Vermilion Dream. To 20 November

Salisbury

VERMILION DREAM
by Chris Lee

Salberg Studio, Salisbury Playhouse To 20 November 2004
Mon-Sat 7.45 p.m. Mat 20 November 2.30 pm
Runs 1hr 40min No Interval

TICKETS: 01722 320333: http://www.salisburyplayhouse.com
Review Mark Courtice: 9 November 2004

Madness and creativity not quite the heady mix you might think. Miriam wants to cut off her right hand. It's not so much that it offends, but that Miriam is an artist for whom the burden of creativity (more particularly her sense of failure) is too great. She feels a failure in not living up to Durer and Titian, her heroes from art history, now becoming more and more real in her dreams. No hand - no more compulsion to paint; logical or mad? Psychiatrist Ruth has to try and sort her out.

Lee's play is an unwieldy exploration of the responsibility of creation, a disquisition on the relationship between painting and drawing, and a pair of twenty-first century love stories (Ruth has her own story of work and love, intertwined with that of her patient). With all this, it is disappointing that so little actually changes in the play's one and a half hours.

The broad brush is part of the problem. If the play were to concentrate on less then things could be explored in more depth and move on further. The best writing for instance is between the contemporary lovers, so much wittier and direct than the theorising about art, or the "Lives of Famous Artists" drama-doc re-enactment dialogue from Albrecht and Tizanio.

Nina Raine's production gives the play the very best of everything. Ben Stones' set is terrific. The back wall is both crumbling fresco and torn canvas creating shapes and images like a landscape. Kevin Scott's lighting is clever and subtle. Raine's direction keeps the play moving and although the psychiatrist's chair is stubbornly un-dramatic she seizes chances to create telling images and significant action with flair and a neat sense of staging.

Performances are top rate, especially from the excellent Catherine McCormack who invests Miriam with a mixture of vulnerability and determination that makes it easy to believe in her as an artist as well as a madwoman. All the cast give energy to the long debates and underline the human interest, constantly making it important and visible even when the writing has gone off into the realms of art theory.

Miriam: Catherine McCormack
Ruth: Caroline Faber
George: Simon Wolfe
Durer: Sebastian Harcombe
David/Titian: James Wallace

Director: Nina Raine
Designer: Ben Stones
Lighting: Kevin Scott
Sound: David Bennion-Pedley

2004-11-13 11:03:10