#17. Guardians

Guardians by Peter Morris

Premiere: Pleasance Cavern, Edinburgh Fringe (August 2005)

Published by Oberon Modern Plays

Peter Morris' Guardians was another recommendation that particularly interested me as I enjoyed The Age of Consent, another of Morris' plays. Guardians won a Fringe First award in 2005, before transferring to London and New York. 

Guardians is storytelling at its purest and simplest and yet it is a deeply complex piece. Morris interweaves two vibrant monologues from characters that on first glance couldn't seem more disparate but, as the play proves, are intricately connected even though they don't know it. 'English Boy' is a blood-thirsty Fleet Street hack of a journalist, violently ambitious, armed with an acerbic wit and all the confidence of someone born of the Oxbridge elite. 'American Girl' is a plain woman from the rural poverty of West Virginia, dressed in the uniform of an American military prisoner.

Morris' characters articulate, ultimately, that everything is either fucking or getting fucked. For them, everything can be reduced down to this primal terminology.

It is an intricate character study of both, exploring how people are products of their upbringings and surroundings. Linking the two is the snapshots from Abu Ghraib, depicting atrocities committed in Iraq 'in the name of freedom'. Similar photos emerge in the tabloids of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner, which turn out to be fakes. Somewhere beneath the spin and the lies and the official secrets lies some kind of truth. It is not an apology, but a reflection on the cause.

Katherine Moennig as the American Girl in
New York's Culture Project production

The Abu Ghraib scandal was deeply disturbing and further fueled public anger against a disastrous war started under false pretences. This play is an uncompromising response, enabling some understanding of a seemingly incomprehensible series of events. It is scathing of the systems and people that are 'behind the camera', puppeteering events from a safe distance, preferring to get other people's hands dirty than their own. Morris particularly has in his sights Tony Blair and his supporters, and George Bush. He holds them, and the systems they represent and cultures they foster, responsible for what happened at Abu Ghraib and in conflict zones across the world throughout decades of warfare.

Morris' characters articulate, ultimately, that everything is either fucking or getting fucked. For them, everything can be reduced down to this fundamental, primal terminology. For the American soldier caught up in the scandal and used as a scapegoat, she has been getting fucked physically and metaphorically by those in authority for her whole life. For the English journalist, he'd rather be fucking than being fucked, and screw those caught in the crosshairs. This is these people's understanding of power, control and manipulation, and the misuse of it. The argument seems more fully formed in the case of the naive girl soldier, and her justification seems to stand closer inspection than that of the journalist. Perhaps this is down to the fact that she is based quite closely on the true to life Private Lynndie England, pictured in the photos abusing Iraqi soldiers, whereas the English Boy is more of an invention.

It is a convincing, well-argued perspective that is scathing of Western political powers in all the right ways, without demonising the characters for what they do. The monologues are appropriately conversational and play with the contradictory urges of confessional versus self-awareness. It is at times shocking and at times surprisingly tender. Morris has found a fresh, perceptive angle to the discussion surrounding the Iraq war; unsurprisingly, it still feels urgent and timely and could be about any conflict currently being fought by western powers. 

That said, something about it feels unfinished; it comes to a very abrupt end in mid-flight. Of course, it was written for an Edinburgh Fringe slot and the time restrictions that entails, but it feels like Morris has much more left to say. This is testament, I suppose, to how gripping his characters and their stories are that you feel as though they could easily talk for twice as long. At the same time, there is strength in how succinct it is. It is not easy stuff necessarily to digest, and Morris chooses to focus on the humanity within the story and suggests the wide reaching political resonance.

Perhaps, then, Morris' Guardians is a delectable, well-crafted starter rather than a three-course meal; it certainly leaves you wanting more. This little firecracker of a play is sure to spark debate.

#16. The Beaux' Stratagem

Susannah Fielding as Mrs Sullen
Photo by Manuel Harlan

The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar
Premiere: Theatre Royal, Haymarket (now Her Majesty's - 8 March 1707)
Currently playing at the National Theatre.

George Farquhar's final play, written in the final days preceding his death, is a joyous romp by one of the great writers of the Restoration. It is currently playing at the Olivier in a strong revival directed by Simon Godwin, and led by Susannah Fielding and Samuel Barnett.

The Beaux', Mr Aimwell and Mr Archer, have lost their fortunes in the bristling city life of London, and hounded by their debts they have fled to Lichfield. Here they hatch their Stratagem; to pose as master and servant and find the richest lady possible in order to marry her for her money. Brilliantly, Aimwell and Archer meet their match in the women they set their sights on, Mrs Sullen and Dorinda. The Beaux' stratagem gets knocked off course when they end up truly in love with the women, one of whom is unhappily married to a drunk, and also manage to get mixed up with a crooked landlord and his highwayman pals, a stream of ambitious servants and a rather confused priest. Joyously, despite all of the chaos and confusion, love seems sure to win out in the end.

The difficulty in reviving this play is to rediscover the sense of shock that audiences of the time must have felt at the notion that a woman could have authority of her own.

It is a wordy, twisting plot that struggles to accelerate in the first act, but in the second act flies. Susannah Fielding as Mrs Sullen is reminiscent of Emmeline Pankhurst, although several hundred years her senior, in her rallying of the audience for support in her quest to have command of her own life. Fielding, quite rightly, has complete command of the audience, effortlessly whipping them up in her several soliloquies to the point where they cheer and applaud her sentiments. Samuel Barnett gives a fantastic performance as Aimwell, marrying faultless comedic timing with sincere hart and undying energy, paired with a light-footed Geoffrey Streatfield as Archer. Pearce Quigley's straight-faced performance is hilariously droll as the scene-stealing Scrub, the Sullen's overworked, under-appreciated servant, while Pippa Bennett-Warner holds her own as the charmingly youthful Dorinda.

Geoffrey Streatfield (Archer) & Samuel Barnett (Aimwell)
Photo by Manuel Harlan

Godwin makes impressive use of the playing space across Lizzie Clachan's three storey set, even if it is only using a fraction of the Olivier's huge stage. He finds the joy in the busy intimacy of the close downstage playing area, and relishes the opportunities to allow the cast to wink knowingly to the audience. Clachan's design is colourful and striking, and the transitions between scruffy inn and country manor as performed unaided by the cast are shrewd in their simplicity. The musical numbers, accompanied by conveniently conjured musicians, are a delight, and there is a fantastic song and dance number to round off a delightfully entertaining evening.

Farquhar's last play, when considered in context, is a testament to his fearless drive to innovate in his writing. In a radical shift to tradition, the conclusion is not with a double marriage, but with the celebration of a marriage and a divorce. After all, the notion of a woman divorcing, let alone the suggestion that she may remarry, was legally impossible at the time. The difficulty in reviving this play is to rediscover that sense of shock and surprise the audiences of the time must have felt at the notion that a woman could have authority of her own, and could leave the marriage of convenience to a powerful, wealthy man for real love. In absence of knowledge of this context as many of the audience will be (unless of course they read one of the wonderfully informative programmes the National are known for), the play loses some of its bite and gumption. Without this tension, the struggle of the women becomes quaint and nostalgic rather than admirable.

Certainly, Godwin's revival stands strongly as a witty comedy about the trials of love and respectability, and indeed is respectable for fairly presenting such a cross-section of society onstage. The energy and pace in the second act particularly whisks the audience up into the whirlwind of the strange manager of characters, and the pay off is worth the work. It is a shame, though, that the political and perhaps even revolutionary air of the play is lost in performance to an audience for whom divorce has become commonplace.

Pearce Quigley (Scrub) and Geoffrey Streatfield (Archer)
Photo by Manuel Harlan

Playing at the National Theatre until 20th September 2015. 
Tickets available here.

#15. Hope

Hope by Jack Thorne

Premiere: Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs (26 November 2014)

Published by NHB Modern Plays

Jack Thorne's optimistically titled political play Hope was recommended by a friend of mine, and it is a wonderful read. It centres around a small local Labour council and its struggling councillors fighting to survive through the crushing cuts the Conservative government have been forcing through in recent years. It is a cutting satire, which audiences of all political persuasions will be able to get a handle on. 

It has all the hallmarks of Jack Thorne's style. It is episodic, concise and economic while still having a wide-reaching resonance, and the central fight is essentially unwinnable. The council presented becomes a symbol of a country's larger struggle in the face of troubled economic times. Thorne's dialogue is quirky and tight, with a great sense of irony piercing the air throughout.

Jack Thorne's play will become seen as a wider indictment of the British two-party political system, and the ways in which several successive governments on both sides of the fence have failed.

What Thorne does so well in this play is what good journalists manage to do with huge, unwieldy subjects; he makes it personal. By focussing on a small group of counsellors and branching out to consider their personal lives alongside the professional, Thorne's play becomes touching, compassionate and human, as well as intensely political. 

It seems fair to say that Thorne has a slight leaning towards the left side of the argument, but his play not only examines the perceived damage of Tory budget cuts which disproportionally affect working class towns, it also examines the failings of the contemporary Labour Party and of the Labour/socialist movement as a whole. His taut character list spans several generations using the counsellors as the epicentre; an elderly father - a counsellor himself through the seventies - is the epitome of the post-war Labour movement, a teenage child represents the varying apathy and idealism of youth.  

In some respects, the play is already historical, as is the danger with writing an immensely timely play. It is very specifically located a few months before the last election, with comments made about "Ed's" concerns. And part of the play's power is its grounding in a set of all-too real circumstances, which for audiences at the time would have felt even more poignant. That said, I would suggest that going forward the play will find a different resonance; it will become seen as a wider indictment of the British two-party political system, and the ways in which several successive governments on both sides of the fence have failed. It shrewdly portrays the limits of our elected representatives, and their own selfish battles to achieve re-election and promotion.

Jack Thorne's writing finds power and resonance in the extraordinary moments within the everyday lives of those pushed forward to lead. Marvellously, it is not a dreary play - as the title suggests, there is optimism, humour and hope all loitering around in the age of austerity. Thorne doesn't preach or thrust forth his own solutions. Rather, his quietly profound play leaves you reconsidering many of your own political views, and questioning the political system as a whole. Truly effective, urgent satirical writing.

All photos of John Tiffany's production at the Royal Court, designed by Tom Scutt.
Photos by Johan Persson

Also by Jack Thorne: #10. Mydidae
Buy on Amazon here.

My Fringe: In Brief

MY FRINGE: IN BRIEF

My personal recommendations and top picks based on the productions I had time to catch in my short visit to this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

// Highlights //

• Gecko's Institute 
Pleasance Courtyard

• Philip Ridley's Tonight With Donny Stixx 
Pleasance Courtyard

• Le Gateau Chocolat's Black 
Assembly Hall

// New company to watch // 

Disparat Theater 
Rebounding Hail, Underbelly Cowgate @ 11.20

@disparattheater

// Returning company to watch //

Caligula's Alibi 
Idiots, Pleasance Courtyard @ 14.15

@alibitheatre

// Performers to watch //

• Sean Michael Verey @Sean_M_Verey
Donny, Tonight With Donny Stixx

• Ash Henning @AshHenning
Miss Pennywise, Urinetown: The Musical

• Samuel Skoog 
Carl, Cleansed

• Holly Kilpatrick @hollykip
Laura, Rebounding Hail

• Apphia Campbell @apphiacampbell
Nina Simone: Soul Sessions

// Creatives to watch //

• Ed Burnside, director; Black
@EdBurnside

• Will Cowell & Jonnie Bayfield, creators; Idiots
@WJCCaligula / @JonnieBayfield

• Lucas Hnath, writer; The Christians

Gecko's Institute

edfringe.com

Edinburgh Fringe Day 3

Final day, managed to squeeze in another couple of shows before (literally) running for my plane home.

#13. Urinetown: the Musical

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Assembly Hall @ 11.45

I was stunned by this incredibly ambitious production of Urinetown, which was executed expertly by a cast of graduating students from RCS. 

Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis' 2001 Broadway hit, recently seen in London in Jamie Lloyd's brilliant production, is a satirical comedy set in a dystopian future where a twenty-year drought has caused a crippling water shortage making private bathrooms unthinkable. All toilets are in the form of public amenities, run by the corrupt mega-corp Urine Good Company at extortionate fees as an attempt to control consumption. There are harsh laws forcing citizens to pay to pee, and if they don't they face being sent to the mythologised penal colony Urinetown. The oppressed masses rise up, as may be expected, led by the simplistic but big-hearted Bobby Strong, everything you'd expect in a musical hero, in an attempt to win free peeing for all! A pretty absurd concept, granted, but an effective one.

Our narrator is Officer Lockstock (strong turn from Joel Schaefer), a sadistic enforcer of the law under the thumb of UGC's CEO Caldwell B Cladwell. He is assisted by the cuttingly perceptive Little Sally, a street urchin. The show satirises politics, capitalism, bureaucracy, populism and socialism - in other words, no one is safe! It also satirises the musical as a form, in hilarious songs like 'Too Much Exposition', considering what factors might kill a show. 

The production is slickly directed by Ken Alexander and exuberantly choreographed by Paul Smethurst, with a great toilet-like set and effective lighting. But the cast take the production to another level and it is to the production teams credit that we can keep our focus solidly on their performances. This cast are quite frankly phenomenal. Sublime voices, real energy and commitment and some memorable interpretations of some of musical theatre's greatest roles. I liked how many used their own accent; Scottish and Irish voices are prevalent alongside Bobby's expressive American. It is rare to hear regional British dialects on the musical stage; it is ever so refreshing.

The performances are pant-wettingly funny, handling the rapid plot and challenging songs with ease. All those in lead roles do so to an extraordinarily high standard, showing great ability as well as technique.
The cast I saw included a charming George Arvidson as Bobby whose voice soars, the wonderful Brigid Shine as Hope, a delightful Jenny Hayley-Douglas as Little Sally, and the ravishing, hilarious Ash Henning as Miss Pennywise who owns the stage better than some with decades of experience. They are supported by a fantastically strong, characterful ensemble who make a joyful sound. Run, Freedom, Run is a highlight, as is Ash Henning's raucous rendition of It's a Priviledge to Pee. 

This production of Urinetown is a testament to the world-class training delivered by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Some of the best young musical theatre talent around.

#14. Idiots

Caligula's Alibi

Pleasance Courtyard @ 14.15

Another company founded on East 15's Acting and Contemporary Theatre course, in the last few years Caligula's Alibi have won several awards and started to make a real name for themselves. Idiots is a raucous, absurd, irreverent piece about Dostoyevski, his work, his life and his afterlife. It centres on his most autobiographical piece, The Idiot, and uses it as a lens through which to see a certain vision of a purgatory-bound Fyodor whose benefit claim is being examined by a Bureaucrat forcing confrontation of several age-old demons. 

Jonnie Bayfield's performance as the famed writer - and as his character Prince Myshkin, and also as a form of existentialistic cabaret host - is something to behold. Although that said, his Dostoyevski is rather disparaging of blogs... Ahem. Awkward. Well, as he said, these days everyone has an opinion! It is a brilliant performance subverting any notion you may have had of the fourth wall, audience anonymity and passivity, natural plot progression etc. etc. etc.! Stewart Agnew, Adam Colbourne and Jessica-Lee Hopkins are fantastically theatrical in their own gaunt-faced, hollow-eyed roles. The performance is underscored tirelessly by Jonathan Hopwood live on distorted guitar, kick drum and various other noisemakers.

It is a passionately irreverent, comedically tragic look at the life and death of this great - or bad - man. How will he be judged? That's up to you. 

Creators Will Cowell and Jonnie Bayfield have produced a wickedly funny, theatrical, unpredictable, crude, intelligent piece of theatre. Caligula's Alibi once again prove that they are a force to be reckoned with.

That's the lot! Fourteen exciting pieces of theatre from some extraordinary artists. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe should formally be appointed one of the great wonders of the world; it truly is one of the greatest catalysts of and platforms for new work. The artists who take part are often doing so at great financial, social and personal cost and all involved deserve to be applauded. I simply cannot wait until next August for another summer of risk-taking, rule-breaking, inspiring theatre. 

edfringe.com

Edinburgh Fringe Day 2

Another day, another six shows! And today was a good day of powerful new theatre... 

#7. Rebounding Hail

Disparat Theater

Underbelly Cowgate @ 11.20

Rebounding Hail is a thrillingly exciting piece, revelling in the power of storytelling. And, justly, it is a wonderful piece of storytelling itself. A strong, united ensemble led by Holly Kilpatrick are utterly gripping from the first moment to the last.

It is the story of a girl who lives in a room filled with unfinished books by some of the greatest writers to have lived - from Camus to Dickens, Bronte to Marx. Each time she opens a story it bursts into life around her. Suddenly, a new book is dropped into the room and despite the warnings of the voice in her head, the girl is determined to read the story held within its silver pages. The boundaries between what is real and what is fiction blur until the characters seem just as real and just as important - if not more so - than the people outside of the books. 

The glimpses into unfinished works by great writers are wittily selected, creating a rich mix of time periods and characters slickly handled by the able, dynamic ensemble. It is directed with confidence and panache, and the space becomes filled with all the colour and life of the greatest imaginations. 

Guaranteed to have you on the edge of your seat and sure to surprise, Rebounding Hail is an impressive statement of intent from youthful company Disparat Theater, recently graduated from East 15's Acting & Contemporary Theatre course. Young artists to watch!

#8. Institute

Gecko Theatre

Pleasance Courtyard @ 13.00

Gecko's outstanding Institute is a mindful, intricate, bold, subtle, resonant, precise masterpiece; the team behind previous Fringe hit Missing have surpassed themselves.

A study of masculine inadequacies, real or imagined, and the crippling psychological impact these can have, the piece focusses on four inter-reliant men existing in some form of institution who have been debilitated by overwhelming awareness of their own deficiencies. One has been left by his adored fiancé, one was left unable to work following bouts of suicidal depression, another was shattered by the death of his father while the leader of the pack, a paternal authority figure himself and perhaps some sort of doctor, is himself terminally ill. They all seem desperate to be cared for, and determined to care for others. But, the piece seems to ask, is the care we give always for the best? 

The ensemble work together impeccably, in terms of both the physical work and multilingual dialogue. It has a truly timeless, placeless feeling as the characters understand each other's languages effortlessly - two speak English, while the other two speak German and French. The movement and choreography is sublime; the storytelling through use of the body is second to none as the music cuts from ominous to jolly and back again. They are a resourceful group, using every inch of their joyously surprising, playful set to its maximum potential. Filing cabinets become portals, rooms, even glass cages, and double as watch towers and ladders. A floating space appears in the back wall, with a perpetually falling man plummeting through his hospital bed into a vast void, then unfeasibly swiftly reappearing only to descend once again.

It is moving, shocking and humorous in equal measure. The performance had me open-mouthed in awe, on the very edge of my seat. Institute is a thrilling piece of physical and visual theatre from a unique company destined for greatness. Do anything you can to see it.

#9. Tonight With Donny Stixx by Philip Ridley 

Supporting Wall // David Mercatali

Pleasance Courtyard @ 14.45

Philip Ridley's latest long-form monologue, Tonight With Donny Stixx, is a painfully perfect companion piece to the overwhelming Dark Vanilla Jungle. An intense hour of theatre, it tells the story of Donny who, in his lust for fame as a great magician, has done something terrible. 

In the same way as Dark Vanilla Jungle, it takes the form of direct audience address, as if it is a stand-up set or a television chat show, which quickly becomes a cruel, unforgiving trial by public opinion. 

Ridley's writing is as strong as ever. It is full of that cutting East London rhythm, searing itself into your memory, not giving you any choice but to let it in as if Ridley has hold of your very spinal cord and will not release you until you have come through the experience with his character. It demands everything of you, but if you give it the piece will reveal unforeseen treasures. This is as good as anything Ridley has written before, and belies a true economy of form that suggests a real mastercraftsman at work.

Combined with Dark Vanilla Jungle, and in the canon of Ridley's work, a consciousness emerges of the damage done to people in childhood by unforgivable parenting, damning them almost inevitably to their final, tragic fate. The people truly condemned, it seems, are not the individuals themselves, but those responsible for forming that person. The begs the crushing question; could it all have been different? If only.

Sean Michael Verey's performance is a tour-de-force. It is phenomenally well observed, as he jumps into playing all the other people in his doomed story, from compulsive mother to stern father, doting aunt to his brace-faced magician's assistant. It is a masterclass in truth, transformation and stamina. 

Director David Mercatali, now a seasoned Ridley interpreter, presents his latest with recognisable minimalism that is almost an affront. The bare space becomes full, almost stifling, in the oppressive heat of the story. Spit flies, sweat drips, tears fall. 

Brimming with aggression and fizzing with vulnerability, Tonight With Donny Stixx will haunt you. Let it. It's worth it. 

#10. Cell

Smoking Apples // Dogfish Theatre

Underbelly Cowgate @ 16.35

Smoking Apples were set up with the central aim of using their unique brand of puppetry to make difficult topics more accessible, to enable discussion and further understanding. In their collaboration with Dogfish Theatre, they created Cell, whose topic is Motor Neurone Disease. Not an easy one, presumably made even harder by the personal resonance for the creators. 

Ted is the story's unexpecting but not unwilling focus. Through his story of discovery, diagnosis and dealing with MND, the creators have made a piece with real resonance. The puppetry is expertly handled, using a great blend of styles. Ted himself is beautifully manipulated. 

This is a life affirming piece about full of love and laughter, but not shying away from the distressing truth of the disease. Inventive and playful, Cell is a joy to behold. 

#11. If I Were Me

Antler 

Underbelly Cowgate @ 18.05

Antler's latest work, If I Were Me, is a gorgeously bizarre, stupendously silly hour of theatre about feeling like you don't know who you are. A feeling, I'm sure, we all can relate to. 

Phillip works in an advertising agency, unnoticed and unappreciated. Even Phillip doesn't appreciate Phillip. In fact, Phillip doesn't really know who Phillip is. Maybe Phillip doesn't want to be Phillip. Has he ever? For all his trying, he just can't make other people want to talk to back him, the words don't come out in the right order. And then there's the person with the binoculars who is, perhaps, no one at all. What of her? 

Not easily understandable, it is absurd and ultimately jolly good fun. It makes some powerful points about the fallibility of our own closely held notions of identity. A strong ensemble, Antler are unafraid to break convention and form, playing and experimenting in all directions. The piece has a real sense of that free-falling sensation one has when one has nothing of oneself to cling onto. 

Bold as ever, Antler's If I Were Me is a bit of a tricky one, and it may just escape you in its obscurity, but it is without a doubt engaging and entertaining. Who knows what Antler will do next!

#12. The Christians by Lucas Hnath

Gate Theatre // Chris Haydon

Traverse Theatre @ 21.30

From the team that created the Fringe 2013 hit Grounded, Fringe First Award Winner The Christians is a deeply intelligent, profoundly articulate play allowing a complicated debate to rage in a safer-than-usual arena. By this I mean that Lucas Hnath's play presents a fierce theological debate, forcing questions about why we believe what we believe and how securely attached to those beliefs we are, without allowing weak-willed mockery to reduce it to squabbling as seems to so often happen in reality. 

It is a rigorous piece of writing that shows deep understanding of faith and scripture, without ever directly preaching at the audience. Despite its setting in a form of American super-church, with Pastor Paul holding court first delivering his sermon and then attempting to field criticism from all angles, it manages to maintain a real balance constantly forcing you as an audience member to re-evaluate who you agree with most, or disagree with least. 

The cast of five, supported by a full and very authentic community choir (even if they were a little bit reserved for an American super-church), give confident performances under Haydon's savvy direction. The stylised nature keeps the piece on its toes, playing with the contrasting conventions of public address and private confidence. William Gaminara as the Pastor is particularly notable; a great balance of headstrong dedication and self-doubt, while Lucy Ellinson is moving as a passionate Congregant who emerges from the choir.

Frustratingly, the show fell short by not presenting a third way. There are two sides to a debate offered, which both presume an unshakeable fundamental belief in God. But what of other angles - what of the multifarious other paths that lead to the top of the mountain? For all its smart word-play and theorising, it got my mind working intellectually but didn't leave me reeling.

That said, Hnath's well-paced script asks wider questions about leadership, fluidity of values and identity, the need for communication, and adapting to the demands of a modern world. It is a brave and robust piece that is certainly worth a visit in its final week!

More to come...

edfringe.com

Edinburgh Fringe Day 1

Yesterday was my first day of a brief visit to this year's Edinburgh Fringe, and I'm squeezing in as many shows as I can! Here's my summary of day one...

#1. Green Tea and Zen Baka

David WW Johnstone

Dance Base @ 10.15

This is the most calming, grounding start to the day. Hidden in a secret garden atop Dance Base, Johnstone's captivating, gentle blend of mime, Baka and humour is minimalistic, performative meditation. The performance belongs as much to the space as it does to Johnstone's Baka, with the wind and sun playing characters in their own way; the sun, for instance, is first aggressive but then dances through the leaves on the trees stroking Johnstone's face in his peacefulness. This performance must owe it's enchanting air to the interplay between performer and space, joining with the nature around to create the piece, and this must in turn make it wholly different each day as the weather changes. A stunning escape from the rush of the festival, proving how much can be achieved in minimalism and simplicity. 

#2. Cleansed by Sarah Kane

Fear No Colours

C Nova @ 13.00

Fear No Colour's production of Kane's challenging Cleansed is bold and fearless, with one or two strong performances standing out from a committed though not expert cast, making for an intensely engaging production despite its flaws. 

I first read Sarah Kane's Blasted five years ago. In that same night, I finished the 'Complete Works' collection I had bought only days before. I was hooked. I have revisted her plays time and time again, and was keen to see this production. 

It doesn't disappoint in terms of tackling the violence head on, not shying away from the difficult material. But the play is far more than the list of atrocities critics like to list when describing Kane's plays as if they give you any notion of what the play is about. And this young company make a valiant attempt at this very difficult play. 

Sadly, presumably due to budgetary concerns, production values are extremely low, which sacrifices some of the contextual grounding of the piece. In absence of prior knowledge, the piece may seem to exist in a complete non-place, a theatrical limbo, rather than the university grounds reappropriated as a form of concentration camp. Kane's more hopeful visual images are also missed; the sunflower bursting through the floor boards, the blinding lights, the contrasting surroundings of the various rooms. This, to me, is a real shame. These images drive home the hope underpinning the seemingly bleak play, leaving it indulging in the violence. 

What is there, though, is adequate enough on the whole. It is a mixed bag in terms of the cast, Erfan Shojanoori's Tinker is lacking in authority and strength, while Raymond Wilson's Robin risks being overwrought and strained. Callum Partridge's Rod seems misjudged and Hannah Torbitt's surprisingly chaste, reserved Woman all but fades into the background. On the other hand, Siofra Dromgoole is engaging as Grace and finds her match in Lourenço de Almeida's flexing Graham. Samuel Skoog's Carl stands head and shoulders above the rest; as Carl is progressively more and more mutilated Skoog's performance is sensitive and powerful at once. A perfectly pitched, sympathetic and detailed performance.

The piece is let down by some simplistic direction and overly choreographic (for my money) sections which seem to jar with the mood of the rest of the piece.

But Sarah Kane's work shines through, and for that the production deserves its due. The use of syringes of blood to signify the severing of limbs, as well as the very smart inclusion of a recording of Kane herself reminding us that to see the source of the violence in her plays one must only open any newspaper, are some very smart touches. Kane's genius is allowed to shine through, and the cast are incredibly committed to doing justice to her play. Commendable, though far from perfect. 

(Fear No Colours are also, bravely, staging Kane's Phaedra's Love this year).

#3. Joan, Babs & Shelagh too

Gemskii // Conscious Theatre

Zoo Southside @ 14.55

Full disclosure: I was involved in the early stages of exploration/development of a piece planned with this name, produced by Conscious Theatre, which for a variety of reasons did not come to fruition this year. Gemskii, a performer and theatre-maker who sparked the initial project, took on the central concerns of the piece - the life, work and influence of director Joan Littlewood - and has created a one-woman show. I won't say too much, as it feels wrong to plug a show that I am intertwined with, except that Gemskii's show is a fun, largely improvised look at the life of Joan and those around her. It's on for the rest of the festival, so check it out if you're interested in finding out a bit more.

#4. Black

Le Gateau Chocolat

Assembly Hall @ 16.50 

Le Gateau Chocolat's new, autobiographical piece is a stunning piece of theatre, blurring likes between drag, cabaret and storytelling. Le Gateau Chocolat gives an astounding, honest, vulnerable performance in an expertly crafted story about his own struggles through racism, homophobia and being made to feel like a 'black sheep'. 

The piece was made in collaboration with director Ed Burnside, and together Black is a tightly honed, emotionally raw but not self-indulgent piece that we all can relate to in our own experiences of feeling an outsider. There are some stunning musical choices, from Purcell to Whitney Houston, sung in his trademark deliciously tone, which help tell the story enthrallingly, all accompanied by a superb live pianist. There is delightful use of projection, a good helping of self-deprecating humour and some witty costume choices, Black deals delicately but not shyly with depression and loss. 

The highlight of my Fringe so far, I cannot recommend Le Gateau Chocolat's Black highly enough. 

#5. COSMOnauts

Ryan Good

Underbelly Cowgate @ 18.50

After a last minute change of plans, I ended up grabbing tickets for Ryan Good's latest comedy show, COSMOnauts. He is a fantastic comedian, storyteller and all-round entertainer with a unique brand of confused sex-based self-deprecation using his own life - and Cosmopolitan's top 10 list of sex tips - as a catalyst for his shows. I somehow ended up onstage as his not-so-glamorous assistant, and ended up sharing stories some of my closest friends don't know (much to the gratification of the audience) and by the end was 'married' with Haribo rings to a long-haired, bearded American I had never met before. This show is bound to delight, if you're one for somewhat risqué humour! Check it out. 

#6. Nina Simone: Soul Sessions

Apphia Campbell

Assembly Checkpoint @ 20.50

Part two of a celebration of Nina Simone by the superb Apphia Campbell, this show is a study of the influence of Simone's sublime music on Campbell's own life. A great selection of songs, performed with panache, and plenty of laughs, by Campbell in a tour-de-force performance. Accompanied by musical director Joe Louis Robinson, complete with almost finger-breaking piano solos, Soul Sessions is musical dynamite. 

More to come... 

edfringe.com

#14. Red

Red by John Logan

Premiere: Donmar Warehouse, London 

(3 December 2009)

Published by Oberon Modern Plays

John Logan's Red has long hovered around the back of my mind since seeing a friend give a wonderful performance of a monologue taken from the play a few years ago. The play was first seen at the Donmar, in a production directed by Michael Grandage and starring Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, which transferred to Broadway and won awards on both sides of the Atlantic. A brilliantly gripping two-hander, it is a study of Mark Rothko, one of the last century's greatest artists, and his young assistant, Ken. It covers swiftly the two year period of Ken's employ, as Rothko attempts to complete his landmark, abstract expressionist Seagram Mural paintings. 

"You insult these men by reducing them to your own adolescent stereotypes. Grapple with them, yes. Argue with them, always. But don't think you understand them. They are beyond you." Mark Rothko

Logan's achievement in this play is to make his character study resonate broadly, bringing something new and honestly profound unpretentiously into its grasp. Through Rothko, Logan discusses the very fabric of artistic integrity and authenticity in the face of a capitalist, consumerist, ravenous society intent on turning his 'pure' art into yet another product to be devoured without humanity. Not only does he make us care about Rothko, his struggle becomes that of all artist striving for something meaningful in the face of soulless, bloodthirsty jackals. 

Stephen Wright (Lee) and Diana
Agron (Dahlia) in McQueen

Many writers attempt to find this resonance in theatrical 'bio-dramas' of a similar ilk - the reductive McQueen, written by James Phillips and recently inexplicably successful at the St James and now transferring to the West End, comes to mind. They often fall into the trap of artist selfcongratulating artist, which feels like watching wholly unsatisfying theatrical masturbation, with artist appreciation as the hollow pornographic stimulation. The message becomes a painful, self-justifying mantra: 'this artist was important and proves that art is important and therefore this play is important'.

Red, though, avoids self-importance. Where many writers are transparent in their desperation to be profound while flailing in inadequacy when compared to the genius of the artist themself, Logan's script throbs with urgent humanity and respect for its central figure, but does not crown him a false God. Rothko's genius is appropriately understated. It is acknowledged as transient and fragile, rather than inevitable and divine. Red strips back, it humanises, it reveals, rather than piling yet more layers onto a falsified mythology. McQueen, on the other hand, seemed to me to feel the need to justify Alexander McQueen's genius, to fight his corner, even to justify his suicide, to push it at you over and over like one of those awful coin machines at seaside arcades where occasionally something worthless drops out the bottom as a crude reward for an inordinate effort. It is preaching the value of art to an audience made up of theatregoers and fashion enthusiasts. Surely this is completely redundant, especially considering that the V&A's outstanding exhibition on McQueen was running concurrently. If, for some unknown reason, anyone felt the need to find more evidence for McQueen's place as a respected, almost unparalleled master-craftsman, all they need do is look at his work itself. It speaks volumes. We don't need a play claiming to understand and dissect his creative torment, his process, his strokes of genius, and his depression, no matter how commendable the performances.

Alfred Molina (Mark Rothko)

Logan's play is far more respectable and, in my eyes, valid for acknowledging its limits. Rothko says to Ken on his judgement of several great artists from Matisse to Van Gogh: "You insult these men by reducing them to your own adolescent stereotypes. Grapple with them, yes. Argue with them, always. But don't think you understand them. Don't think you have captured them. They are beyond you. Spend a lifetime with them and you might get a moment of insight into their pain... Until then, allow them their grandeur in silence. Silence is so accurate." Logan here could as easily be writing about the central, irreconcilable contradiction of any biographical writing. Who is any writer, from biographer to playwright, lacking as they are in actual experience of the figure they take as their subject, to suggest they have truly captured them? It is surely more accurate to say that they have gone, and all we have now are ideas of them. We cannot fully understand them, just as it seems we cannot fully understand even ourselves. They are beyond us.

Eddie Redmayne (Ken)

Logan's play, though, for all its self-deprecation, does find moments of insight. That is where this play does Rothko's legacy justice. There are moments, imagined or not, where the howl of Rothko's dark rectangles echoes through the decades, reverberating in the dialogue and resonating through the silences. 

Much of the play comes in the form of a Socratic debate between master and pupil, with cultural references flung like canon fodder between the two men. There is a perplexing intensity to the bond between Rothko and Ken, despite all of the former's protestations to detached, maniacal self-centredness. Ken's subtly knowing laughs suggest the tolerance of a son towards a father. Of course, it will never avoid those detestable audience members gloating in their self-satisfaction, feeling highbrow because they get the actually somewhat middlebrow cultural in-jokes about Freud and Shakespeare, but this is the natural everyday patter of two men for whom a debate about the tension between the Appolonian and Dionysian instincts in Rothko's art is as easily digestible as a light salad. The teacher-pupil dynamic grows, and it emerges that it is a two-way exchange; they are both learning. Ken is a different generation, a new artist. Rothko is becoming part of the old guard, which by his own admission must be stamped on before the next generation may prosper. Without Rothko's experience and aggressive conviction, Ken would not have been challenged or forced to step up to a level he was no doubt always capable of reaching. Without Ken's youthful tolarotarianism and resilience, Rothko would not have found a way, however imperfect, to reconcile the contradiction between his puritanical ethos and his commercial success. 

Moving but unsentimental. Profound but unpretentious. Serious and yet sinisterly humorous. Urgent and intense but haunting and melancholy. Fiercely uncompromising but hewn with feeling. John Logan is a writer with true perceptive powers. Red is an admirable piece of art, pulsating with the prowess of a master-craftsman at work.

Alfred Molina (Mark Rothko) and Eddie Redmayne (Ken) in the 2009 Donmar Warehouse production

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#13. Someone Who'll Watch Over Me

Joseph Timms, photo by Robert Workman

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me by Frank McGuinness

Premiere: Hampstead Theatre, London (July 1992)

Published by Faber Plays
Running at the Minerva, Chichester Festival Theatre 10 Sept - 10 Oct 2015. Tickets available here.

With the announcement of a new production being mounted at Chichester Festival Theatre, it seemed timely to have a read of Frank McGuinness' seminal play about three hostages caught in the crosshairs of conflict in Lebanon, based on real experiences.

It is a taut three-hander, people by an American, an Irishman and an Englishman. Sounds like the set up of a joke, and indeed Frank McGuinness does find a great deal of humour in the play. It reaches, at times, levels of absurdity to rival Beckett's Waiting for Godot with the characters similarly trapped in senseless waiting, at the behest of an unseen, external power. It is a sort of gallows humour, as particularly American Adam begins to lose his rationality and even, almost, his sanity. 

Also similar to Godot, 'not much happens'. There is not a great deal of plot, of action in the traditional sense. We see three man, degraded and forced in to a windowless, timeless, airless room together, struggling to cling on to the last remnants of their civility, their masculinity, their sanity. McGuinness is incredibly perceptive in his writing of the three men. Their conversations are profound and yet everyday, witty and dark all at the same time. The differences in their national identities are fully explored, led by the lucid, articulate Irishman, Edward, who emerges as the centre of the play. Edward is a brilliant, naturally garrulous man who talks more than either of the others. McGuinness makes the most of his own natural affinity with lyrical Irish verbosity so that Edward becomes almost showman-like in his command of the room.

There is a very moving, powerful undercurrent that runs beneath the laughing bravado of the three men; a damning examination of the human collateral of conflict.

Billy Carter
Photo by Robert Workman

To forestall despair, the three engage in make believe. These are brilliant sequences, which range from envisaging their own films, to enjoying cocktails at a swish party and even flying home in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! There is a beautiful pathos in the joy of these scenes, and the men's need to indulge in fantasy is convincingly portrayed.

There is a very moving, powerful undercurrent that runs beneath the laughing bravado - or the stiff-upper-lip, in the case of Englishman Michael - of the three men. It is a damning examination of the human collateral of conflict, leaving no nation wholly innocent, and the timeliness of this sadly doesn't seem to be diminishing any time soon. It could just as easily be about Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria as it is about the Lebanon conflict. 

Robin Soans
Photo by Robert Workman

Reading this play brought me to an interesting consideration. It is not an easy read; it takes real perseverance (as Beckett does). Their appropriately inane, cyclical conversations seem to last as long as their internment. That contrasts with the eminently readable Thorne or Ridley plays. But I would argue that it is because this isn't a play written to be read. Some plays read well on the page, springing to life in their imagery and dialogue. On the other hand, many must be performed for their true power to be appreciated; the likes of Shakespeare and indeed Beckett spring to mind. These plays are hard reads, not to say they don't yield some gems of their own on the page, but are not meant to be read. Shakespeare had absolutely no intention of it, for instance. One of these tendencies does not win over the other, but it is certainly interesting to consider the difference in style here.

In the case of Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, the contrast between the voices in terms of dialect, and the powerful visual dictated by the situation are ever-present in performance, but in the play these can slip from immediate consideration. It is a powerfully visual play, with the three men chained down, restricting their potential movements, and the presence or absence of one of the men is profoundly affecting in the way the space reads to an audience. 

As such, I for one am excited to see Michael Attenborough's production at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Although intriguing on the page, McGuinness' writing suggests an incredible power that is given wings in performance. 

Cast of Jessica Swales 2012 production at the Southwark Playhouse. Photo by Robert Workman.

Running at the Minerva, Chichester Festival Theatre 10 Sept - 10 Oct 2015. Tickets available here.
Buy on Amazon here.

#12. Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Skin by Prince Gomolvilas, based on the novel by Scott Heim
Premiere: New Conservatory Theatre Centre, San Francisco (2003)

Currently playing at the King's Head Theatre, Islington.

Peter Darney's production of Mysterious Skin was first seen at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010, and has gone on to several further award-winning productions around the UK. It is now back at the King's Head for only a week, and is really worth catching. The production is a bit of a tricky one to write about, because while I want to highly recommend you go see it, it is not without its flaws. 

Perhaps best known for its 2004 film adaptation starring a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mysterious Skin tells the story of two late-teenage boys struggling with confused memories of something traumatic that happened when they were eight. Brian has nosebleeds and suspects an alien abduction, encouraged by needy fanatic Avalyn. Neil works as a hustler in New York and is unable to shift a sexual fixation with older men. The boys' stories exist in parallel, but finally come crashing together with both being forced to confront a painful truth. 

Brian is stuck in small-town Kansas, fascinated by UFOs and plagued by fragmented dreams that he is beginning to suspect may in fact be memories. He finds Avalyn, a thirty-something sci-fi enthusiast convinced of her own abduction, and she is desperate to help Brian decode the truth of his. He gradually reveals his own hazy memories to Avalyn, which she interprets as further proof; he has blackouts and moments of 'lost time' that he has no memory of at all, a kind of selective amneisa. Neil is living with Wendy in New York, an old friend with an unrequited crush on him. We learn that he has been hustling from the age of fifteen, but first had sex at the age of eight - an experience he remembers strangely fondly. 

The two central performances, from Nick Hayes and Bryan Moriarty, more than make up for shortcomings in other areas of this production.

The characters are extraordinarily contrasting, and Gomolvilas does well to draw the characters further and further apart, it would seem, as the play progresses. Neil has a harrowing experience with a 'john' with HIV/AIDS and is beaten up by an aggressively dominant man; both experiences shake his swaggering confidence, while Brian and Avalyn discover a spate of brutally massacred cows that seem to have been more subjects of alien experiments. Of course, what is actually happening is they are getting closer and closer together. Brian inadvertently discovers that the boy in his recurring dreams was on his Little League team, and tracks him down. Neil arrives back in Kansas, escaping the difficulties of New York, to be confronted by a determined Brian demanding answers.

There are some gorgeous moments along the way in the performances from Bryan Moriarty as Brian, and Nick Hayes as Neil. They hold their own in their separate worlds as foundation stones for the piece. Moriarty ably plays Brian's confused reliance on Avalyn, while Hayes is magnetic as the swaggering Neil. Hayes performance is astonishing, really capturing the sense of fight in Neil; fighting to seem confidence, fighting to be beyond his years, fighting to be comfortable in himself. Beneath this, there is a beautiful sense of self-doubt that seeps through just enough to know that it is there. It is a wonderfully strong, precise, sensitive performance. 

It is a shame that the passing cameos of other characters are less sensitively portrayed and tend towards broad Americanised caricatures of overly camp rent boys and brainless hill billy's. These moments, if handled more deftly, would be comic but also contribute to the taught psychological drama that Gomovilas has constructed. Sadly they are somewhat reductive. I also missed having the dichotomy of age present on stage. The whole cast is charmingly youthful, but I feel this might be misplaced. It might be more effective to find the ghost of older men that hang over all the sexual encounters in the play to have an older man in the cast playing the older characters. This is sadly absent.

From the moment Moriarty and Hayes are alone on stage, the production ascends to a new height. Their chemistry is astounding; there is an electric tension between the two. They are brutally honest in their performances, unafraid to venture where the challenging material insists they must go. Hayes' Neil takes Brian back to the place where it all happened, a simple house that used to be owned by their Little League coach. It becomes clear that there were no aliens, no abductions, but the much more harrowing truth of human malignancy. Gomolvilas excels here; Brian needs the whole truth, and Moriarty portrays this desperation stunningly. Neil is forced to relive the experience, going into all the graphic, sordid details. The final touch of genius is that Neil does not relay this as rape or pedophilia or something wrong, but with the full child-like belief in his own love and admiration of their coach. He would do anything to make the man he loved proud, even if that was at the expense of Brian's innocence. Hayes' expertly portrays the disintegration of Neil's affected swagger as he almost becomes that little boy once again. The deeply damaging effects on both characters are not spelt out, but all too evident, like a great scar. The scene is haunting, disturbing, uncompromising and finally finds the razor-sharp poignancy, the raw, unsettling honesty of Gomolvilas' script. The alien, after all, is found in hopeless, mysterious humanity.

The production feels very intimate, staged in traverse at the King's Head, a tight space at the best of times. There is an appropriately bare stage, adequate to house the energetic playing of the story. There is a difficulty as the seating layout is rather off-balance, and the production has moments where it struggles to manage the challenges of playing to this audience configuration. 

The production makes surprisingly hard work of staging the piece in such an intimate setting; there are many jumps between locations and time periods, often with several co-existing in the space. The early scenes of the play feel rather frantic in terms of the directorial choices; there is a lot of rushing of actors to get from one spot on the stage to another, as if feeling the need to really spell out the transition to a different place. Combined with rather extreme shifts in lighting and a repeated clanging sound effect each time the characters enter a 'flashback' memory, all the rushing around seems unnecessary and eventually grates on one's nerves. The dynamism and pace that is perhaps being striven for actually just feels like the play is working too hard, and it becomes exhausting to watch (and in the heat of the studio, this is the last thing you need). 

The two central performances, though, more than make up for the shortcomings in other areas of this production. Gomolvilas' script has great resonance in a time where we are becoming almost desensitised to the increasingly common stories of pedophilia and rape popping up on a weekly bases in the news, and he channels the essence of the book into an admirable stage adaptation. A sorrowful, graphic but hopeful piece that is certainly worth seeing in a troubled and troubling production with outstanding performances.

Playing at the Kings Head Theatre until 14th August. Tickets available here.
Photos of 2011 London production. 

#11. Closer

Liza Walker (Alice) and Clive Owen (Dan) in
the original production (Photo: Tristram Kenton)

Closer by Patrick Marber
Premiere: Cottesloe, National Theatre, London 
(22 May 1997)

Published by Methuen Drama Modern Classics

Patrick Marber's second play, Closer, was impressively successful following its original run at the Cottesloe (recently renamed the Dorfman). It transferred first to the Lyttleton, then the West End and finally on to Broadway. A film adaptation also penned by Marber and several revivals internationally have followed. It has become renowned and respected as a modern classic. 

Marber's writting does indeed bear the hallmarks of genius. In a tight, brisk play he manages to articulately discuss a wide-reaching debate on the politics of sex and love. It is unsentimental and uncompromising, and I would suggest unparalleled in its enduring poignancy, power and relevance. 

There are only four characters in Marber's slick play, who perform what he calls a 'sexual square dance' caught between desire and betrayal. It is reminiscent of Pinter's Betrayal in its economy and scope, though differs in the sense that Pinter explicitly tool betrayal as his topic, while Marber explores all the sides of the war of attrition that these characters present as relationships. 

"Show me. Where is this 'love'? I can't see it, I can't touch it, I can't feel it. I can hear it, I can hear some words but I can't do anything with your easy words." Alice

His characters are observers, personified in their professions - Dan a writer, Anna a photographer and Larry a doctor - but also inherent in their nature. That is true except for the exception to all rules, Alice, a young stripper. It is perhaps truer to say that she is observed; the subject of the writer's book, the photographer's art and the doctor's diagnosis. But that, as a description, seems inadequate, as it somehow downgrades her to a position of inert powerlessness, which certainly isn't accurate. Alice knows she is observed and takes hold of it as her own, and finds an ability to stare her observers right back, square in the face. Perhaps, then, she is the one with the true power. But does anyone really win in this bloodbath? Ultimately, probably not.

Sally Dexter as Anna and Ciaran Hinds as Larry
(Photo: Tristram Kenton)

The characters in the play, like the Newton's Cradles often mentioned, constantly collide and swap partners. Through this cross-matching of couples, we see an incredibly diverse difference in the politics of relationships between different people. In the case of Alice, for instance, sex has become a monetary transaction. She is young, and perhaps most desperately in love with the idea of love. Alice becomes the magnetic force that seems to pull all the characters together in one way or another. Some of her one-liners, as if regurgitating learnt soulless epithets, are like those of a further disenchanted, disenfranchised Marilyn Monroe; "Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off. But it's better if you do." A wry humour rings out in her buried desire to self-destruct, underscored by a deep longing, a resoundingly painful wisdom. 

Marber's play is stylish and slick in its minimalism, and eminently quotable in its wit, but this belies a deeply felt and shrewdly observed piece that does not shy away from the grit and dirt of intensely passionate relationships. His characters are beautifully rounded, with no one coming out unscathed. Rhythmically, the piece storms on like a galloping horse. It is consistent in its power and brutal in its deftness and economy. 

Through the character of Dan, a failed novelist resigned to the Siberia of writing, the obituaries department of a newspaper, Marver communicated a sense of doubt. There is repeated questioning throughout the play of the ethical validity of Dan 'stealing' Alice's life for the subject of his novel - mirrored in Anna's work as a photographer. There are also some witty remarks about a writer's need for praise, and whether the mark of a good writer is that he isn't phased by it. Alice's appraisal of Dan's book is that he used bits of her; the only thing he left out was the truth. He even questions the importance or words themself when Alice confronts Dan with finality: "Show me. Where is this 'love'? I can't see it, I can't touch it, I can't feel it. I can hear it, I can hear some words but I can't do anything with your easy words." Marber could be questioning his own work, using his own experiences as the basis for much of his writing (not, of course, that Marber is short on praise today). There is something fascinating in this self-deprecating, self-referencing irony; it seems to leave it to the audience to decide what to take from the truth Marber presents onstage. 

Closer, appropriately canonised today, is without a doubt one of the best plays on the politics of sex and relationships written in recent decades. It is interesting when compared to Caryl Churchill's rather different Cloud Nine (recently covered on the blog), also a powerful consideration of sexual politics. Churchill's approach is satirical and overtly political in terms of the more generalised struggles between the sexes. Marber's play is more concerned with the internal politics of relationships, which echo loudly out from the pages of his succinct play to encompass many personal struggles in the modern age. In some ways, Marber's play is more haunting than Churchill's powerfully political play from the previous decade. 

Liza Walker (Alice) and Neil Pearson (Larry) in the 1998 West End transfer
(Photo: Tristram Kenton) 

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