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.
Howling Moon follows the journey of Maggie (Gemma Whitham) as she travels through the forest of her imagination, meeting various strange creatures along the way. Sam McCormick’s desperately charming depiction of the Fox was hilarious and excellently portrayed, and provided much of the humour of the production. Unfortunately, some of the Fox’s scenes with Maggie were dominated by very samey staging which, coupled with long monologues, became monotonous. Whitham did well to sustain energy throughout the long performance, but didn’t show any range as an actress; Maggie was portrayed as being in a perpetual state of anguish, which became a little wearing to watch and made me lose sympathy for the character.
Visually, the set was amazing. The Barn was turfed, and leaves, twigs and flowers covered the walls. As you walked through the foyer, a glittery moon was lit as a feature on the wall, an indication of the surreal fantasy world to come. The birds were the most surreal set of characters. Girl-Boy (Michael Wilkins) made his first entrance holding a chain, attached to the end of which was Secret (Sion Clarke), crawling and wearing a pillowcase over his head. Wilkins was completely altered due to his heavy make-up (think big black pout and huge false eyelashes), but it would have been evident even without the visual stimuli, as his acting made the entire bizarre scenario believable. He also coped with the difficulty of not making his prima donna character a Rocky Horror pastiche.
Which leads me to the costumes. The make-up and costumes were one of the best things about this production. They ranged from exhibiting the versatility of bin bags, to the labour-of-love wolf costume that was an incredible mash of fur and body paint. Daisy Bunyan (costume, hair and make-up and also The Mushroom) successfully rose to the challenge of designing an incredibly strange, fairytale world.
However, there were some directorial choices that didn’t seem to fit with the overall design of the play. I usually really enjoy the employment of music in theatre to help create atmosphere, but the choice of music (Journey, Kate Bush, Florence and the Machine, to name a few) jarred with the wild, fantastical setting.
Another notable performance was the Wolf (Josh Littlewood). His deep, growling vocalisation sent shivers down my spine but did not affect the clarity or projection of his lines, which is no mean feat. The scenes of dance that were dotted throughout the play were beautifully executed, but seemed a bit random. The Tree King (Bengee Gibson) and his Trees (Abigail Denneny; Miranda Thomas; Hayley Thompson) maintained their focus and an impressive collective stage presence in roles that had no lines, but some of the dances did not seem to fit in with the plot, or were clearly used as a time-filler whilst other performers got ready backstage.
The actual script was very accomplished, unusually so for student-written plays, and did not deviate from the dreamlike style of language. However, in what seemed like an attempt to draw out dramatic tension, the play was overly long. Key plot information was revealed to the audience so sparsely and infrequently that it became hard to follow what was the secret hiding in Maggie’s nightmareish imagination. Howling Moon is the epitome of theatrical metaphor, and consequentially is well worth a visit, but I warn you – take rations and your stamina.
I fear this reviewer has completely missed the point of the production and has used a cruel and unprofessional tone in her criticism. Although Bennett is entitled to her opinion, I strongly disagree, Gemma Whitham acted her part with conviction and connection to the text. Her portrayal of Maggie was genuinely moving and provided an excellent anchor to the play.
Perhaps the above person disagrees because she is, in fact, Gemma Whitham...?
comment deleted by the author I fee the above review is much a case of 'people who live in glass houses'.. having seen Catherine Bennett in, quite frankly, two of the worst productions I have ever seen in the barn, I feel she is poorly equipped to comment on the 'range' of other actresses.
I also feel she has fundamentally misunderstood the point of the play, all the characters in the fantasy forrest represent aspects of the protagonists fractured psyche, therefore Whithams continually state of anguish, was exactly the role dictated by the script.
I am not sure whether Whitham is new to the barn, or indeed the university, but I shall be interested to see her in future productions.
Overall I feel it was a fine piece of student written theatre, and Heather Wilmot shows much promise as a writer. Yes the barn was hot, which probably didn't help, but the piece was significantly absorbing and engaging to overcome this small inconvenience of weather.
comment deleted by the author While I do agree that much of the emotion in the play was deliberately outsourced to other characters and the trees, and personally I was very convinced by Whitam’s performance, I am rather appalled that people decided the best way to disagree with the reviewer was by deeply personal (and anonymous) insults.
Personally, I rather liked the short dance sequences to highlight the various moods of Maggie at the time – I would provide an example, but don’t want to spoil anything.
In answer to the above question; Gemma Whitam is a second year, and has appeared in Bedroom Farce, 101 Ways To Pretend You’re Not Forty and Half Moon Man before now
While it's sweet that all of the Drama Barn crew comes out to defend their own theatre is up to interpretation as much as music, film, paintings etc.
A reviewer is as entitled to an opinion and I think here is was well expressed. The fact that someone disliked it to an extent that they got personal (yes #4) is a bit pathetic. Most of the reviewers here are overtly positive about all drama barn productions so it was actually a nice change of pace to see a negative or two mentioned.
I think the important point to remember in all this is that everybody has opinions but they also have feelings, and people who write both reviews and comments need to remember this. We are all students, trying things out in what should be a 'safe' environment. I really think there needs to be more kindness expressed in general.
I disagree profoundly with many of the points raised in this review. But I do it without resorting to outrageously inappropriate, boorish and cowardly anonymous personal attacks on the reviewer.
Anonymous #4 and anonymous #7, you have made pretty unpleasant generalisations against the society and other productions within it. This is not on. Refrain.
I would like to just clarify the point the review has raised about the tree dances. To the best of my knowledge, none of the dances were intended as time-fillers. Nor were they needed as time-fillers, as the lack of costume changes meant that backstage preparation was minimal. In addition, each dance was created with a specific purpose in terms of the plot.
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