THE SIX DAYS WORLD. To 22 December.

London.

THE SIX-DAYS WORLD
by Elizabeth Kuti.

Finborough Theatre Finborough Pub 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED To 22 December 2007.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & Sun 3pm.
Runs 2hr 15min One interval.

TICJKETS: 0844 847 1652 (24hr no booking fee).
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 December.

Cold-comfort Christmas deserves more fire in performance.
Beneath the surface of Elizabeth Kuti’s play lies a structure familiar from T S Eliot’s The Family Reunion and David Storey’s recently-revived In Celebration among many others. It’s the story of a young family member coming home and opening up secrets from the past. Returning from Ireland to his family in south-east England, Eddie also brings his Irish partner Cat, and eco-aware sensitivities that care for the earth without him wanting to create new life for its future.

Eddie’s wilful childlessness relates to his dead brother, and his girlfriend, sister to Kirsty, who’s home longer-term to develop a bistro at her family’s pub. To help its Christmas Day ambience, Kirsty borrows a set of carved nativity figures done years before by Eddie’s dad Ralph, a retired craft teacher.

Kuti weaves her story through a rich weft of character relations and deeply-held, often concealed emotions. Alongside the Christmas motifs (the figure of the baby has gone missing from Ralph’s other carvings) there are Easter references in the damaged hands, Ralph acquiring something like stigmata in a confrontation aimed at concealing the past.

There’s a palindromic structure, starting and ending in Ralph’s garage, with its sense of the past in storage, sandwiching scenes in the home where Ralph and his wife Angela live their cold existence. Dead centre is the scene at the inn, where the baby-deprived crib of carved figures has been assembled. It’s in front of this birth scene the secret history of a past death is explored.

It’s just before this Eddie has a fast-paced rant against England and its ways. His resentment of his mother’s lack of interest reflects her attempts to catch the past through slides of her lost son. Time, too, seems to overlap as the action dips a few moments back between scenes, linking events in one location with their already-seen results.

It’s a rich, detailed piece but it needs more depth than Jamie Harper’s production provides. Some performances are lacklustre, while each seems a separate entity, with little sense of relationships formed, or deformed, over years. A pity, for this intriguing script deserves more.

Ralph: William Whymper.
Angela: Katharine Barker.
Eddie: Chris Moran.
Cat: Tracy Kearney.
Kirsty: Rosalind Porter.
Tom: Robert Emms.

Director: Jamie Harper.
Designer: James Lewis.
Lighting: Adam Bullock.
Sound: Tomas Gisby, Neil Townsend.
Costume: Nicky Bunch.
Nativity carvings: Eliza Kentridge.

2007-12-13 23:38:51