THE FAMILY PLAYS. To 21 December.
London.
THE FAMILY PLAYS:
The Good Family by Joakim Pirinen translated by Gregory Motton.
The Khomenko Family Chronicles by Natalia Vorozhbit translated by Sasha Dugdale.
Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) To 21 December 2007.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 3pm
BSL Signed 12 Dec.
Runs 1hr 25min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7565 5000.
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 December.
Family joy and discontent end the Theatre Upstairs' adventurous autumn of young playwrights from two continents.
Leo Tolstoy seemingly had it right when he said all happy families are happy in the same way. Leastways, Joakim Pirinen’s nuclear quartet of dad Lasse, mum Eva, plus teenage offspring Lena and Janne, shows Swedish family happiness with a smilingly prepackaged content. Everything in the garden’s lovely. And in the open-plan living-room And dining-room. And doubtless everywhere else.
Only the slightest, lightest feather of darkness intrudes as Janne shows some concern before informing his parents he’s homosexual. Never mind; it’s an opportunity for more smiling liberalism. Presumably such send-ups, current in England or America fifty years ago, remain pertinent in Sweden, though the country’s crime-writing at least suggests it’s a fiction only outlying parts could still maintain (or a truth only maintained in non-urban areas).
Joe Gibbins’ cast maintain the uni-dimensional joy for this single-stratagem piece’s forty minutes. Designer Ultz places the audience in a single row round the edges of a theatre filled by the family home as the family are full of their complacency. Such closeness raises one intriguing point; while the books lying round are by unimpeachably Swedish-sounding authors, Eva’s crocheting kit comes from Twilleys of Stamford.
Unhappy families are miserable in their own way, Tolstoy continues at the start of Anna Karenina. Ukrainian Natalia Vorozhbit’s threesome are certainly less than content as heavily-pregnant, garishly made-up mother and slovenly, beer-swilling dad visit their shaven-headed son on his hospital bed and drip.
Samantha Spiro and Jeremy Swift pinpoint the distance between this married pair, which is not just the length of the bed they sit apart. She’s hopeful, he disengaged. Between them is young Lyosha, Lewis Lempereur-Palmer excellent in a role that moves from questions about Chernobyl and the Twin Towers attack (which seems to him an exciting story of zooming airplanes) to a flight-dream in which excitement is invaded by adult fears.
Ultz replaces open Swedish spaces with a narrow, raised strip for the hospital-ward, while Lyosha’s dream takes him touring the space where the audience is left to fend for itself on floor-cushions or standing, an aptly messed-up arrangement for watching these tellingly dysfunctional lives.
The Good Family
Lena: Daisy Lewis.
Janne: Harry Lloyd.
Eva: Samantha Spiro.
Lasse: Jeremy Swift.
the Khomenko Family Chronicles
Lyosha: Lewis Lempereur-Palmer.
Lyuda: Samantha Spiro.
Kostya: Jeremy Swift.
Director: Joe Hill-Gibbins.
Designer: Ultz.
Lighting: Trevor Wallace.
Sound: Ian Dickinson.
Choreographer: Luca Silvestrini.
Assistant director: Michael Longhurst.
2007-12-12 12:14:57