THE FRONTLINE. To 17 August.
London.
THE FRONTLINE
by Che Walker.
Globe Theatre In rep to 17 August 2008.
17 Aug 1pm.
12 Aug 2pm.
3, 10 Aug 6.30pm.
16Aug 7.30pm.
BSL Signed 3 Aug.
Runs 2hr 35min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7401 9919/020 7087 7398.
www.shakespeares-globe.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 287 July.
Shakespeare’s Globe takes in modern street scenes.
There are a lot of characters in Che Walker’s play. By the end I thought I’d identified most, and I’d bet in real life no more than three of them would bother to vote. This play is about nothing so cohesive as an alternative society, but a parallel world, gathered outside an inner London tube-station, where most people get by, or are tolerated. Like old Ragdale, carrying his scrapbooks and convinced every young woman he meets is his lost daughter.
Money might be scarce for many, but it’s swilling around in drugs-deals and sex clubs. These aren’t shown, though red neon lighting points down to the Fantasy Club, where Violet works and from which she wants to keep her daughter Babydoll. One addict’s set up home in a smashed ‘phone kiosk; he’s as proprietorial as any suburban householder when a desperate Fringe writer/actor tries using it for a ‘phone call. But he goes with the swing of heroin, and it’s a question who’s the happier, heroin or ‘phone user.
Amid the violence, racial tensions and pride, there’s the call for connections. In a formal relationship, Violet stops her daughter descending to the Fantasy Club where women take their clothes off, while Ragdale searches out his child. And the community brings its own relationships when needed, as two hot-food stallholders advance with the sharper tools of their trade to protect Violet from the local thug. The club bouncer tries to improve himself by reading. People find solidarity in their ethnic histories.
There are negative urges too. It’s the groups that contain real inauthenticity. Happy-gospellers and anti-drugs law rappers both provide energy, but among the first the loss of Beth destroys Kurt’s faith, while the case against drugs is visible not only in Beth’s life but in evidence all around.
Some learn, some don’t; life goes on. In some ways a modern response to Jacobean comedy like Bartholomew Fair, this has a softer underbelly to its hard shell than Jonson’s play. It may not cut too deep but, in Matthew Dunster’s energetic production, it provides a panoramic street-level view filled with verve.
Babydoll: Naana Agyei-Ampadu.
Jayson: Ben Bishop.
Donna: Sally Bretton.
Casey: Kellie Bright.
Ragdale: Paul Copley.
Salim: Kurt Egyiawan.
Carlton: Huss Garbiya.
Mordechai Thurrock: Trystan Gravelle.
Cockburn: Robert Gwilym.
Kurt: Peter Hamilton Dyer.
Roderique: Fraser James.
Seamus: Paul Lloyd.
Mahmoud: Kevork Malikyan.
Violet: Jo Martin.
Jooie: Jodie McNee.
Jimmy: Matthew Newtion.
Elliot: Ashley Rolfe.
Beth: Golda Rosheuvel.
Marcus: Mo Sesay.
Erkenwald: John Stahl.
Val: Lorraine Stanley.
Miruts: Beru Tessema.
Benny: Danny Lee Wynter.
Street Fighters: Aaron Gordon, Clifford Lyonette, Matthew Pattimore, Chris Preddie, Luis Valentine, Nicholas Waters, Miles Yekinni.
Director: Matthew Dunster.
Designer: Paul Wills.
Composer/Musical Director: Olly Fox.
Choreographer: Georgina Lamb.
Voice/Dialect: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Movement: Glynn MacDonald.
Fight director: Kevin McCurdy.
Assistant director: Steven Jon Atkinson.
2008-07-29 10:23:13