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Jun. 12th, 2010 06:10 pm
Knocked off early yesterday to board the Greyhound to London for the RADA students' double bill of La Dispute by Marivaux and Cleansed.
The RADA theatre is situated on Malet Street. Going there brought back a few memories, as it's just across the road from the University of London Union and Senate House, both of which I last visited 18 years ago. ULU's frontage has been well sexed up since I last saw it; by the time I arrived there I needed something to eat, but while ULU would no doubt have had some cheap scran on offer I doubt if my 1991/92 ULU membership card would have got me in, even if I'd had it on me. Fortunately the RADA theatre bar offered 'Picnic on a plate' - a generous plateful of salad, cold meat and cheese - for £6.95.
I'd never seen or read a Marivaux play. The programme notes by director Seb Harcombe said La Dispute had several parallels with Cleansed, not only in its content but also because it caused such a controversy that it did the author's reputation some damage. Harcombe also put the interesting proposal that, in Cleansed, Tinker had been abused in childhood - something not indicated by anything in the script, nor anything Sarah ever said, but an interpretation worth consideration.
There are three theatres at RADA: we were in the GBS, in a brick basement that you had to go out of the back door of the building and down an external flight of stairs to reach. A little dingy, which made it quite suitable for the hospital in La Dispute and the camp in Cleansed. An Irish girl selling programmes asked which show I was there to see (the other two stages also had plays on), I told her La Dispute/Cleansed, and we got to talking about productions of Sarah's plays we'd seen - she assured me this one was very good.
The Marivaux play was very interesting and I could see why people drew parallels with Cleansed. The story of children raised in isolation as an experiment to see how they behaved in love when allowed to meet as young adults, at the same time allowed to see the outside world and mirrors for the first time, was both touching and harrowing. The only content that I imagined might have led to scandal at the time was the two acts of dry humping, one of them gay, but I guess that was pretty fruity in 1744.
Cleansed was very well performed indeed. This production had a lot of new features, most notably a female Robyn, portrayed wonderfully by Karen Cogan. Iain Batchelor was a brilliantly scary Tinker, albeit in vest and trousers not a warder's uniform - the accent was more on his role as doctor, he had a permanent pen behind his ear and did don a white coat for the scene where he shows Grace her newly attached genitalia. Izabella Urbanowicz was an outstanding Grace, giving an impassioned rendition of the part. Rebecca Blackstone's portrayal of the Woman was another standout; she looked bored much of the time, a commentary on the reality of life for many sex workers, and her giving the Woman an East European accent added extra poignancy. Hers was the best portrayal I've seen of the confusion and helplessness the Woman must have felt at Tinker just using her to say what he wants to say to Grace, while she herself is desperate for someone to help her. A memorable new device was the inclusion of a bath, used repeatedly during the play. Grace and Graham use it to bathe together after having sex (and canoodle some more in it) but its most striking use comes when Grace gets her electric shock therapy; in this production, Tinker delivers this by putting headphones attached to a radio on her, then hurling the radio into the bath. The radio is later heard playing the shipping forecast while Tinker emotionlessly carries Robyn's body off for cremation. In the final scene, though we know Grace now has male genitals attached, she still looks and sounds like her female self, but her final speech is no less impassioned and moving. In a development Sarah would certainly have liked, after she finishes her monologue she cuddles the mutilated, mute Carl to give him comfort - it is on that note that we black out.
Majestic. Many of the audience were clearly new to Sarah's work, as they were quite shocked and visibly squeamish at some of the more violent scenes. On my way out the Irish girl asked whether I'd liked it; I replied "Best production [of Cleansed] I've ever seen."
Home just before 3 am; before crashing out, put some Baltikas in the fridge for today's three World Cup games.
The RADA theatre is situated on Malet Street. Going there brought back a few memories, as it's just across the road from the University of London Union and Senate House, both of which I last visited 18 years ago. ULU's frontage has been well sexed up since I last saw it; by the time I arrived there I needed something to eat, but while ULU would no doubt have had some cheap scran on offer I doubt if my 1991/92 ULU membership card would have got me in, even if I'd had it on me. Fortunately the RADA theatre bar offered 'Picnic on a plate' - a generous plateful of salad, cold meat and cheese - for £6.95.
I'd never seen or read a Marivaux play. The programme notes by director Seb Harcombe said La Dispute had several parallels with Cleansed, not only in its content but also because it caused such a controversy that it did the author's reputation some damage. Harcombe also put the interesting proposal that, in Cleansed, Tinker had been abused in childhood - something not indicated by anything in the script, nor anything Sarah ever said, but an interpretation worth consideration.
There are three theatres at RADA: we were in the GBS, in a brick basement that you had to go out of the back door of the building and down an external flight of stairs to reach. A little dingy, which made it quite suitable for the hospital in La Dispute and the camp in Cleansed. An Irish girl selling programmes asked which show I was there to see (the other two stages also had plays on), I told her La Dispute/Cleansed, and we got to talking about productions of Sarah's plays we'd seen - she assured me this one was very good.
The Marivaux play was very interesting and I could see why people drew parallels with Cleansed. The story of children raised in isolation as an experiment to see how they behaved in love when allowed to meet as young adults, at the same time allowed to see the outside world and mirrors for the first time, was both touching and harrowing. The only content that I imagined might have led to scandal at the time was the two acts of dry humping, one of them gay, but I guess that was pretty fruity in 1744.
Cleansed was very well performed indeed. This production had a lot of new features, most notably a female Robyn, portrayed wonderfully by Karen Cogan. Iain Batchelor was a brilliantly scary Tinker, albeit in vest and trousers not a warder's uniform - the accent was more on his role as doctor, he had a permanent pen behind his ear and did don a white coat for the scene where he shows Grace her newly attached genitalia. Izabella Urbanowicz was an outstanding Grace, giving an impassioned rendition of the part. Rebecca Blackstone's portrayal of the Woman was another standout; she looked bored much of the time, a commentary on the reality of life for many sex workers, and her giving the Woman an East European accent added extra poignancy. Hers was the best portrayal I've seen of the confusion and helplessness the Woman must have felt at Tinker just using her to say what he wants to say to Grace, while she herself is desperate for someone to help her. A memorable new device was the inclusion of a bath, used repeatedly during the play. Grace and Graham use it to bathe together after having sex (and canoodle some more in it) but its most striking use comes when Grace gets her electric shock therapy; in this production, Tinker delivers this by putting headphones attached to a radio on her, then hurling the radio into the bath. The radio is later heard playing the shipping forecast while Tinker emotionlessly carries Robyn's body off for cremation. In the final scene, though we know Grace now has male genitals attached, she still looks and sounds like her female self, but her final speech is no less impassioned and moving. In a development Sarah would certainly have liked, after she finishes her monologue she cuddles the mutilated, mute Carl to give him comfort - it is on that note that we black out.
Majestic. Many of the audience were clearly new to Sarah's work, as they were quite shocked and visibly squeamish at some of the more violent scenes. On my way out the Irish girl asked whether I'd liked it; I replied "Best production [of Cleansed] I've ever seen."
Home just before 3 am; before crashing out, put some Baltikas in the fridge for today's three World Cup games.
