At Sgript Cymru |
| Sgript Cymru- Ghost City , Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff , March 5, 2004 |
Gary Owen’s latest play had a remarkable effect on me. It kept coming back to me in my dream on the night following the performance, sequences from it fading in and out of the dark as they did on the stage; where each one emerged as a verse in the overall poem of the play. The play is constructed to cover a day in Cardiff/any City, from 6 o’clock in the morning until midnight. Whilst the ghostliness of the early morning and late evening is familiar to us all, here we get a feeling of ghostliness throughout the whole day.There are influences of Pinter, Becket, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, Gary Owen has the ability to invest the most banal and vulgar colloquialisms with fascinating significance. Most of the happenings in the play are of an ordinary, everyday nature, getting the kids breakfast, waiting for the AA to come to fix the car, stopping at the traffic lights and others less banal. Out of it all comes a cynical yet warm-hearted comment on the nature of the thinking and the pressures of today’s thirty somethings. The actors capture both the realism and the unrealism of each situation with great skill. Equally the fascinating set reflects, so closely, the rhythms and content of the play. It is a very challenging piece for the cast, there is no continuous narrative dialogue running throughout the whole of the play, where the relationships between the characters would develop smoothly. In fact each performer has to play a variety of parts, sometimes addressing the audience directly and at other times inwardly reflecting their own, not to be spoken, thoughts. This opening night was an opportunity for discovery for both the audience and cast. I can see that the excitement of the relationships between the players will become increasingly stronger as the play progresses. The women had the more self-possessed roles and Nia Gwynne achieved some excellent moments of cool naturalness and Rachel Isaac, among other things, did strong motherliness really well. Jonathan Floyd, in the dark, with a scruffy blanket around him, moved us with his sense of loss and vulnerability and Celyn Jones added the occasional arrogant swagger. Gary Owen has become an award-winning playwright and is carving out a very personal and exciting writing style. With this play Simon Harries completes his forth ‘New Play’ production, strengthening the reputation of Sgript Cymru. Together they need to take a closer look at ‘Ghost City’ and seek out that fine dramatic edge that is not yet quite emerging from this production. |
Reviewed by: Michael Kelligan |
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