WHAT WE DID TO WEINSTEIN till 12 November
London
WHAT WE DID TO WEINSTEIN
by Ryan Craig
Menier Chocolate Factory 53 Southwark Street SE1 To 12 November 2005
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 6pm Mat Sat 3.30pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7907 7060
www.menierchocolatefactory.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 9 October
Boldly produced play of current tensions.
Whatever they did to Weinstein, it happened a long time ago. The memory survives in old men’s minds, steady lit agent Sam and his excitable writer-friend Max. Dying in hospital, Max quarrels with his friend, argues vehemently with son Josh and is an awkward patient for Muslim nurse Yasmin.
It’s through these young people the main story unfolds, Weinstein’s treatment in earlier days a backdrop to author Ryan Craig’s depiction of modern Middle East tensions and violence, ranging from army quarters in Israel to the British Muslim home where Yasmin’s brother is moving into strict neo-Islamic territory, trying to drag his sister with him. It leads her to one of the play’s clearest statements of a dilemma: “I’m English. And I’m scared of getting on the tube.”
These siblings give the play its hottest crucible. When Tariq tells Yasmin, “I know where I am. Where I come from. What my destiny is,” he’s voicing the attraction of religious fundamentalism forever. Though his persistent visions of his sister’s supposed sexual adventures suggests a psycho-sexual obsession, the young man he drives away from her turns out a predatory racist.
Discussions like that above give the play its surging pulse of the moment. There’s little behind the situation, though, to give characters greater depth. And some areas of the action are less clearly defined than others. Particularly, the racist Waiter seems a tacked-on servant of thematic concerns, while Josh’s experience as an Israeli soldier holding a suspected terrorist has a fine climax but doesn’t earn its protracted build-up throughout the action.
Still, there’s food for contemporary chewing-over here, and Tim Supple’s production throws the works at it on the Menier’s taut, open stage – a versatile space that’s showing itself apt for dynamic presentation of bold new work. He provides an energised production, sweeping across a stage surrounded by fragmented stone emplacements and army lockers, a hospital ward, restaurant or home being suggested simply by a bed or table. Vineeta Rishi finely contrasts her 2 Muslims, peaceful Yasmin and activist Samira, while Leonard Fenton and Harry Towb ably depict violence recalled across the years.
Josh: Josh Cohen
Officer/Waiter: Matthew Burgess
Yasmin/Samira: Vineeta Rishi
Max: Harry Towb
Sam: Leonard Fenton
Sara: Miranda Pleasence
Yusef/Tariq: Pushpinder Chani
Director: Tim Supple
Designer: Simon Scullion
Lighting: Jackie Shemesh
Composers: Lemez Lovas/Yaniv Fridel
2005-10-12 14:55:32