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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
Two
Verdict: Dee & Zealand delight - in flick and shadow land
Two is a slice of life about a Northern couple running a pub and their customers. The cast of two play all characters. It lasts an hour.
A warring couple behind the bar top-and-tail the play - there's a secret behind their hostility that's progressively revealed. Mainly it's a snapshot of the pub's clientele - given words, or rather oratory, by outstanding playwright Jim Cartwright to express the depth of their emotions. It's not really a play perhaps - more a collection of monologues and life-fragments. What brings it to life in bright colour are the blissful performances of two outstanding actors.
The ready picture of a pub landlady might be someone sharp-witted, full-breasted, well-proportioned, not often short of a reply. Hannah Dee brings all these qualities and more to her remarkable characterisation. And as an old lady in headscarf, snatching a brief interlude from her dependent-invalid spouse - and fantasising about the butcher - she finds a true poignancy among Jim Cartwright's sometimes over-elaborate language.
The landlord is a harrassed man, resisting the temptation of alcoholism and existing at the surface of his troubled emotions. Ritchie Zealand delivers him with perceptive and moving understanding. His characterisations of the male clientele, in particular his silent old man, glowing inwardly with thoughts of his loved and dead wife ('They think I'm quiet. There's a reason. I'm having a very good time within'), shimmer with subtlety.
A lively bunch of customers pepper the script. There's gold-chained Lothario Moth, with girl-friend Maude in hot pursuit. There's a Scottish woman with a fantasy - 'I love big men' - and her little weedy husband: it's a sketch that subtly and unexpectedly turns itself inside-out. Smelly Jimmy torches the conflict between landlord and landlady by an ill-chosen remark. A cruel man and his submissive woman offer a study in paranoia. A fat couple of nerds reflect on their fatness, and white Palomino horses - a sketch with sharp depth that's a revelation of private happiness. A mistress in red scarf reveals her hidden life: 'that's how it is, in flick and shadow land.' A little boy looking for his dad punctures the internal silence of the pub's warring couple.
Hannah Dee & Ritchie Zealand worked together in Ray Gardner's remarkable drama Mrs Lemon's Lodger, which received FR Awards 04 - Best Play. The strength of Two is their inspirational synergy. It's a rare combination of two actors able to evoke a string of complex single characterisations with heart-moving conviction, and to combine and play off each other for the couples in a way that's wholly persuasive, and exceptionally moving.
Cast Credits (alpha order): Hannah Dee (Landlady, Old Woman, Maudie, Mrs Iger, Lesley, Alice, Woman). Ritchie Zealand (Landlord, Old Man, Moth, Mr Iger, Roy, Fred, Little Boy)
Company Credits: Writer - Jim Cartwright. Director - Gary Sefton. Design - Caroline Reid. Lighting - David Wolstenholme. Stage Manager - Alexis Pickering. Public Relations - Paul Sullivan. Copyright Agent - AJ Associates Ltd. Company - Moonface Productions. Thanks to: Paul Sullivan, Zena Barrie, Michelle Flower, Jake Savage, JoAnne Good, Itso Kay Co, Francesca Buttoni, Pelican Flooring, Claire Bailey, Andrea Harris, Nicola Cussons.
Venue Credits: Artistic Directors - Zena Barrie & Michelle Flower.
END
John Park
reviewed Thursday 29 April 04 / Etcetera Theatre
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
