THE PRESENT To 5 September.
London.
THE PRESENT
by Nick Ward.
The Cock Tavern Theatre 125 Kilburn High Road NW6 6JH To 5 September 2009.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 5pm.
Runs 2hr 5min One interval.
TICKETS: 08444 771000.
www.cocktaverntheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 August.
High ambition in a small space in Kilburn suggests Good Night Out could be a company to watch.
Now, Danny is given a gift at the end of Australian writer Nick Ward’s 1995 play from and about the past – and the future, which whirl around the present in a manner explained by Nietzsche; a difficult philosopher one of the four young adults here starts reading, and whose ideas another two of them discuss, though without agreeing how to pronounce his name.
The past, what’s evidently real and what is possibly imagined, limits young Danny, over in Australia from northern England looking up a former artist lover Libby, and being taken in (two ways) by Michael, who initiates him into an art con, flogging mass-produced landscapes as his own inspirited creations, under an assumed name.
There are other cons, and self-delusions, like the fierce feminism with which Libby’s friend Becky cloaks her self-doubts. She, like Michael, tends to violence when it suits, he alternating it with humour, she with sex. Of which there’s a lot – everyone gets to kiss everyone else at some point, and sometimes simultaneously.
There again, the setting’s 1980 and an era’s just ended with John Lennon’s murder, a real killing amid several possible ones mentioned in the action. How the amalgam of actions, lies and untruths are received may be weighted by individuals' views of Lennon (there is a moment’s re-creation of sixties hippy-dress as well as the usual drug-accompanied lifestyle). Among the tracks heard there’s ‘All You Need Is Love’ which, even allowing for the circumstances of its composition, is a prime example of anything too daft to be said being sung.
Adam Spreadbury-Maher’s production suffers from limited scope for staging – an imaginary tree producing real leaves and, presumably, licensing laws that have characters nipping out of a window whenever they smoke. More seriously, Libby, the artist, who the others all desire some way, lacks the aura of ambiguity, seeming effortful and dull.
Yet Shelley Lang invests Becky with fury redirected from self-anger, Nathan Godkin’s Michael has an apt unpredictability of mood for someone whose guiding-light shines solely on self-interest, and Max Lindsay’s Danny is a sharp-etched portrait of the stranger far from paradise.
Danny : Max Lindsay.
Michael: Nathan Godkin.
Becky: Shelley Lang.
Libby: Sophie Brabenec.
Director: Adam Spreadbury-Maher.
Lighting: Steve Lowe.
Costume: Jemima Cater-Lewis.
Fight director: Miles Mlambo.
Assistant director: Tess Butler.
2009-08-24 02:05:41