| Utterly Absorbing Cross-Continental Collaboration |
Kaite O'Reilly |
| Playing the Maids- The Llanarth Group, Gaitkrash & Theatre P’yut , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , March 9, 2015 |
The triadic colour schema is a compositional device commonly used in the visual arts. The schema takes two colours, close but not adjacent on the colour wheel, and matches them with a third, located on the wheel’s opposite side. The intention is a tonal harmony but one where the juxtaposition heightens the qualities of all. It is an analogy that the watching of this boldly cross-cultural collaboration suggests. “Playing the Maids” is substantially, but not always, meditative and over its unbroken seventy-five minutes mesmerically absorbing. The action is not easily communicable. The stage comprises five actors in black playing to the shifting, elliptical sound and occasional words from two sound artists also in full view, Adrian Curtin and Mick O’Shea. The voices of Regina Crawley and Bernadette Cronin, both resident in Cork, are richly Irish. Jing Hong Okorn-Kuo is from Singapore and Jeungsook Yoo and Sunhee Kim from Seoul. These culturally heterogeneous strands are fused by the partnership of Kaite O’Reilly in a dramaturgical capacity and director Philip Zarrilli. The pair’s “Told by the Wind” was critically acclaimed but never made it north of the Towy. The appearance of “Playing the Maids” at this venue is particularly appropriate as the Zarrilli-O’Reilly studio-cum-creative hub is situated just twenty miles away. Zarrilli, a performance scholar of depth and distinction, is author-contributor to Routledge’s magisterial “Theatre Histories” (2006, first edition). The artistic underpinning and justification may be found across its pages. A fellow author points to the fineness of the line that separates cultural hybridity from a vague diluted cultural tourism. “Playing the Maids” assaults familiar criteria of aesthetic judgement, in particular the emphatic beat of rhythm and propulsion The viewer has to allow the artists their own pace and the subtly shifting changes in sound and action. As for the clash of language and the moments of meta-theatricality they carry themselves with conviction. “Playing the Maids” transcends the genre of purely exploratory theatre,for two specific reasons. The first is that it is hitched to a specific source and one of some weight. Genet intriguingly fits both within the tradition of a logocentric theatre yet slightly to one side. He lends himself to a visual honing that starkly adumbrates the differentials of power. The first words distance this production from literalism. Whispered words set a scene as comprising furniture of Louis Quinze style while the actor opens a plain, wooden fold-up seat .So while “Playing the Maids” is not “the Maids” (for an appreciation of the Genet text pure see Theatr Pena’s treatment of June 2012) it is entirely true to the spirit of Genet. It is a variation, looking at among other subjects “the politics of intimacy.” But “we are not in the realm of words” runs an early line. The second is the quality of the artistry that is brought to bear. In the development process the O’Reilly dramaturgical presence can be taken to be crucial. All artistry is about creating inner pattern and density. The notes that accompany the production talk of “discovering parallels and counterpoints between the different cultures working so amicably in this collaboration… the closer and more apt the themes of Genet's play became: power, moneyed privilege, notions of beauty and the ideal female form.” Po-Hsin Liu’s design makes much use of floor-based lighting, creating an eerie monochrome that is reminiscent of Kirchner woodcuts, another artist who vaulted outside the confines of the European tradition. “Playing the Maids” has its moments of playfulness. The lights go up, always a disconcerting touch for an audience, for an enlivened stage-front song of unfamiliar Asian origin. Rear stage Regina Crawley and Bernadette Cronin break simultaneously into a “Riverfront” duet. The production comes with a slim but elegant programme whose eleven pictures- the bulk by Kaite O’Reilly- include Genet’s grave in Morocco. Thomas Piketty and Verdi are both cited. The funders for the production include the Peggy Ramsay Foundation. A personal note: “Playing the Maids” arrived in Aberystwyth the day after I had seen “the Nether”. I was cheered by the chance juxtaposition, manifestations of a theatre culture that is brave, varied and testing, but in both instances most importantly wants to be no more than itself. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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