THE BABY BOX. To 22 March.
London.
THE BABY BOX
by Chris Leicester.
Old Red Lion 418 St John’s Street EC1V 4NJ To 22 March 2008.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 6pm.
Runs 1hr 15min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7837 7816.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 March,.
Baby boom exploding in midlife crisis.
In Washington unwanted new-born babies can legally be left at a hospital or (bizarrely) fire-station. In Amsterdam, they can be taken to a kind of safe-deposit at hospitals. Placing an infant in such a ‘baby box’ triggers an alarm and staff collect the child. Such procedures, Chris Leicester’s play strongly suggests, are less traumatic than English haphazardness.
Yvonne suffers with both her adoptive and, when she traces her, birth mother. Relations with fellow-adoptee sister Glenda aren’t good either; Glenda wants her out of the house their mother left to her. And Yvonne’s early experiences ricochet to the next generation. As the time-veering action opens, the sisters seem around 40, though both performers look younger.
Leicester, or director Stephen Henry, solves the shoestring-budget problems of short scenes in various locations by starting the play as if in rehearsal, with scripts lying handy, minimal props, virtually no costume and a stage-manager ever-ready with tea and stage-directions.
It also matches the provisional sense Yvonne has about her own reality, though the limited-budget doesn’t allow much sense of change when basic lighting takes over, the action flows independently and stage-management is edged to the sidelines, and then offstage.
Perhaps the point is Yvonne never has the security of feeling at home anywhere (she isn’t – she’s either camping-out at her sister’s or visiting the past). Or that her memories focus on her feelings. When a table-top becomes an attic prison, what’s significant is the memory of fear and hectoring from an adult.
It needs quick-wits to keep up with where and when we are, and sometimes exactly who Joanna Watt and Iain Peacock are portraying. But this intricacy, unhelpful though it can be, reflects Yvonne’s tangled mind, the search for somewhere to anchor herself.
Sarah Finigan traces Yvonne’s journey into her past, and its memories with clarity, while Watt varies face and voice between characters (it’s just which is where in the story that’s hard to keep up with). To say Peacock gives a neutral performance of his characters is to say be plays his parts appropriately in what’s essentially a conflict of the women.
Yvonne: Sarah Finigan.
Glenda: Joanna Watt.
The Men in their Lives: Iain Peacock.
Stage Manager: Rachael Polsom.
Director: Stephen Henry.
Lighting: Andrew Tandy.
2008-03-04 11:06:17