home
|
about
|
news
|
contents
|
gossip
|
photographs
|
venues
|
brighton
|
dublin
|
edinburgh
|
film
|
features
|
interviews
|
awards
|
fashion
|
recipes
|
no more drinks
|
newsletter
|
links
|
contact
Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
Henhouse
Verdict: Decay and disintegration
London - Arcola Theatre - 21 Sep - 9 Oct 04
Henhouse is drama about decay. There are 5 actors (2F, 3M), running time 90 minutes.
There's a fine set by Bronia Housman that creates an instant feeling of gloom. A wooden kitchen table with four chairs, a car battery for power, hurricane lamps, a turquoise washstand with Belfast sink. An old man and woman are trying to deal with despair.
It's a farmhouse. The couple are Hugh (Gary Lilburn) and Mary (Eileen Pollock) scraping subsistence from barren land. There's 'no seed', the horse is gone from the plough, yet Mary furrows by hand, because 'the land remembers'. Their luxury is tea-leaf tea instead of bags. There's a hint of reflection between the barren-ness of the couple and the soil.
In the next three scenes a very old, and mad, man is discovered. A young woman without a name appears. A young man stumbles in, a fugitive. The ambience is very slightly less impoverished, Hugh and Mary a little less beaten.
In the last couple of scenes, the atmosphere is more prosperous, everyone more energetic. The structure of the play, it becomes clear, is to tell the story in reverse, with the end at the beginning.
Eileen Pollock delivers a fine central performance as Mary, evoking her as the strong and determined person the writer creates. Gary Lilburn gives a subtly-nuanced portrayal of Hugh, catching the edge the character treads between reality, memory, and the danger of losing himself.
Terry O'Brien develops his mad Old Man skilfully in the reverse build-up the script demands, from raving to sane, and his interpretation subtly suggests why this extreme change occurs in this particular character rather than the others. Celyn Jones evokes the young man grown quickly old in reverse with skill, neatly catching his naivety, destructive obstinacy, and ultimate self-realisation.
Kate Drew stuns with her magical interpretation of the play's most intriguingly-written character - a real person also used as a figment of imagination, a dream creature, and a symbol; it's an imaginatively written part and Kate Drew delivers it with élan and an earthy, subtly erotic, charisma.
The play's blurb suggests it's about civil war and its consequences, and the actors use Irish accents. But the play reads perhaps more as a family drama, and in particular the enduring characteristics of the central mother-figure. It's almost a homage to woman the nurturer (all the men are weak), baking bread, kneading dough, washing up, washing hair, making tea, and putting knives safely away.
Eileen Pollock scowls, smiles, and endures, creating a Mary merging progressively with the spirit of nature, dispensing terrifying commonsense and love both warm and cold; covering the fizzures of despair with a layer of increasingly vacant ritual. It's an effective portrait of a literal earth-mother, deriving her strength from the soil, and in the process of uniting with it.
Kaite O'Reilly's word-dense script - low on cliché (but not cliché-free), with polished syntax, and some cracking one-liners, may divide audiences. Stripped of the trick of playing it in reverse order, some may question whether (run in sequence) it delivers much - anything - that's original or a revelation about how people disintegrate under appalling outside pressure. Others may not, and also enjoy the play at its present one and half hour run-time. Some may feel that there's a cracking 30-minute play hiding inside.
Bill Hopkinson directs with skill and a subtle eye for the complex combinations of characters. Sound and light by Chris Barham create subtle ambiences to each sequence of the play. Production manager Deborah Metcalf-Askew pulls all the elements together to enable a smoothly-working result and strong production values.
Cast Credits (alpha order): Kate Drew - Young Woman. Celyn Jones - Young Man. Gary Lilburn - Hugh. Terry O'Brien - Old Man. Eileen Pollock - Mary.
Company Credits: Writer - Kaite O’Reilly. Director - Bill Hopkinson. Designer - Bronia Housman. Lighting & Sound Designer - Chris Barham. Production Manager - Deborah Metcalf-Askew. Maker - Sam Westbury. Producers - Bill Hopkinson, Celyn Jones. Press & Publicity - Dan Pursey at Mobius Industries. Company - Glossolalia. Script Publisher - Oberon Books Ltd, ISBN 1 84002 509 3. Venue Credits: Arcola Theatre: Artistic Director - Mehmet Ergen. Door - Ben.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to: Iskra Pavloviae, Radovan Katiae, Barbara Katiae, Phillip Zarrilli, Alex Alderton, Sam Boardman Jacobs, Tony Brown, Louise Bush, David Ganly, Dyfrig Morris, Carri Munn, Mark McGann, Fred Ridgeway, Bill Wright, Chris O'Connell and The Writing House, Carl Proctor, Dr Nicola Shaughnessy, Professor Paul Allain, Sgript Cymru, Mai Jones, Simon Harris, Ted Hopkinson, Jean Hopkinson, William Forrest, Sian Stevenson, Rebecca Warren, Nina Wigfall, Bill Munsey, Paul Munsey, Wessex Millers of Clarks (Wantage) Ltd, School of Drama Film & Visual Arts University of Kent, Arts Council of Wales 2000 Playwright's Bursary. Dedication: Tatjana, Vesna, Branca, Durdica, Andrea, Iskra, Sladjana, Christina Katiae.
END
John Park
reviewed Thursday 23 Sep 04 / Arcola
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
