| Sensitive and low-key |
Theatr Iolo |
| Theatr Iolo- Hazey Jane , Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Plasmawr , March 24, 2007 |
We know that when Shaun starts “Dear Nick” he’s addressing his written thoughts about Jane to cult singer Nick Drake, because Drake’s youthful, sensitive face gazes at us from the collage of images that provide the backdrop to Theatr Iolo’s new show.Not so many of the young audiences at whom this is pitched will, I suspect, recognise the name, the photo or the title of the show, a reference to two songs on a 1970 Drake album. But Kevin Lewis’s shows avoid any hint of dumbing-down or patronising: this may be a play about teenagers made for teenagers but it’s made by adults and has adult artistic standards. Actually, there will be just as many in the audience, perhaps, who also don’t recognise Sonny Boy Williamson or the other Chicago blues singers that Shaun favours. But he’s an odd lad, with plans to spend his summer working in a Parisian restaurant and ambitions to be another Heston Blumenthal. Jane, on the other hand, has more academic leanings but a different taste in music. She’s the one who lends Shaun her Nick Drake CD but actually prefers more popular stuff, consistently gets As and assumes she’ll follow in her father’s footsteps and become a doctor. Hazey Jane is the love story of this unlikely couple. I first caught it at a special adult-only showing at Llanover Hall, where it seemed rather remote (as, indeed, it is time-wise for most of us oldies in the audience !) but it works so much better in the milieu for which it’s intended, with Year 13 kids recognising if not all the music the feelings and dilemmas of its two characters. From a distance, as it has to be for me, it still touches, although it brings back memories rather than relating immediately. I’m full of admiration for Kevin Lewis and writer Nick Wood, who seem to able to imagine life some decades in the past for them; for actors Liza Zahra and Steve Hickman there’s not so much of an age difference, although it’s no mean achievement to inhabit their characters so convincingly. Hickman in particular is always an impressive delight, an excellent performer who exudes personality with seemingly effortless ease. He creates a Shaun who has that familiar mix of late-adolescent gaucherie and cockiness as he nervously licks his lips, his eyes darting around as he tries to assess the situation, especially his relationship with this odd new girl, the one who still hangs on to her Britney albums, who is from a privileged background and is a star pupil but who suffers from panic attacks. The story of their relationship is told in flashback as they reminisce and we can see how they become closer, with one memorable scene at a fair, where she, for all her insecurities and panic attacks, enjoys the thrill of the big wheel and he, for all his bravado, is scared stiff – a scene created by just sitting on a seat with an all-purpose frame as the swing-car, a minimal string of LEDs indicating the fairground. With Holly McCarthy’s minimalist set allowing the actors to create situations and characters, a well-developed script and direction that produces a constantly changing pace, Hazey Jane (Drake’s spelling rather than Spellcheck’s) is a sensitive, low-key study of a relationship that if you’re too old to be there you’ll still recognise with affectionate nostalgia. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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