| East from the Gantry by Ed Thomas |
| First presented in 2000 by Y Cwmni |
|
synopsis: A performance of Ed Thomas's surreal play about memory, identity and reconciliation set in a snow-covered landscape by one of Wales's newest up and coming theatre companies. |
There are 2 reviews of Y Cwmni's East from the Gantry in our database:
|
East from the Gantry
by Ed Thomas
|
[print] |
|
venue Aberystwyth Arts Centre |
|
|
October 15, 2000 |
|
| There's a scene in Ed Thomas' play, 'East From the Gantry,' which was presented by Steel Wasp Theatre Company on the night of Saturday 14th October, at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre which contained an unexpectedly revealing bit of banter. In this scene, a fool called Trampas-played with a zany, caricaturish flair by Rhodri Thomas- tells his new friend, Bella (played by Steel Wasp co-founder Alison O'Connor, who delivers an understated but emotionally powerful performance) about an unseen character's understanding of her origins. TRAMPAS. It's through pastry that she connects with her roots. BELLA. I don't understand. TRAMPAS. Her grandfather was from Denmark. The punch line of Trampas' attempt at comedy puts words to one tragedy around which 'East from the Gantry' revolves: the inadequacy of relationships, personal and historical, which are understood in terms of misunderstood details. When one cobbles together a collection of details, the result is memory or history. The conversations with which the characters kill time are peppered with items of historical trivia (such as the fact that Wales was conquered in 1282) which can't help them to understand or to change their lives. In one of the more riveting scenes in the play, Bella's husband Ronnie- co-founder Nick Evans, who starred as the suicidal maniac in Steel Wasp's previous production- orders Bella to "walk the line" in order to prove that she is not drunk. Normally when this challenge is uttered, the suspected drunkard is expected to walk an invisible line on the ground. In 'East From the Gantry', the invisible line is seven feet up in the air, suspended between two ladders. Holding an umbrella like a tightrope walker in a circus, O'Connor climbs up one ladder and holds the audience in suspense as we hope she won't attempt this dangerous variation on Gloucester's Leap. The imagination can create fabulous illusions out of thin air but Thomas questions whether such fabrications are sturdy enough to walk upon. The spare but imaginative and effective set and three nearly identical Chaplinesque costumes prove that you really can say quite a lot with very minimal material resources, and the design illustrates several of the themes and conflicts in Thomas' script. The set consists of three metal ladders and a scattering of amber-coloured, alternately crumpled, singed, stripped, and imploded umbrellas. Some of these umbrellas look like withered leaves, crumpled paper, or dead pterodactyls. So what does the title mean? It's a lovely and terrible mystery, and I'm not going to tell you in case you haven't seen the play yet. But the moment when that question is answered-when Bella's ambitious and naïve friend Martin attempts to make history-is beautifully, powerfully, and horrifying represented, and wholly consuming and mesmerizing. Drawn out in syllables of slowed-down time, inflamed with red lighting and barreling to its end in an unstoppable rush, the event first enchants, then paralyzes Bella-and the real-life spectators' imaginations. There was some discussion at the 'State of the Nation' debate the morning of the performance about certain people finding it necessary to identify plays within categories like 'physical theatre.' Steel Wasp's staging of that climactic scene in 'East of the Gantry' seems to show up that kind of thinking as seriously misguided, since the scene could be described as physical theatre, but the play with its precise, thought-provoking, and often very casually natural dialogue and acting encompasses so many genres at once, from stand-up comedy to emotionally intense mime to music hall to whatever category the works of Samuel Beckett fit into. I found that the depiction of the character of Martin invites comparison to Michael Furey, the reportedly fatally lovesick seventeen-year-old singer whose memory haunts that of Greta Conroy and gives her husband a difficult epiphany in the final tale of James Joyce's 'Dubliners.' I don't know if this is intentional on Thomas' part, since the story he tells is universal and Joyce certainly is not the only source of the feelings of regret, grief, jealousy, frustration, and existential fear, which the similar tragedies inspire. If Mr. Thomas is reading this my e-mail address appears at the end of this review and I'd really like to know his thoughts about Martin and Michael. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just thinking this play has some things in common with the writings of the eccentric trivia-obsessed Irish exile who searched a cluttered world for his personal and national identity, because many of the conflicts in Joyce's writing are addressed in Thomas' play. Ronnie diagnoses some of these dilemmas, which are at the core of his relationship with Bella and of all the characters' 'history' when he sings the following verse: "And we were playing 'tell the truth,' When you looked at me and said: That what we had was yesterday, And what we had was dead." When, near the end of the play, Bella rejects Trampas, he laments: "I'm a very lonely person… It's because I don't know who I am." Thomas' whole play is also a sort of creature without a name, a label-defying three-ring circus with something true and unsolvable burning through its skin from the inside. |
|
| reviewer: Rebecca Nesvet |
|
|
East from the Gantry
by Ed Thomas
|
[print] |
|
venue Aberystwyth Arts Centre |
|
|
October 15, 2000 |
|
| There's a scene in Ed Thomas' play, 'East From the Gantry,' which was presented by Steel Wasp Theatre Company on the night of Saturday 14th October, at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre which contained an unexpectedly revealing bit of banter. In this scene, a fool called Trampas-played with a zany, caricaturish flair by Rhodri Thomas- tells his new friend, Bella (played by Steel Wasp co-founder Alison O'Connor, who delivers an understated but emotionally powerful performance) about an unseen character's understanding of her origins. TRAMPAS. It's through pastry that she connects with her roots. BELLA. I don't understand. TRAMPAS. Her grandfather was from Denmark. The punch line of Trampas' attempt at comedy puts words to one tragedy around which 'East from the Gantry' revolves: the inadequacy of relationships, personal and historical, which are understood in terms of misunderstood details. When one cobbles together a collection of details, the result is memory or history. The conversations with which the characters kill time are peppered with items of historical trivia (such as the fact that Wales was conquered in 1282) which can't help them to understand or to change their lives. In one of the more riveting scenes in the play, Bella's husband Ronnie- co-founder Nick Evans, who starred as the suicidal maniac in Steel Wasp's previous production- orders Bella to "walk the line" in order to prove that she is not drunk. Normally when this challenge is uttered, the suspected drunkard is expected to walk an invisible line on the ground. In 'East From the Gantry', the invisible line is seven feet up in the air, suspended between two ladders. Holding an umbrella like a tightrope walker in a circus, O'Connor climbs up one ladder and holds the audience in suspense as we hope she won't attempt this dangerous variation on Gloucester's Leap. The imagination can create fabulous illusions out of thin air but Thomas questions whether such fabrications are sturdy enough to walk upon. The spare but imaginative and effective set and three nearly identical Chaplinesque costumes prove that you really can say quite a lot with very minimal material resources, and the design illustrates several of the themes and conflicts in Thomas' script. The set consists of three metal ladders and a scattering of amber-coloured, alternately crumpled, singed, stripped, and imploded umbrellas. Some of these umbrellas look like withered leaves, crumpled paper, or dead pterodactyls. So what does the title mean? It's a lovely and terrible mystery, and I'm not going to tell you in case you haven't seen the play yet. But the moment when that question is answered-when Bella's ambitious and naïve friend Martin attempts to make history-is beautifully, powerfully, and horrifying represented, and wholly consuming and mesmerizing. Drawn out in syllables of slowed-down time, inflamed with red lighting and barreling to its end in an unstoppable rush, the event first enchants, then paralyzes Bella-and the real-life spectators' imaginations. There was some discussion at the 'State of the Nation' debate the morning of the performance about certain people finding it necessary to identify plays within categories like 'physical theatre.' Steel Wasp's staging of that climactic scene in 'East of the Gantry' seems to show up that kind of thinking as seriously misguided, since the scene could be described as physical theatre, but the play with its precise, thought-provoking, and often very casually natural dialogue and acting encompasses so many genres at once, from stand-up comedy to emotionally intense mime to music hall to whatever category the works of Samuel Beckett fit into. I found that the depiction of the character of Martin invites comparison to Michael Furey, the reportedly fatally lovesick seventeen-year-old singer whose memory haunts that of Greta Conroy and gives her husband a difficult epiphany in the final tale of James Joyce's 'Dubliners.' I don't know if this is intentional on Thomas' part, since the story he tells is universal and Joyce certainly is not the only source of the feelings of regret, grief, jealousy, frustration, and existential fear, which the similar tragedies inspire. If Mr. Thomas is reading this my e-mail address appears at the end of this review and I'd really like to know his thoughts about Martin and Michael. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just thinking this play has some things in common with the writings of the eccentric trivia-obsessed Irish exile who searched a cluttered world for his personal and national identity, because many of the conflicts in Joyce's writing are addressed in Thomas' play. Ronnie diagnoses some of these dilemmas, which are at the core of his relationship with Bella and of all the characters' 'history' when he sings the following verse: "And we were playing 'tell the truth,' When you looked at me and said: That what we had was yesterday, And what we had was dead." When, near the end of the play, Bella rejects Trampas, he laments: "I'm a very lonely person… It's because I don't know who I am." Thomas' whole play is also a sort of creature without a name, a label-defying three-ring circus with something true and unsolvable burning through its skin from the inside. |
|
| reviewer: Rebecca Nesvet |
|
| If you know of any other existing review, or if you have any more information on East from the Gantry, (perhaps you were in the production or were the author or director) then please use the form below to send us the details |