TERROR 2007. To 10 November.
London.
TERROR 2007.
Union Theatre 204 Union Street SE1 To 10 November 2007.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm.
Runs 2hr 45min One interval.
Halloween Specials with Ken Campbell 29-31 Oct.
TICKETS: 020 7261 9876.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 October.
Good gruelling fun – but check you have all your limbs on exit.
The two parts of this year’s Union horrorshow are separated by more than a 15-minute interval. Both pieces in the first part are from original Grand Guignol, the blood and dismemberment craze that burst out of the Paris theatre of the same name, up to the early 1960s.
There were always opportunities to laugh amid the gore, as Noel Coward shows in his (newly rediscovered) 1922 piece The Better Half. It’s blessed with strong performances in Adam Meggido’s production, which overplays the falsity of a bored wife’s claims to sinfulness (Coward flirts with possibilities of violence) but is stylishly acted, Federay Holmes delving further into the central role than we, or, frankly, Coward, have the right to expect.
Francis Neilson and Jean Aragny’s Kiss of Death, newly translated by Tristan Langlois, is genuine Parisian blood-and-guts, with onstage trepanning and amputations. Say what you like about King Lear, I’ve never seen an audience shudder and hide their eyes as here. There’s a ghost who’s not a ghost and plenty of guilt as psychological back-up, but it’s the physical horrors that make it. If twenties Paris had stories of snuff theatre, this could have been their origin.
After a break (for a Bloody Mary, or a Screwdriver?) it’s into modern sophistication. Mark Ravenhill’s farcical Ripper gleefully suggests the notorious Jack was Queen Victoria herself. But beneath the blood-soaked sexual organs and wit, there’s a serious point, suggesting 20th-century political horrors emerged from sexual, and social, repression.
In Guns Or Butter Lucy Kirkwood ups the severance quotient in a racism-tinged war story. Set in the Marquis De Sade’s cell on his birthday, Darren Ormandy’s Sweetmeats involves rituals of sexual violence performed, in return for chocolates, on a washerwoman who hasn’t learned not to accept sweets from a stranger (and none is stranger than his lordship).
But the pair turn out to be involved in a different kind of performance, which itself may have further consequences. It’s a fine piece to wrap up the ‘orrors, which include some distinctly sinister between-the-scenes acts, in this Union Theatre co-production with new writing company The Sticking Place.
The Better Half
Allice: Federay Holmes.
Marion: Nikki Leigh Scott.
David: Will Barton.
Director: Adam Meggido.
Kiss of Death
LeDuc: John Fairfoul.
Joubert: Howard Teale.
Volguine: Nikki Leigh Scott.
Helene: Siobhan O’Kelly.
Director: Ben De Wynter.
Ripper
Queen: Bette Bourne.
Edward: Tim Samuels.
Doctor: Oliver Senton.
Eliza: Laura Martin-Simpson.
Director: Tamara Harvey.
Associate director: Cressida Brown.
Guns or Butter
Jarvis: Thomas McGairl.
Carr: Liam Smith.
Reed: Matthew Pearson.
Rashid: Irfan Hussain.
Cragg: Howard Teale.
Director: Tamara Harvey.
Associate director: Cressida Brown.
Sweetmeat
DeSade: Oliver Senton.
Marie-Constance Quesnet: Siobhan O’Kelly.
Sageret: John Fairfoul.
Madeline Leclerc: Holly Cavanagh/Claire Chate.
Director: Sarah Chew.
Designers: Ellan Parry, Robyn Wilson.
Lighting: Steve Miller.
Composer: Stephen Daltry.
Costume: Ellan Parry.
Magic/Special Effects: Seamus Allen.
2007-10-24 01:30:45