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.
We all have our demons. Obscure reaches of the psyche where imperfect images of the self lurk and creep, blind bedfellows of the darkness. York Alumnus Hannah Davies, the writer of Hot Stuff, (which successfully premiered in the Drama Barn in 2008) has brilliantly mapped the topography of this neurotic wasteland in this, her pearling slice of vibrant ephemera. It is a pity that the university’s newest theatrical space, the Derwent Studio, is home to this exciting new play for two nights only, but I may rest assured. Such works don’t remain ‘on the shelf’ for long.
The Derwent, a box-like blank canvas, was tantalisingly cleared of stage clutter, barring a low-level, trapeze-like dais. It was here, as the set is first flushed with drab light, that the show’s solo-performer (the scintillating Audrie Woodehouse) is dimly perceived; all in black, back to us, snarling over a hunched shoulder with diabolic intent: a monster. Vaulting clear of the platform, the creature is transformed as the lights blush-up to reveal that we are mistaken. This is not a hellish Hecate but an ordinary woman of flesh and blood. Casually unfurling and donning a white apron, we learn from her bantering chat that she is a waitress, hard-up but hardily chipper, a lover of cash on-the-hip and all the things it can buy; steaming, luxuriant mugs of coffee, and great bags of shopping that can be ranged about ‘like pets’. She also enjoys pleasures of the more picaresque sort, being fond of a few jars and a casual fuck. Hers is limited life but, in a way, a rich one. We’d happily bind her in a nutshell and count her Queen of infinite space. If only she didn’t have bad dreams. She is increasingly sallied by a nightmare vision, the monstrosity of the play’s opening image, a premonition of something terrible and strange that won’t go away.
We all come to the end of ourselves. Life is punctuated by stark, blaring end-stops that rudely force a shift of gear, a violent switch in perspective or discordant change of key. It is within and behind such moments that life is lived or un-lived; where people choose life, or a kind of figurative death. Davies is to be highly commended for offering us this subtle portrait of a lady, whoever she may be. I’m no psychologist, but I fear that she had a problematic relationship with a difficult mother, is scared of the children she may never have to love, and utterly distrustful of her sex in general. She may even fundamentally doubt the veracity of her own existence. But she’s startling human, and endures with enormous spirit. Woodehouse is an electrifying physical and emotional presence in the part, and fully deserves a large share of the plaudits. As does Sarah Breece for her shifting, delicately textured lighting design. This is the finest play of its kind I have seen of late, outside of David Tushingham’s translation of Dea Loher’s remarkable Land Without Words. Wonderful.
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