There’s a bit of a buzz around the Crescent at the moment, and it is maybe a little strange that three plays about one of humanity’s most horrid plagues could have engendered such fervour and positivity. The Terrorism Mini-Season started out with a couple of performances being cancelled due to (let’s be honest) disappointing sales, but has quickly picked up a solid momentum that has now garnered two top-tier reviews and well-deserved credit for all of those involved.
What could have been a trio of commercial suicide bombers has turned out to be compelling and provocative drama, quite at odds with what ‘am-dram’ is commonly perceived to offer. And if the number in the audience last night was anything to go by, things have turned around at the Box Office too. Bravo, indeed.
With all this, it’s a little scary to be next up with The Rivals, which opens next Friday. Gulp.
Not only do we have to deal with an impending Tech, building confidence, the nerves of nailing lines and moves, stepping back instead of stepping forward (or, in my case, not stepping at all)…
Not only, as the Birmingham Post reports, do we have to abide by our house rules which include referring to everyone in the proper form…
…but now myself and the rest of the team are tasked with carrying on the momentum and maintaining that buzz – and following two five-star reviews.
For our turn, we won’t have such weighty themes as incarceration, torture and genocide in our arsenal. We won’t be able to employ the earnest seam of realism which propelled ‘T2T’ so well. And we won’t be able to say “fuck”.
However, we do have the theme of love, which, as someone once said, will tear us apart. Surely, being torn apart is a form of terrorism or torture…?
Also, whilst the nature of a classical text demands a certain theatricality (is that a word?), Director Ian Mr Nicholson has reined in our initial tendency towards hammy melodrama and grounded our performances in a form of heightened realism. It works well.
And when it comes to profanity Acres has a mouth like a storm drain. Barely one of his lines passes without a trio of curse words being uttered, albeit genteel ones.
(It should also be put on the record here that Rob Mr Mrozek, as Acres, is currently in danger of stealing the show, the theatre and all of Brindleyplace to boot. Last rehearsal, he delayed us for nearly 15 minutes as the entire cast laughed and cried in hysterics at one particular moment he introduced. Worth the price of admission on its own, when you see it you’ll be thankful you were there to witness something that will take on almost as much historical importance as the invention of the wheel).
So, when it comes to comparing The Rivals with the prevailing Terrorism plays, there seem to be quite a few parallels and perhaps there’s not that much for me to be worried about – we can match everything they have. What’s more, the team can perhaps rest easy because The Rivals also has something that no other play can match…
Mrs Malaprop. Our weapon of mass distraction…
Recent Comments