THE WOODEN FROCK. To 25 April.
Tour
THE WOODEN FROCK
by Tom Morris and Emma Rice
Kneehigh Theatre at West Yorkshire Playhouse (Courtyard Theatre) to 14 February then tour to 25 April 2004
Runs: 2hr 20min One interval
TICKETS: 0113 213 7700 (West Yorkshire Playhouse)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 February at West Yorkshire Playhouse
A company to watch in a show that can still grow.Whatever the story they're telling, this company makes everything a Kneehigh show. At best, this means a distinctive style, low comedy intertwining with theatrical mystery. Anyone seeing Kneehigh for the first, or third, time might find that all here. But there's a danger a company style can become over-familiar, predictable even. It needs to be organic. There are times in The Wooden Frock where the material starts seeming manufactured.
Emma Rice's production exploits the traverse staging well. A swathe of red curtain passing over Mary's dying Mother, Bec Applebee as the maternal spirit, still glamorously dressed, looking from a walkway above at her daughter this is beautifully presented.
As, in more comic register, is the search for a right-sized finger Mother had made John Surman's Father (who never expected to outlive his beloved wife) promise only to remarry someone whose finger fitted her wedding ring. Audience members are brought onstage to poke a digit through the plush, to no avail.
There's low comedy as Mike Shepherd's drag Nurse tries to put off the fateful marriage that's set to ensue. Whistling along, different scenes being played to the two audience-halves without losing sense of the action it all leads to Mary's flight into act two.
Where the production delights in giving actors roles contrasting their first-act work. Elegant Mother becomes a simple-minded lad, Mary's dad a dog; Alex Murdoch's intrepid Ronald, his doggedness unwittingly outwitting Nurse's benevolent stratagems, becomes an august royal matriarch. Most also turn up as geese. It's good enough fun, but has its limits. While the denouement needs to be delayed, there's a growing sense of this act treading theatrical water, with a narrative that's nowhere to go.
It also misses the thrilling intensity and fluidity of manner Rice brings to those Kneehigh shows where she's performing. Yet individual performances here show the company's usual interplay of understated, sometimes cross-dressing, comedy and narrative wonder always, seriousness ruling on the surface. There may be reshaping or tightening as the tour progresses. Any Kneehigh's better than none, but as yet this Frock is Kneehigh not quite in full flight.
Mary: Amanda Lawrence
Nurse/Prince: Mike Shepherd
Mother/Stupid Peter: Bec Applebee
Ronald/Prince's Mother: Alex Murdoch
Father/Rex: John Surman
Director: Emma Rice
Designer: Bill Mitchell
Lighting: Alex Wardle
Video: Mic Pool
Music/Musical Director: Stu Barker
Costume: Emma Rice, Vicki Mortimer
2004-02-14 00:25:41