| New Distinctive Voice of Great Promise |
At RWCMD |
| VS09- Richard Burton Company , Bute Theatre RWCMD , April 3, 2014 |
Roles for women of force or flamboyance are not that common in new writing on the stages of Wales. When Rhian Morgan and Siwan Morris carried off their awards in January it was for parts for an actor to sink her teeth into. “VS09” has been specifically written around seven RWCMD third-years, a few months before their entry into the profession. Hayley Squires has structured her seven-character play around three couples and a single figure moving between them. In her creation of the couples she has given her women the stronger, leading dynamic part. Writing like this is good to see.Not that the men are lacking in emotional depth. Greg Shewring’s George is the most intense with a lot of tangled hurt and anger within him. Charlie Hiett’s Thomas is a nervy travelling companion, the relative work-newcomer faced with the accusation that he simply does not have it for the job he is doing. Thomas Finnegan is the financial analyst in three-piece suit with his personal life in tatters. Moving between the three tables in the soulless airport eating-space is the waiter, created by Hayley Squires as a haunting, patient presence, philosophically-minded and wistful. His slight unearthliness is reinforced by his name of Laurel. In his playing Joe McDonnell gets all of this. A writer who knows it writes against expectation. In Hattie Gent’s costume design character Dorothy is a bright tatterdemalion ball of energy. Anni Dafydd endows her with a wondrous array of facial and physical animation. Her bouncing extroversion carries a back-story of sibling loss with a suffocating excess of parental concern in compensation. Against expectation she calls up onscreen for Anthony the publishing company that she owns; the numbers are looking nice Just a few feet away on the Bute’s packed stage Aleda Bliss’ Audrey is locked in a relationship of pain. The acting calls for, and gets, deep qualities of stillness and interiority. It looks as if writer, director Darren Lawrence and actor Emily Barber have had relish in their three-way making of Catriona. She is a battling winner in the PR jungle, on a new quest that is both potentially highly lucrative and ethically questionable. She is loud, querulous, disdainful of the menu’s offerings, aghast that she cannot get soya milk, and quite delicious to watch. The script contains a scattering of brand names and references. If a delete command went in the result would be more muscular and action-centred. But there is many a sign of wisdom to Hayley Squires’ writing. Her use of mobiles is a give-away. When a writer does not know how to keep an action going, a character inevitably reaches for a phone. A private conversation on a phone is a killer for an audience. A mobile features in “VS09” but it is used for a quiet and affecting purpose, that is theatre. Secondly she has done the walk, spent time in an airport in observation and absorbtion. But most important is the knowledge that writing can have a vivacious, comedic surface but that good comedy is the most serious of genres. The author takes her audience into stories of emotional depth and distinctiveness. The tight space of the venue places the young actors in a proximity to their viewers that will probably rarely happen in professional lives to come. The audience on two sides is barely a metre or so away. It is entirely fitting that the production moves next week to the most intimate of London’s venues. “VS09” plays the Gate Theatre in repertory 8th, 10th and 11th April. This bold initiative by RWCMD gives acknowledgement to the support of the Garfield Weston Foundation. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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