DDF Thursday
Having the social awareness of a fairly naïve foetus watching Disney, I’m happy with any society that contains both Batman and chocolate. But Thursday’s DDF showcase aimed to change all that, presenting three plays that concerned themselves with turning a mirror to the audience, and providing commentaries on our society and its many flaws, with, as is to be expected, varying degrees of success. It’s introspection time, kids. Strap in.
This Sick Masquerade!
First off the blocks was This Sick Masquerade!, written and performed by David Richards, replete with mime make-up, spotlight and a tale of a society overthrown by one’s man preaching on the London Underground. Given the ridiculous nature of the plot, the success of this production would hinge on the message and its presentation.
This message was one of a society without order, driven to destruction on the back of hedonistic impulses and aggressive instincts as a direct consequence of mankind rising up and toppling the ‘authority’, which was inspired by the aforementioned preaching of a man known only as ‘The Masquerade’. It is an interesting message, and definitely one worthy of a production strong enough to carry it.
The production itself, however, and how David Richards chose to present this message was poor. "This is a monologue," said the synopsis in the DDF programme – though ‘a reading’ would have been a more accurate term. ‘Monologue’ implies a sense of theatrical performance, of which there was none, it is sad to say. Richards read from the script throughout, citing a lack of being Jesus Christ as his reason for not learning it, which isn’t a fair reason considering he wrote it. Also, from the amount of line-learning evident in the two following productions, both longer than Masquerade and just as wordy, this seemed even less reasonable. I don’t bring Richards up on this point to be a purist whine-hole; I bring it up because Richards reading continuously, line-by-line, from his script effectively killed the production.
Throughout the reading Richards never once looked at the audience and his voice became a stilted monotone, the kind of voice you put on when asked to read aloud from a book in English class. Descriptions of mundane social routine, descriptions of chaos and social upheaval, descriptions of the ‘psycho mafia’ committing terrible crimes, were all delivered in monotone as soothing chillout, making the whole affair seem like a creepy ‘overthrow society, then chillax’ self-help audio cassette. There was little sense of any communication with the audience and little sense of drama – both fatal in a drama festival. A simple case of interesting idea; bad execution.
Age Of Consent
Shuffling on, Age of Consent was apparently put together in a week. It was funny, very well-written by Peter Morris and simply, but effectively staged under the direction of Neil Wates. The play consisted of two inter-cutting monologues by two very different characters, portrayed by James Elliott and Liz Smith, that served to highlight the routine, unknowing, yet wholly-destructive nature of everyday life. Elliott portrayed a teenage child killer, locked away for his crimes. High profile media events, such as the public outcry against the Jamie Bulger killers, encourage a system of social labelling – ‘KILLER’, ‘SCUM’, ‘UNWORTHY OF LIFE’ – which serve to place such figures outside of society. The joy of this production was just how human Elliott’s character was – a product of great writing and a powerhouse performance. The character began by talking about the N64 game, Goldeneye, which I, as a 20-year-old man, fully acknowledge as one of the best things in the world. The energy in Elliott’s performance was funny, compelling, but, most of all, charming. When we finally found out his crime it was too late. We liked him, we related to him. The conflict felt as a result of this made Age of Consent one of the very best of the festival for me.
Smith’s character was a monster mother, who by both pressuring her child into show business, then demonstrating jealousy at any success, systematically destroys her child’s innocence. Conversely, this character seemed so divorced of reality that her unawareness of her own monstrousness turned her into a caricature. In her handling of the character, Smith proved herself a more than able comedienne, with inspired moments of dramatic timing and vocal control. However, she did noticeably struggle in comparison to Elliott, garbling some speech and seeming less confident in her physical movements. Still, this did not impair her consistent characterisation, which provided moments of laughter in between Elliott’s more intense monologues without jeopardising any of the morbid fascination.
Painted On The Frame
After such a treat, I sat happy in my seat, waiting for the last production of the evening, Painted on the Frame, by Tom Lyons. Turns out I would be in that seat for another two hours. Yep, two hours.
I know it’s not the classiest thing to bring up when reviewing a play, but I value my arse, even if no one else does! The new Assembly Rooms’ seats aren’t that comfortable. Anyway, I suppose the fact that I really felt the running time of the piece on my buttocks is indicative, and, yes, I didn’t enjoy Painted on the Frame.
When compared to Age of Consent, the ultimate performance felt stretched, burdened by it’s own length and dull in pacing. This was, I think, thanks to quite poor direction of the two lead actors, Naomi Sklar and Jamie Sloan, who remained onstage throughout. The writing also felt laboured, featuring an overuse of pop-culture references and the device synonymous with student writing: an actor simply defining the world for you, rather than inviting you to analyse it yourself. The production explored only one theme: society’s misunderstanding and rejection of those with perceived mental problems. While it generally isn’t a problem for a play to focus on one issue, over the course of two hours the characters just kept repeating the same points.
In a fit of anarchic rage, both characters took to the white walls with paint squeezed from paint bottles. Despite initial paintular difficulties (the paint liked life in the bottles and wanted to stay there), this set-piece was interesting and climactic. However, the play continued for another hour, never really saying anything new, feeling spent but limping on. Kieran ‘hot-thrust’ Sims was introduced in a brief speech, and though his monologue was funny and well performed, personalising ‘the man’ felt unnecessary, especially when he’s genuinely funny chap. Sklar never really relaxed into the incredibly demanding task of playing an old woman and her speech felt stilted because of this – though in some of her later speeches, when not troubled by cues, she reached levels of vulnerable poignancy.
Sloan was more comfortable in his speech, and so was instantly easier to watch, but due perhaps to under-direction, he struggled with the more intense moments of the production. Despite my gripe-heavy review, I genuinely believe Painted on the Frame had promise, with its two characters portraying interesting histories and opinions, and some genuinely great dialogue. The play just needs some serious cutting and more intensive rehearsal. One of the reasons that DDF is great, and deserves larger audiences, is because it provides new writers with an opportunity to dry-run their ideas and receive feedback. Here is mine, for what it is worth.
I value your arse, adam.
Incidentally, to see more of a hysterical society like that highlighted in Age of Consent, go to Youtube and search for the ‘Jeremy Kyle pedophilia special’. It’s definitely a kind of theatre, with Kyle acting as ringmaster, stirring up waves of hatred without provide ANY insight into pedophilia whatsoever. It’s disgusting viewing and, like Age of Consent, a fascinating portrayal of a society fixated on the ‘SCUM’, not the man.
And cheers, Neil. Quickie ’round the bike sheds?
‘This sick masquerade.’
I said at the beginning that I was only given the green light to perform a week before I did it.
I had to write it in that time and it was 2500 words of at times, really dense poetry. It wasnt laziness, it just wasnt possible to learn it.
I should point out there was music in the background while I spoke, an ambient melody loop, a kind of nocturnal lullaby. I was trying a 3am kind of feel, and speaking passionately would have killed that. sections and phrases of text were rhythmic to sound good over the music. Lines like ‘the streets were full of mercenary eyes’ had a phonetic rhythm to them, they werent just spoken straight. someone did once tell me that my voice would be well suited to meditational relaxation tapes (trying to offend me), but that fits in here.
Theatre can also be introverted I think, drawing people in to what your saying rather than just melodramatic emotion and flailing arms. I think if I had be able to learn it this would have been shown more clearly.
Also, a story about a man, dressed as a mime, overthrowing a society by only preaching on the underground would have been funny, but that clearly wasnt the story. The society wasnt even overthrown. I think the problem was that the piece was too poetical to be a theatrical monologue. I thought I had spoken one story but afterwards people told me many variations.
“Hot-thrust”?? Adam, D21 is not the place.
Mr Richards, you may well have been trying for a ’3am kind of feel’ and i don’t think anyone is denying you achieved this. You are perfectly right when you say speaking pationately would have killed that, so maybe you should have. Most people do not go to the theatre to feel like they should have been in bed 3 hours ago. If you set out to achieve what was on stage, then you set out to achieve pretentious dross rather than stumble across it by accident. I’m not sure which is the biggest crime. Setting it to music just made it difficult to here, and made it sound like one of those New York improvised poetry readings… only scripted… and worse. And it wasn’t ‘too poetical’. People did get it, it was just bad. I would disagree with Adam in his review because it was a poor execution of a tired and cliche idea.
this is of course, soley my opinion.
*hear* – correction
apologies, it’s late
Kieran, did you wait til 3am to write that message just so it would tie in to what you were talking about?
Plus, considering alot of student opinion naively advocates the ‘fucking’ of the ‘po-lice’, I think a society strung up by it’s own idealistic anarchy IS an interesting enough idea to warrant a play.
Bitch.
I honestly don’t think the a lot of the student population does advocate the fucking of the po-lice. Perhaps in sixth form whilst studying sociology.
And pointing out Jeremy Kyle to highlight social hysteria? Bears? Shit? Woods? Watch the Brass Eye paedophilia special for a more perceptive portrayal of media hysteria. We’re back to sixth form sociology aren’t we…
this was the story…
1. man feels meaningless in life and creates philosophy= searching for meaning.
2. Puts this into practice= turns his ideals into reality.
3. after brief euphoria society descends into chaos= the meaningless of reality and his philosophy is revealed, the character despairs.
4. an order slowly emerges= years later the man has reconciled with the world to enjoy experiences rather than looking for inherent meaning.
Thats basically the spine of it. it is a simple idea. it is a kind of parable against looking for ultimate meaning in life.
everything is built on that, the strict belief system of the new puritans in black hats and gowns coming out of chaos, which people slowly join…like his girlfriend ETC.
this is what wasnt clear enough because the writing on top is so dense, although some people got it.
I don’t think learning the script would have been impossible. I have seen a one man hamlet, which is longer and more poetic, and the actor had learnt it. And he didn’t even write it. As for the time constraints, the Age of Consent cast had around that many words per speech, and there were five of them and they were all learnt. Not so difficult to learn, I grant you, but something none the less. I reckon most actors could give the speech a go. Even if they didn’t write it.
In bringing a script onstage, we must accept that things start to flounder. The fourth wall breaks, much to the negligable effect of the production.
I agree that Brass eye is cleverer, for parodying the very sort of public outcry it itself created, but for me the Jeremy Kyle show is more fascinating, on a morbid level, for being basically a lynch mob on screen, with no public complaint, at nine in the MORNING!
The comments section frightens me even more than Durham21′s.
Neil, it would have been impossible to learn it.
I explained to the audience before I read the piece that I only had a week to write and perform it and that i couldnt learn it in a day because, ‘im not jesus christ.’ The reviewer choose to ignore what I said and to only highlight the jesus christ comment, to make it look like I have a massive attitude problem. trying to make the review more entertaining.
It took six days to write. I dont beleive there is a student actor who can learn 2500 words of dense text in a day.
also, when you write something you have a skeleton and then what is written is largely instinctive, you dont internally compute it while writing. writing it doesnt make it easy to learn.
And cheers, Neil. Quickie ’round the bike sheds?
That’s certainly more disturbing than any comments board anywhere.
I appreciate that it would have been difficult to learn, but not impossible. If there was potential for it to go ahead, I might have started writing it earlier, in some shape or form, so that it might be a little more ‘performed’ on the night.
Similarly, mentioning that you couldn’t have learnt it whilst onstage broke the illusion from the first, which shot you in the foot from the off. I think that is the point Adam is trying to make.
Don’t get me wrong, as a piece of writing, I enjoyed it. I just wished more was made of it.
and Zaki,
you wish.
“Richards read from the script throughout, citing a lack of being Jesus Christ as his reason for not learning it, which isn’t a fair reason considering he wrote it.”
Was Christ a well-known figure in student theatre circles? (No Ollie King jokes please.)
Neil I’m gagging for it.
Its a documented fact that Jesus read from cue-cards during the sermon on the mount.
David, i have it on good authority that you were one of the first to apply for the DDF last term (feel free to confirm or deny this). It might have been an idea to finish writing the piece over christmas, rather than wait for confirmation. Even if it had not been accepted (and you were’nt to know that it would have been) at least you would have created something, and had time to work on and improve and do with it as you will.
Even if you could not have learnt it completely (and there are plenty a student actor in Durham who could have in that time-frame), im not sure you managed to read more than two sentances without looking back down at your script. I think this is what confused people, not that you hadn’t learnt it all, but that it seemed as though you had made no attempt to learn any of it.
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