Post by Steve on Apr 27, 2017 11:45:07 GMT
Before Barney Norris' Bridge Theatre play, Nightfall, comes this modest two-hander in the equally modest new Bush Theatre Studio.
And assuming this post is the Hitchhikers Guide to the new theatre and the play, the answer is 70.
Well, the theatre capacity is 70, like a slightly bigger Finborough or a slightly smaller Hampstead Downstairs, and the play runs 70 minutes without an interval, and I would add that the average audience age was 70, except I can't, because they mostly looked much younger lol.
Anyway, everything Barney Norris is in this play, from the poetic use of language, the observance of minor details of mundane yet telling behaviour, the heightened sense of reality that puts really huge existential issues on the table while nothing much actually happens, and the cherishing of human beings merely for being alive.
This is minor Norris though, as it is shorter, less eventful, a two-hander that consists of a series of conversations between a lonely woman and her ex-boyfriend, now homeless, who she takes under her wing by inviting him into her house.
Tessa Peake-Jones is the perfect Norris actor, as was Linda Bassett in the exemplary earlier Norris play, "Visitors," in that they have poetic faces that speak volumes of lived experience, before they utter a word. Peake-Jones is also an excellent actor, supremely sensitive in her observance of her character Carol's learned habits, her repetitive ticks, her wry welcoming smiles and the trapped and caged existence that hides behind them. Andrew French is appropriately more mysterious, as the adventurous ex-boyfriend, whose ambitions are vast yet unconsidered, his hopes to "re-wild" Scotland with wolves humorously incompatible with reality. Yet, the play asks, can this man's adventurous spirit re-light Tessa Peake-Jones' Carol's life and can she ground him?
The play is Norris screaming "Carpe Diem," "Seize the Day," where Norris refuses to speak louder than a whisper, so as not to be impolite.
Although the overall effect is slighter than Norris intends, I did tear up once, and loved all the aforementioned Norris aspects of the play, except for the slightly contrived set-up, and I'm very much looking forward to what may be a far more substantial effort, Nightfall, given how many many tickets will have to be sold to fill the Bridge Theatre.
3 and a half stars
And assuming this post is the Hitchhikers Guide to the new theatre and the play, the answer is 70.
Well, the theatre capacity is 70, like a slightly bigger Finborough or a slightly smaller Hampstead Downstairs, and the play runs 70 minutes without an interval, and I would add that the average audience age was 70, except I can't, because they mostly looked much younger lol.
Anyway, everything Barney Norris is in this play, from the poetic use of language, the observance of minor details of mundane yet telling behaviour, the heightened sense of reality that puts really huge existential issues on the table while nothing much actually happens, and the cherishing of human beings merely for being alive.
This is minor Norris though, as it is shorter, less eventful, a two-hander that consists of a series of conversations between a lonely woman and her ex-boyfriend, now homeless, who she takes under her wing by inviting him into her house.
Tessa Peake-Jones is the perfect Norris actor, as was Linda Bassett in the exemplary earlier Norris play, "Visitors," in that they have poetic faces that speak volumes of lived experience, before they utter a word. Peake-Jones is also an excellent actor, supremely sensitive in her observance of her character Carol's learned habits, her repetitive ticks, her wry welcoming smiles and the trapped and caged existence that hides behind them. Andrew French is appropriately more mysterious, as the adventurous ex-boyfriend, whose ambitions are vast yet unconsidered, his hopes to "re-wild" Scotland with wolves humorously incompatible with reality. Yet, the play asks, can this man's adventurous spirit re-light Tessa Peake-Jones' Carol's life and can she ground him?
The play is Norris screaming "Carpe Diem," "Seize the Day," where Norris refuses to speak louder than a whisper, so as not to be impolite.
Although the overall effect is slighter than Norris intends, I did tear up once, and loved all the aforementioned Norris aspects of the play, except for the slightly contrived set-up, and I'm very much looking forward to what may be a far more substantial effort, Nightfall, given how many many tickets will have to be sold to fill the Bridge Theatre.
3 and a half stars
