| Richly Theatrical Exploration of Art & Political Culture |
At RWCMD |
| Salem- Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama with Sherman Theatre , Young Vic Theatre London , June 19, 2025 |
The visual arts occur in theatre but not hugely. Yasmina Reza played with a theatrical duality, art's inherent subjectivity and its effect on a long-held friendship. In “the Pitmen Painters” Lee Hall had tutor Robert Lyon showing a Ben Nicholson circle of white to the untutored painters of the Ashington coalfield. And, most well-known of all, Sondheim and his playwright James Lapine merged past and present in “Sunday in the Park with George.” So too has Lisa Parry done with “Salem.” Cornish artist Sydney Curnow Vosper is in Gwynedd. His companion wife is aware that they are in the era of Matisse and Freud. The artist himself follows an aesthetics of naturalism but a naturalism that needs to be moulded for greater aesthetic richness. Colour is heightened with a shawl that the sitters could not afford. The necessity to see the central figure head on means that the chapel be represented in a form that is not its true shape in the world. The sitters object but this artist commands. He is the one who pays. Two ages echo against one another. The earlier one, the time of the painting's making, is of a God-soaked Wales, where a child without sight or hearing is evidence of parental sin. Depiction in a canvas headed for the Royal Academy may itself be a sin of vanity. Those who live with the devil will be more persuaded to see it in art. The play circles around its theme that art is imbued with an ultimate ambiguity. The modern age, the time of today, is slightly less assured in its detail. A transgressive child can cause embarrassment to a political figure but does not trigger resignation. The politics of nationalist north versus unionist south could be etched with more acid. But “Salem” pulsates richly with its formal juxtaposition of two centuries. The young cast are Reilly Featherstone, Tilly Harris, Lauryn Jenkins, Daniel Robb, Lois Elenid, Kellie-Gwen Morgan, Alexander Potter, Alice Baxter and Sebastian Coleman. They are beneficiaries of Sara Lloyd's incisive direction. The format of the series, one of four, taken to London is that of a studio production. This hour long first production is a chrysalis rich in cadence with a strong inner architecture. A butterfly of a full two-act play is in there awaiting its release. The theatre of Wales had to suffer for too long bogus things that purported, in the eyes of some, to be national theatre. “Salem” has that richness of flavour that has the smell of national theatre to it. Pictured: Reilly Featherstone as Vosper |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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