Discovering Howard Barker; Bench Theatre, 13 Objects

I'm aware that I have not written on this blog for a while. Rest assured I am still going to the theatre as regularly as I can though not as regularly as I would like. Plays I have recently enjoyed but didn't have anything blogworthy to say about, have been Birthday at the Royal Court, an excellently performed Winter's Tale from the Rough Mechanicals and a precise and beautifully designed Calendar Girls at the Miller Centre.

But yesterday I came down to Havant to see Bench Theatre perform 13 Objects, directed by Damon Wakelin. And not having seen a Howard Barker play before I wanted to record what I thought of it.

This wordy, philosophical play is just my cup of tea. It consists of 13 short plays each centred around an object. The Bench performed the play with a cast of 13 which was apt. The language is incredible, it washes around you like word soup. It is like listening to a poem and then fragments of the text jump out at you, by turns horrifying and funny, profound and absurd. By showing you snapshots of widely varying characters the play captured the many contradictions, the joy and futility of human existence.

Above all though, this was an acting triumph. We watched one brilliant, honed performance after another trotted out like a feast. I can't possibly give all the actors credit here, the quality of all of them was startling. I watched actors I have admired since I was a teenager give performances I didn't know they had in them.

I won't go through all the plays but just give some examples to demonstrate the contrast. The first play is about death, a nightmarish 'officer' ushers in two crying women and urges them to dig their own graves. He plays with them, perhaps he will kill one of them, or both. Neil Kendal played the murderous officer with relish, at times almost Dickensian. Not knowing what to expect and quite horrified by this grim start the audience was carried along through his monologue by his magnetic stage presence and casual brutality. Julie Wood and Claire Lyne cried through this whole first play, the crying became like background noise setting the macabre tone for Kendal's monologue.

Then the second play started in a bright coffee house and Alice Corrigan gave a incredible performance as a prim slightly unhinged lady who had lost her lover. She delivered a monologue about how many of the cups in the cafe had been touched by his lips, throwing one on the floor to break it as she dryly observed 'one less'. It was funny and touching and, like so many of the performances in the play, completely spot on.

I wish I could write about everyone. Julie Wood's petulant and dimly disturbing Queen Elizabeth, Sharman Callam's old woman, Robin Hall's understated adulteress, Kathryn Godwin's manic optician, (whose lines about our gluttonous desire to see everything, shoving sights into our eye sockets pretty much summed up how I felt watching this play.)

I particularly found Terry Smyth's billionaire who buys a painting for £4.5million and destroys it electrically entertaining. Like many of the plays it dimly reminded me of something else, in this case a Roald Dahl short story. As I watched the whole play images of other things flashed into my head: Blackadder, Cloud Atlas, Brecht, Amelie, 50 Shades of Grey. I think that indicates how wide the scope of the play is. To say this was an ambitious play to take on is an understatement.

One thing I found surprising about the play was how much the emotions and thoughts of the characters were spelt out in the script. Lines like 'I'm crying,' 'I am not unmoved' seemed superfluous with such precise acting performances. I particularly felt this in 'Cracked Lens' where the idealist photographer, unable to bring himself to photograph anything finds the camera turned on himself and this time agrees to a photo. He didn't need the lines about being trapped into exposing his idealism as narcissism, we already spotted that as soon as the girl took the camera from him. Strange that Barker felt the need to spell everything out rather than trust the actors to show it when he gave the actors so much freedom of interpretation in other ways, minimal punctuation leaving director and cast to make their own choices about rhythm, emphasis and pauses.

I can't finish this rather long and rambling post without mentioning the inspired staging. This is the first time I have ever seen a company rearrange the seating of The Spring's studio theatre into the round and it was inspired, making the plays incredibly intimate. The way the actors had to keep moving around to perform to all four sides also gave a natural energy to long monologues which added to the feeling of a play crammed full of life.

The positions and paths of the 13 objects were marked out on the bare black floor with different coloured tape. The genius of this idea was that while you were watching one play, you were also remembering the previous objects, and anticipating those to come. The stage was transformed into a palimpsest, not only tying the plays together but elegantly demonstrating the idea of these objects leaving indelible traces in the characters' lives. The minimal set and stylistic setting meant that the 13 objects themselves shone with so much more significance as soon as they arrived, because they were the only objects to focus on. It was as if nothing else existed.

Bench Theatre, you clever, clever people.

48- Steel Magnolias, Bench Theatre at The Spring in Havant

More brilliant theatre from the ridiculously talented female actors of The Bench! We laughed and cried at this brilliant subtle production. The cast were all simply marvellous, it was great to see Alice Corrigan and Jo Gardner working together again, a duo just as magnetic as they were earlier in the year in Daisy Pulls it Off.

Because I have a complete inability to do any accent I am always really impressed when non-professional actors do a great job on tricky accents. The Southern American accents in this production were mostly spot on and couldn't have been easy to maintain with such highly charged emotional acting.

My siblings and I were really proud of my mum Sue Dawes who played M'lynne. The range of emotions she had to portray was pretty astounding; from hopeful happiness on her daughter's wedding day to anger, concern culminating in an explosion of grief in the final scene. I think my mum is brilliant.

This was a highly charged emotiona play, nicely directed. Well done to the director, cast and team. Special mention to whoever was responsible for such a great range of different hair styles and costumes too!

38 - Kiss Me Like You Mean It Bench Theatre at The Spring

I don't think this is a brilliant play, but four spectacular performances and skilled direction from Callum West made it a brilliant production.

Dan Finch was hilarious as soon as he emerged on stage dancing around with an inflatable shark singing Tom Jones' 'Sex Bomb'. He played Tony, a slightly drunk young man emerging into the yard from a house party to get some air. Soon he was joined by the cool, slightly sarcastic Ruth (Rosie Carter) and they attempted a conversation which evolved from embarrassing small talk and chat up lines to warm affection and chemistry. The delivery of the dialogue was varied and funny, some of the awkward moments between the two of them could have been from Peep Show or The Inbetweeners. While it's always funny to watch an awkward young man failing to find the words to chat up a pretty girl, this had the added bonus of a well developed and realistically flawed female character which made the performance much warmer. It was easy to identify with Ruth's obvious frustration as she talked about her life, a life she clearly felt had veered of course somehow, and didn't know quite what to do to put it right again. Carter's Ruth was fiery and stroppy which contrasted with Finch's laid-back slightly philosophical Tony brilliantly.

The staging of this first half could easily have been quite static, but I thought it was blocked out very well with just enough movement to keep the scene interesting without being distracting.

Much of the conversation at the interval was about the plausibility of the young couple's situation. It's true, I don't think the sudden attraction between the two of them is particularly realistic. I've been to a few similar parties and I can't see two twenty-somethings who have never met abandoning their respective partners inside a party to sit in the garden, form an attraction and make declarations of love to each other within the space of an evening. Unless they were on drugs or really drunk or something. And even then they'd probably just have sex.

However I also believe that a play can show something true without being particularly realistic. And accelerating a relationship to develop in just an evening between two very believable characters is just one of those things you can do in a play but not in a film. Particularly when it creates such lovely symmetry with the narrative of the other two characters.

However that's not to say I thought this was a great script, at times it tended towards the mawkish and contrived. But the great comic timing of all the actors involved meant it was touching and enjoyable.

The relationship between the young couple, the staging and the costumes seemed very fresh and modern, I don't know if that was just because I found them so recognisable. However this meant the slightly retro references in the first half jarred and felt a bit anachronistic, I think these could have been easily swapped out to bring the play bang up to date and give more contrast between the new couple and the old. I didn't see any reason to keep the play set in some recent decade rather than the present.

What really got to me about the play was the spellbinding performances by Sally Hartley and Peter Woodward as the older couple, Edie and Don. Having spent 50 years together, Edie and Don are reaching the end. Don has a brain tumour and they plan to inject themselves with insulin as the sun rises, ending life on their own terms. So they spend the night drinking all the old alcohol hanging around their flat and having rampant sex in full view of their window, which is where we, and Tony and Ruth, first glimpse them. The energy and sparkle both actors put into everything made their impending death all the more heartbreaking. From the hilarious scantily clad wiggling in the window to Edie's rush out to plant their house plants in the yard and Don's quest to source a curry flavoured condom, with the help of a perplexed Tony they took us with them all the way and portrayed a brilliantly believable partnership. But while Edie and Don still had much to give, they clearly wanted to go now, while they still shone brightly after a happy life, not eaten away cancer or lonely old age and there was no arguing with this decision.

We cried buckets. I had tears streaming down my face and could hear my mum sobbing away behind me. Edie and Don reminded me of my grandparents, even while not actually being anything like them really, and made me hope I find someone to love like that into old age and beyond.

31 - Daisy pulls it off, Bench Theatre at The Spring

It was all jolly hockey sticks in this brilliant production of a silly play about young gels at school.

I have a real nostalgia for cheerful tales of boarding schools and midnight feasts. As a childhood Enid Blyton fan and a current Harry Potter enthusiast nothing cheers me up like a jolly story of treasure hunting in a boarding school.

Mark Wakeman really knows his stage comedy and the clever staging here was a case in point. He understands that we don't want to hang around waiting for the next laugh so scene changes were accomplished with the blink of an eye, hilarious grumpy cameos by the backstage crew served as book cases in the library and portraits in the great hall.

The character of Daisy Meredith, plucky scholarship girl who is good at literally everything, is hard to fall in love with. I'm sure I would have hated her at school - no-one should be good at lessons AND sport. Luckily Beth Evans played her with such warmth and the whole play was so tongue in cheek we were all rooting for her anyway. This was helped by the brilliantly evil Draco Malfoy-esque snob Sybil Burlington (Fern Bicheno) and crony Monica Smithers (Rosie Carter) who were great fun to hate.

Tamsin Halford really stole the show as Daisy's poetic, scatty friend Trixie Martin. Her state of perpetual wide-eyed excitement was infectious and the way she ran on and off stage was especially funny, it really reminded me of how my own sister Daisy used to run around.

The whole cast was really brilliant but my other personal favourites were the dynamic duo of head girl Clare Beaumont (Alice Corrigan) and her friend Alice (Jo Gardner.) They took what could have been the duller parts of the play and made them the best with terrific over the top poses and speeches, they could have stepped straight out of a comic.

What made this the best fun to watch was the feeling that everyone on stage was enjoying themselves immensely. I hope Bench Theatre finds more plays in the future to showcase this amazing amount of young female talent. Such fun.

23 - The Winslow boy, One Off Productions

I really enjoyed the acting performances in this well constructed production.

The play is about the Winslow family. One day the youngest son Ronnie is sent home from the Royal Naval College accused of stealing a postal order. His expulsion and his protests that he didn't commit the crime he was accused of result in his father starting a long legal battle against the college to fight for a fair trial for his son.

The costs of the trial tear the family apart. Ronnie's sister Kate's engagement is in jeopardy, his brother Dickie is forced to drop out of his degree when funds run low and his father's heath rapidly deteriorates leaving him in a bath chair. We are watching someone sacrificing everything so they can stand up for what they believe is right.

The play at times was a little dry and tedious but these moments were dispersed with great displays by the vivid characters which made it all of a sudden a joy to watch. The father, Mr Winslow, was charismatic but not too over the top. He had great comic timing, I particularly enjoyed the scene where he had to discuss with John Watherstone his prospects of marrying Kate which was very funny.

The real star of the show was the actor playing Violet the over famililar maid who the family were 'constantly having to explain to people.' She was I'm afraid too old for the part, the text described her joining them from an orphanage but she seemed far too close in age to Mr and Mrs Winslow. However I'm very glad the company cast her anyway as her interjections were the funniest in the play, particularly her account of the final verdict towards the end.

I also thought the boy playing the young Ronnie Winslow gave a very accomplished performance for his age, his acting was both varied and believable.

The benefit of the play being set all in one room was the company was able to put together an excellent naturalistic set. I did think it was a shame that they chose to have a couple of essential elements of the room invisible on the fourth wall (a bell which Mr Winslow pushed to summon Violet and later the curtains which were discussed at length by a female journalist.) This device didn't fit in with the style of the production and felt a bit like a cop-out. An unnecessary one too: when they had managed to source a gramophone and build French doors surely some fancy curtains would not have proved much of a problem?

On the whole though a very polished production which was a credit to the company. Very well done to all involved.

22 - Most Drink in Secret, FellSwoop at The Spring

Daisy and I took a bit of a risk and took my little cousin Aiden to see this Checkov adaptation. Checkov is pretty weighty stuff and I didn't want Aiden to be bored. But as this was a young and emerging company I had confidence they would bring something different to The Seagull, and I was right. The performance was fresh, engaging and funny.

This was a three man show with each actor playing 2 or 3 characters. Fiona Mikel was a joy to watch, she differentiated the characters without making them too over the top or stereotypical. Another favourite was Clem Garritty as the hilarious chirpy doctor character who is sleeping with the gloomy Masha.

The introduction of modern music, with characters stepping out of the action and singing into a mic was interesting. I liked the way it broke up the action and added to the atmosphere, the songs were performed beautifully with the other actors playing props as percussion instruments.

I'm not sure the modernisation of the play was entirely successful. I liked that the play had been made into a film and it made it much more believable that Anna would not be sure about how good the final film was even though she was in it having not seen the final cut. However I think more recent political references could have been bought into the conversations about censorship and the arts as sometimes these felt a bit anachronistic where I wasn't sure what was referring to modern Russia and what had simply been taken from The Seagull.

There was great theatricality in the play, the way it looked has clearly been very well blocked and thought out. Clever moments included Garitty holding a drawer to become a chest of drawers, and Fiona Mikel and Bertrand Lesca standing up holding a duvet in front of them and a bedside lamp with the top of it facing the audience, so it was like we were seeing them sleeping in bed from above.

I also liked that they had a live goldfish on stage in a bowl in the centre of the table. It's funny how having a live unpredictable animal on stage, even if it's just a fish, makes a performance seem more spontaneous, lively and keeps the audience rivetted from the start. Particularly after the line 'swear on this fish's life,' I kept glancing back at the fish to check if it was still alive, and thinking how awful it would be if it died during the show.

I'm not entirely sure what the company was hoping to bring to Checkov by adapting it, or whther they wanted to say anything new. Perhaps they were showing that arguments about what is valid as art and what art is for are the same today as they were in 1895. Or perhaps they just borrowed a great story to create an exciting new piece of theatre. Either way this is definately worth a watch, and will transfer to Bristol's Tobacco Factory in June.

Cinderella: A Christmas Adventure! - Bench Theatre at The Spring in Havant

I love Bench theatre. Their dedication to produce plays most non-professionals wouldn’t tackle, and at the highest possible standard, gave me the opportunity to see plays ranging from Shakespeare to Sarah Kane on my doorstep while I was still studying for my GCSEs. I have seen productions there which have far excelled some I have seen on the West End. They are essentially in my opinion, the reason to visit Havant.

So when I heard they were producing a pantomime, I knew it would be a good night out, and naturally dragged a couple of car loads of my friends down from Croydon for the weekend.

Firstly, Mark Wakeman has written a really excellent script which offers just the right mix of a traditional story with modern references. There were plenty of jokes for the grown-ups but lots of ‘he’s behind you’ stuff for the kids. It also didn’t go too smutty or contain lots of in jokes for the locals, referencing pop culture and TV instead which made it very relevant. We particularly liked the way the story followed the familiar tale of Cinderella but veered off after the ball to give us extra plot and characters.

The ugly sisters, played by Terry Smyth and Callum West, were hilarious, and a particular favourite among my friends, one of whom insisted on getting a photograph with them afterwards (above). Dan Finch and Mark Wakeman really set the scene as the story tellers, keeping the story moving and the audience laughing. I also thought Flic Jolly had a great pantomime style as Cinderella as did Lorraine Galliers as the fairy godmother.

What really made the pantomime magical was the contagious energy of the cast and the truly spectacular set and costumes. The beautiful hand-painted sets were so lovely I wanted to take them home for my own house. Now OK I’m a bit biased about the costume because my mum led the team of talented people behind them, but I think anyone who sees this production will agree they are truly amazing. From the bespoke patterned tailcoats which looked straight out of a Vivienne Westwood collection to the adorable horses, they were a joy to look at. Each character had different costumes for the ball and many had more than two or even three different outfits making this a real feat.

I think what I love most about this panto is that it gives local parents the opportunity to take their kids to a Christmas show they will all love without breaking the bank. No need for fireworks or past-it celebrities, take the kids to this and you will make their Christmas.

Oh and it goes without saying, the turkey in scene one was totally awesome.