Theatr Iolo |
| Theatr Iolo- The Flock , Bridgend College , February 15, 2005 |
| Western Mail, The Guide, Friday 11th February 2005 Theatr Iolo director Kevin Lewis had to rush off to Glasgow after this performance to receive a coveted Tron award for Bison and Sons, voted the best children’s show there last year. That show was a Dutch play, and the latest from this Cardiff young people’s theatre company, The Flock, is another import – an impressive play by young Danish writer Jesper Wamsler translated by Sarah Argent – both were in the Bridgend College audience – that continues Iolo’s policy of contemporary European plays. So kids are the same in Copenhagen as Cardiff, right? It would certainly seem so from The Flock, which is a hard-edged tale about a gang of young street girls, and in particular Louise (Anna Joseph) and Vic (Carri Munn). They live by robbing, hanging around, smoking and generally enjoying themselves. There’s no moral condemnation in the play, though it hardly glorifies their lives, either. Questions of whether we approve or even like the characters are not up for grabs. But the dangers teenage girls can get themselves into are at the core, as they get exploited and abused by the landlord of the house they’re squatting in, while Louise’s fate is already assured, since we meet her at the beginning as a ghost. The story (based on conversations with a girl Jesper met at a railway station) is told in retrospect by Vic, now 16 we guess, when she makes her regular visit to Louise’s grave. Apart from the mugging and robbery it seems almost innocent and the “flock” of free birds only disbands because of the intervention of a man from the real world (not for nothing do they nickname him “the fox”). It’s a sparse, urgent production from Lewis with just the two girls, a table, a ghetto-blaster and a Coke bottle, no dramatic lighting or set, just a couple of adolescents remembering. Both Carri Munn and Anna Joseph are strong, but the interesting casting of an actress better known to local audiences for comic sketches doesn’t quite come off – Ms Munn seems at times to be too obviously performing. She also has the difficult task of playing a slightly older Vic who’s telling a story of things passed. Older Vic speaks not so much as a 16-year-old but as a lyrical, articulate narrator, recalling what seemed like an idyll. What isn’t dealt with in this sensitive, taut, engaging play is also important, of course: it isn’t just the relationship between the two girls (which actually isn’t very well depicted) and the camaraderie of the flock. One sees their positive qualities coming through alongside the irresponsibility, callousness and cruelty that comes so easily to the gang. The Flock is aimed at young people and doubtless they will find much to talk about as regards friendship, survival, crime, parents and what’s smart and what’s stupid. But the rest of us will also be moved as we see a bunch of kids, the product of our society, whose main reward, their belonging to their “nest”, was destroyed by one rapacious adult. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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