Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
The first, Pool, is about a group of artistic friends who are jealous when one of the members of the group becomes famous. It follows the anger, jealousy, guilt and disapointment that has built over a number of years to a background of projections.
It deals with emotion and the notion that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to. Mark Smith's direction was impressive, especially during a section involving torches; the lights are used to build the excitement and tension and aid the actors when the play takes a tragic turn for the worst.
The actors, Danie Linsell, Tom Powis and Alex Wright twirl around the stage as the dialogue flows in a stream like the water that the play is centred upon. I found my eyes darting from one side of the room to the other as they finished each others sentences and continuously swapped characters. Through the chaos on stage though, it was suprisingly easy to keep up with what was happening after a while and I rather enjoyed the fast pace of it all.
In the second half we have Hot Stuff, where the movement from Pool continues and we are confronted with a dysfunctional couple who decide to take a holiday to sort out their problems. They tell us of the shocking events that happen whilst they are away and the series of actions that led to them boarding the plane in the first place.
The content of the play does involve some rather coarse language, of which we were warned about before the play began. This is true particularly for the first half, yet it is used to reflect the violent emotions of the half-crazed and eccentric characters and therefore almost feels necessary.
In Hot Stuff particularly, Alex Wright acts with great skill, switching between two characters with only the location of two chairs to subtly change the situation.
Although the subject of the first was not entirely to my liking or at times my understanding, I do think that it lends itself to some fine directing and a lot can be done with it on an artistic front. In both halves the acting was on top form, the timing perfect and the actors really worked well together as a trio.
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