| Petula- “Tender, Affecting, Surreal” |
At National Theatre Wales |
| August 012, Theatr Genedlaethol, National Theatre Wales , Touring Wales , March 19, 2022 |
“Petula” had three producer credits. But it felt, through and through, an August 012 production. Nation Cymru was there: “This tender, affecting and utterly bonkers play is perhaps the ideal antidote to these challenging times, as it is full of the bright colours and yearning complexities of childhood. “That tenderness is a hallmark of pretty much anything Dafydd James touches and here he enlarges the already big, bold, beating heart of Fabrice Melquiot’s play, adapting and translating it whilst also making of it something trilingual to boot. “This mélange of languages – French, Welsh and English – seemingly allows us to see the original breaching through, even as it has to jockey for position with the other tongues, a case of each trying to compete with, dominate or even subsume the others. In this it reflects the language hybridity of modern Wales and remind us that the languages of the country aren’t just English and Welsh, far from it. “The surreal, oddball play centres on the adventures of Pwdin Evans – played with affecting, wide-eyed openness and innocence by Dewi Wykes – whose world is one completely without anchor. His parents, south Walian Mami and north Walian Dadi (Clêr Stephens and Sion Pritchard ) not only represent a geographical divide but have also separated, leaving Pwdin hurt and wounded as a consequence. "Each parent has acquired a new partner who only serves to push things even more out of kilter. Life when all four of them get together for dinner is just glorious, chaotic pantomime which Pwdin can only watch from the sidelines. "The deeply caring Mami’s hooked up with Joe Potatoslouch, played with enormous gusto and energy by Tom Mumford, whose life revolves around throwing javelins and smoking cigarettes. If he can’t do the latter he’ll happily eat a sofa. Meanwhile Dadi’s new consort is the vampiristic Amethyst Crappp (yes, with three p’s, played totally OTT, with two T’s by Rachel Summers) whose cooking skills leave everything to be desired. "There’s a blood-bespattered scene in which Amethyst serves duck a l’orange with a fowl that’s very much still alive which was funny enough to make me laugh so much I started to worry about needing a new ribcage. With all this madness swirling around him it’s little wonder that Pwdin wants to leave the earth, especially when he’s at an age where he has to decide what he has to leave behind in order to grow up, or at least in the world of adult rules. “Pwdin’s main quest is to find his cousin Petula (singer and musician Kizzy Crawford, making a confident acting debut) who’s lost in space somewhere so Joe helps to catapult him out among the stars to look for her. And that’s where this mini space odyssey begins and things get trans-galactically odder. "He befriends a talking flea called Gillian Anderson along with American astronaut Neil Armstrong while his earthbound dad finds an outsize telescope in the random aisle in Lidl to keep track of him. Pwdin also visits the Planet of the Dead, populated as it with grandparents and ancestors, reminding us that one of the main themes of Petula is family and its complicated connections. “This is the second time director Mathilde López has teamed up with Daf James and together used the work of Melquiot’s work as both touchstone and lodestone. When they presented Yuri back in 2017 it was a hyper-oxygenating work of extraordinary energy and bounce while this latest collaboration is quieter, more contemplative, pondering the intricacies of family and the necessities of love. "There are places where it sags a bit and this coincided on the night I went with the arrival of technical gremlins which threw the captions out of synch but with so much going this didn’t matter too much. “López fair paints the production into being, with a bright palette of costume and film projection, totally in keeping with Melquiot’s ticker tape approach of creating visual and verbal poetry – one bright image following the other like a trail of stars. "She fills the floor of the stage with hundreds of balls, so that every movement across it is, in a sense, play and that playfulness is part of what makes the play so buoyant and ultimately uplifting. “Not that there aren’t any shadows: there are anxieties about eating, embodied in Pwdin’s very name, as he is a young man who is very concerned about his weight even as also he wrestles with the fact that little girls turn into women with boobs. "His sex education only confusingly introduces the idea of having babies, some of them ‘free range’ as the script amusingly describes one of the options. “The play ends not with a coup de théâtre but with a very tender exchange between Pwdin and Petula, in which they try to map out their possible futures, thus extending the generous warmth of the production so that the audience can carry it with them, out into the star-flecked night.” * * * * The IWA was there: “Young Pwdin Evans is suffering from a bad case of teenage angst. He is constantly worried about his weight and his French homework, his parents have separated and remarried to dysfunctional partners, and his beloved cousin Petula has mysteriously disappeared after she stopped eating. While the adults around him have apparently stopped searching for her, Pwdin thinks she may simply have gone on a ‘human strike’. "After a particularly disastrous family dinner, he decides to go out into space looking for Petula, physically propelled into the ether by his father-in-law in a fit of superhuman strength. “This is the plot of Petula, a new adaptation of a play by French playwright Fabrice Melquiot, born of a collaboration between National Theatre Wales, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru and August012, and directed by Mathilde Lopez. Daf James’s script is a dizzying mix of English, Welsh and French, which the cast negotiates with endless grace to great comical effect. “Pwdin (Dewi Wykes) grapples with emotions too large for him and apparently opaque to the adults around him, all too absorbed in vain pursuits. His mother-in-law, Amethyst Crappp (energetically portrayed by Rachel Summers), barely represses her vampiric urges; his mother (Clêr Stephens) has become obsessed with fitness; and his father (Sion Pritchard) struggles to be the steadfast figure Pwdin badly needs. “The protagonists’ intergalactic quest follows in the footsteps of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince...one of the play’s main achievements is its opening scene, a magnificently absurdist feast in which the protagonists revel in a raw duck à l’orange. The scene is truly a delight to watch, although vegetarians may find it an ordeal. The production is chockfull of visual finds and Jean Chan’s set design subtly alludes to the transformation of childhood’s playthings into adulthood’s hurdles. “As they attempt to reach each other, the cast bounce and slide on the stage, which has been turned into an all-black ball pit for the occasion. Screens display half organic, half futuristic psychedelic landscapes to accompany Pwdin’s quest for his beloved, while on earth his family try and fail to unite forces to look for him, all to the sound of synthetic beats. The performance offers moments of irresistible laughter, and the cast manages to establish a genuine sense of closeness with the audience. “The production also achieves quietly meditative moments, such as a brief journey into the world of the dead. Throughout the play, we are given numerous hints that things in Pwdin’s world may not quite be as they should. "Characters turn to the audience not simply to speak, but to ‘process’ their emotions in a mic, as if reeling from an unspoken pain. Often, though, this gets a little lost in background noise, and there is a sense that the production glosses over some of the bigger questions it tantalisingly offers up for our consideration. “Petula’s ethereal voice, her reassuring, elusive femininity is certainly a far cry from Amethyst’s excessive carnal appetites and Mami’s sudden obsession with self-actualising and performance, leaving behind her ex-husband and apron for her new husband, Joe Potatoslouch (Tom Mumford). A soothing dream come true, Petula adds to the chorus of voices that come to reassure Pwdin that he is not fat, that he is, in fact, very desirable.” * * * * Wales Arts Review was there: “Theatre is back, in its full-bodied, zoom-free glory, which now carries with it an inherent nostalgia of the Before Times. There’s a unique excitement of re-entering a world that has been closed off for most of recent memory. And National Theatre Wales and Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru’s joint production of Petula is truly theatrical. "Petula tells the story of Pwdin, a twelve year old boy searching for his missing cousin, who has undergone a “human strike” and left for space. Split between the farcical antics of Pwdin’s parents and step-parents and the space-world to which he journeys, the story marries bizarre and whimsical humour with darker realities. It’s a story of childhood with decidedly adult undertones. “This production had the ambitious goal of presenting the script in trilingual form, with dialogue in English, Welsh and French. The execution of this was not unsuccessful — in fact, Daf James’ translation is exceptional, the interplay of the languages sounding musical. However, the trade-off is such that – for the woefully monolingual – the focus of the play is cast perpetually onto the screens to the side of the stage, and not on the actors themselves. “Visually, there is a concerted effort to capture the interplay between the jovial and more serious aspects of Melquiot’s script. The stage itself is filled up like a ball pit. The initial effect of this is undeniably fun, however, as the play progresses, the balls seem to present more opportunities to hinder the actors than opportunities to be used in interesting ways. "A row of TV screens descends to create the space-like realm— exciting conceptually, yet in impact the screens seem to add little to the atmosphere. “Dewi Wykes skillfully captures the adolescent mayhem of Pwdin’s psyche as well as his soft-hearted innocence. Each member of the cast delivers a strong performance, both in their roles as Pwdin’s family and in character as the various space travellers who are encountered along the way. “Petula offers much to enjoy. The comedy is goofy and surreal. The heart of the play is poignant and raw. It wholeheartedly embraces the most essential aspect of itself, which is its surreality.” Abridged, with thanks and acknowledgement, from the full reviews which can be read at: https://nation.cymru/culture/review-petula-is-a-tender-affecting-and-utterly-bonkers-play/ https://www.iwa.wales/agenda/2022/03/review-petula-national-theatre-wales/ https://www.walesartsreview.org/petula-ntw-tgc/ |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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