| The Views from Wales |
At National Theatre Wales |
| National Theatre Wales & Royal Court , Theatre of Wales , January 10, 2020 |
The critical reactions in England to “On Bear Ridge” are summarised in the articles below November 9th and November 16th 2019. The production did not play in Wales outside Cardiff. It was a city affair, a paradox that those in the Fro were deprived of any sight of theatre supposedly about their own language. I bought a ticket for a London performance, the buying of a ticket absolving me of an obligation to write a review. At the time this suited me. The company had been through turbulence. Ed Thomas is both likeable and important. The point that he has repeated over and over and made his own is entirely valid. “On Bear Ridge” in London was just another Royal Court production albeit with a grade-A lead actor. His presence prompted a huge quantity of advertising, posters to be seen as far as away as the bustling station at Stratford. The production's last echo was to be heard in Wales' summary of he year gone by. Gary Raymond took the lead in both print and on radio. Before the critical assessment from Wales it is worth remembering that it was subject to a pre-production publicity blitz without precedent. Radio Wales' “Arts Show” of 13th September dropped its four-topic magazine format in favour of a full-programme feature. It was not in any way a critical affair. The play's structure was declared to be “fantastic”. This is false. The crudity of the structure was to the fore. A character walks on, goes in for a lot of reminiscence. Another enters via a trap-door and ditto. In terms of stage action it was inert. The BBC presenter applauded the vividness of characterisation. It is a view. Without action the characters had nothing to reveal. Mournful reminiscence is a feature of human experience but it does not reveal characterful complexity. Wales' social conservatism is deep. In that respect the conservatism of National Theatre is representative. The gender treatment of the Mam-figure can be seen in the language of the casting call: “Noni, Female, Age 50. A leading role. Robust, authentic butcher, farmer and mother who’s lived in the hills forever and knows and breathes the land. Kind, tough, resilient, joyful, warm, wily and wise. As capable as any man of using a shotgun, she is the fabric that holds things together in a fast-changing world.” When it came to Wales' own solitary review programme the critics split. One on “the Review Show” was for it while the other two were lukewarm. The director was cited as to “the poetry that expands into a universal mythological world“. Radio was able to play some dialogue. “How did you get to be so old?” “Because time fell asleep in the snow and never told us.” Gary Raymond on Radio: “I found the supposed poetics of the script to be quite flat, trying too hard. I wasn't engaged with it and every time there was a nod to Beckett or Pirandello this was not up to the standard of those great playwrights.” “The political allegory I found quite strange.” This was right. Dystopias need to have an internal logic. Ballard, Mad Max, Cormac McCarthy all have it in their own ways. In the Wales of Bear Ridge industrial production has gone but energy still flows unimpeded. There is petrol a-plenty for the tractor. Gary Raymond, alone among the critics, looked at the ethics : “I felt it was on very thin ice with the death of an offstage character described as being murdered because he is speaking the old language. And the similarity between the way he is murdered and the countless racist and homophobic attacks, connecting the suppression of the old language with that kind of violence was treading on very, very thin ice.” This is important. In the Wales-of-the-world people are murdered for being of a religion or a gender that varies. In the Wales of what is essentially state art citizens are murdered for speaking Welsh. In the world-as-is Welsh is showered in money and support. Its slow antagonist is not hate but love. Gary Raymond later in print: “On Bear Ridge is not a great play. It probably isn’t even a very good one. It is vague, peppered with clichés and plot holes, and, as a text, undercooked in momentum as much as it is boiled to tastelessness in poetics. It is a well-directed, well-acted disappointment.” As for myself my experience was one of utter tedium. Tedium dropped, and remained, within the first crucial seven or eight minutes. “On Bear Ridge” only lasts 85 minutes but they hung heavy. The Antelope pub is first right, first left out of the theatre after the plaque to Aneurin Bevan and Jennie Lee. Mentally I was yearning for the theatre to end. The audience at the end was polite enough, but far from on their feet. The production is superb from cast to Cai Dyfan’s design and Elliot Griggs lighting. “It is hard to imagine the show being better served than it is by Thomas and Vicky Featherstone's production.” So the Times, quite right. Quite right too its extension: “a clunky piece of poeticism in a wearingly obscure play heavy on intimations of profundity, but light on anything actually happening.” It is emblematic of the company, its version of theatre for the nation, that it is unable to include the word “dramatic” amidst its many words. The adjectives “poetic” or “cinematic” are constant, its preferred values. It is all part and parcel of its inner sense of itself, its mission to deliver the comfort of anaesthesia to South Wales' small ruling caste. As a tell-tale giveaway you can tell an audience has nothing to do when members laugh at a character taking four sugars in a cup of tea. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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