THE SEER. To 17 June.
Tour
THE SEER
by Ali Smith
Dogstar Theatre Tour to 17 June 2006
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 May at Maacrobert Arts Centre Stirling
Theatrically rather than dramatically rich.
For a time it looks as if novelist Ali Smith has been boning up on play-anthologies half a century old before setting out on her script. Her opening has the surface of modern life, in its pompously self-protective pair of bureaucrats, apparently wife and husband, going through their coldly polite evening routines, a bit co-operative, a tad competitive, but both more attached to their world of work. Could characters be more middle-class, mortgage-bound and office-headed?
Only an unexplained source of music, which she hears but he does not, disturbs the thank-God-I'm normal blandness. And the assertion, (a clear signal things are about to change) that everything in this life is predictable. It's going to have to do with the music because anyone handed the cast-list on entering, and not looking at the small print, will know there's nobody else due on stage. This is a sneaky way to work out what's going to happen - like the Willy Russell character who left Waiting for Godot at the interval because he'd seen fron the programme no-one was credited in the title-role.
Smith's Seer would have seen his cocksureness off. From this opening, sub-Bald Prima Donna start emerges a riotous whirl (as theatre publicists used to say) of events and characters, nothing remaining what it seems, including that trad theatre concept, the 4th Wall dividing stage reality from spectators. And the perception of wild (non)-sister Kirsty (Sarah Howarth with an invigorating performance) of the audience as beings through the wall echoes the mystery Scottish music of the opening.
It would be cruel to say more - you need to be a seer of this piece yourself to appreciate the fun Smith has. She provides as many plot-twists as any well-made play writer, though they play with, rather than within, stage reality. No wonder this is far from the writer's first play (it's been round awaiting production some years). But the theatrical fun doesn't mask that what's being said is less original. And there are some flaws. Though Irene Allen gives a finely embarrassed display as someone surprised to be on stage, once she's shown up as a pretentious incomer (as an Inverness person living in Cambridge, Smith must know the experience - minus the adjective) there's nowhere for the character to go so she's sent into an elongated trance.
Meanwhile, Kirsty's energising presence spends a considerable time offstage. And the final repair to the first couple's lives seems incidental rather than arising inevitably from an action, most of which has been done to them. Still, there's enough here to provide gentle amusement for a couple of innocent hours.
Iona: Vivien Grahame
Neil: Douglas Russell
Kirsty: Sarah Howarth
Sabrina: Irene Allen
Janice/Mrs Henderson: Mairi Morrison
Director: Matthew Zajac
Designer: David Ramsay
Lighting: Cara Wiseman
Sound: Andy Thorburn
Costume: Kirsteen Naismith
2006-05-30 11:04:55