorically emphasising his praise of a local barmaid or becoming an intimidating opposition during his walk, their Kosovan origins subliminally intensifying Patrick’s sense of displacement.

The music (incredibly, uncredited) becomes a virtual character too, underscoring most of the action (present by its absence when it’s not there), variously lush, rhythmic, onomatopoeic (the sound of seagulls as characters awake), and often insinuatingly melodic.

Subway is a mini-epic, concentrated in its form. It’s the specifics that provide its strength, not only the performance skills so suitably blended but the script’s geography: treading down Leith Walk, past the smart King William V Hospital and Leith’s last chain-smoking rebel, up flights of vomit-strewn stairs, climbing Arthur’s Seat, hanging from the North Bridge, all in the course of its plot – aided by Kai Fischer’s set with its abstract slop to one side and moody lighting.

Performers: Sandy Grierson, Rosalind Sydney.
Musicians: Mohamed Al-Khazali, Ferdi Fanaj, Festim Fanaj, Adorel Haxhia, Flamur Lokaj, Artan Rexhepi, Astrit Stafai.

Director: Matthew Lenton
Designer/Lighting/Costume: Kai Fischer.
Sound: Matthew Padden.
Musical Director: Alasdair Macrae.
Dramaturg: Nicola McCartney.

2007-09-17 15:43:22