THE WINTERLING. To 8 April.

London

THE WINTERLING
by Jez Butterworth

Royal Court Theatre (Jerwood Theatre Downstairs) To 8 April 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 3.30pm
Audio-described 8 April 3.30pm (+ Touch Tour 2pm)
BSL Signed 21 March
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden March

All very clever – but haven’t we seen something like this before?
This play combines the urban danger of Jez Butterworth’s celebrated debut Mojo with the rural follow-up of The Night Heron in a story of gangsterland Londoners on a Dartmoor farm. In a close allusion to the first play, Butterworth introduces near the end of Winterling black plastic sacks intended for human contents, recalling the sinister bins of Mojo’s Soho.

A year back, the middle act shows, West went where his name suggests, arriving on Dartmoor a shivering refugee. This step back in time provides contrast rather than explanation. The outer acts show West now in cold command, relating only to a dog given him by the unexplained Lue. She’s called a thief and whore by countryman Draycott. But he calls himself a cook, and there’s little evidence that’s true.

The time-switch reinforces another parallel. When the near-silent West arrived Draycott acted like a Lord of the Manor; in the present-day he’s requesting a night’s shelter in the porch. Both the dialogue, with its occasional flights of verbal virtuosity and frequent sense that a lot’s been said to paper over the risk of feelings rising to the surface, and this unaccountable change of status have the comic impact and underlying tension of Pinter. (The Caretaker comes to mind in Draycott’s boasts and importunities, The Dumb Waiter’s recalled near the end.)

It’s hard to see where the play, setting up mysteries it never explains, takes us. Even Lue, about to leave the previous year, remains a year on. Is she happier? What’s happening to West in his move from silence to taciturnity? Does the matter of human communication need another outing?

Ian Rickson’s production is scrupulous. Robert Glenister makes West’s every shiver speak. Roger Lloyd Pack couldn’t be bettered in the physical and verbal confidence he uses to persuade himself it’s worth going on. Daniel Mays is excellent in his verbal dexterity and concern for his muddied state mixed with half-innocent, half-calculating assertiveness. Jerome Flynn’s fine in the ungiving role of Wally, while Sally Hawkins gives Lue a sense of protective self-concealment with hints she wishes for something more. As did I.

West: Robert Glenister
Draycott: Roger Lloyd Pack
Wally: Jerome Flynn
Patsy: Daniel Mays
Lue: Sally Hawkins

Director: Ian Rickson
Designer: Ultz
Lighting: Johanna Town
Sound: Ian Dickinson

2006-03-13 01:31:08