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.
Savagely grotesque and teeming with the monstrous, Tennessee Williams’ play Suddenly Last Summer is truly a jungle in which no one is safe from the predators of humanity. Swamped with a hazy delirium and detached reality, DramaSoc’s latest production bewilders and beguiles and leaves some gruesome issues to fester in the minds of its audience.
Last summer, whilst travelling in Europe with his cousin Catharine, Sebastian Venable dies in mysterious circumstances, the truth about which only Catharine can reveal. But Sebastian’s powerful mother, Violet, is fiercely determined to silence her ‘obscene babble’ in any means she can.
Considered Williams’ most poetically intense play, consisting mainly of anecdotal monologue and devoid of any real action, DramaSoc had a real challenge on their hands to make their latest production an engaging piece of theatre. However, through the simplistic yet elegant styling of the piece and with a real faith in William’s script, I felt that this performance achieved a powerful resonance. This was heightened by the fantastic performances of Fran Isherwood, whose psychologically turbulent Catharine was played with intensity and integrity, and Henrietta Mitchell who captured both the predatory and yet fearful nature of Violet Venable. The other characters also offered good performances, most notably Colette Eaton’s Mrs Holly, but felt slightly overpowered by the two principal female characters whose story-telling skills were so engaging that the surrounding characters occasionally felt like an unnecessary distraction.
The performance also evidently profits from excellent direction from Sophia Steiger who captures the play’s surface sleekness and exoticism but allows it to seep with the unsaid and the unmentionable. I also felt that the intimate atmosphere of the Drama Barn really complemented the almost stifling atmosphere of the play and gave its disquieting subtleties a far greater impact on the audience. Suddenly Last Summer is a darkly mysterious play in which it is up to you to try and fumble through the stifling haze of secrets, tales and lies and perceive the truth of what really happened on that fateful day suddenly last summer.
Suddenly Last Summer is on at the Drama Barn on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th November.
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