Dying City // Disco Pigs
Karamel Club, Wood Green
Drama school productions are often slated as amateur, lackluster re-creations of tedious plays. Mountview’s post-graduate director’s season, however, proves an exception to the rule, providing us with an opportunity to see 2 hugely differing, 'love them or hate them' pieces designed, if nothing else, to provoke a reaction.
Beginning the night's proceedings is Christopher Shinn's Dying City, a slow-burning meditation on what reamins unsaid even in the closest of relationships. Shinn manages to overcome an unpromising premise - the identical twin of a soldier killed in Iraq turns up on his widow’s doorstep to reminisce about the man they both loved - largely through the quality of his dialogue. The genuine back and forth exchanges in conversations turns what has the potential of being a series of clichéd revelations, into an absorbing drip feed of information.
This production invites us into the heart of Kelly’s apartment and, despite a lackluster set and frankly bizarre lighting design, we become the proverbial fly on the wall, a sensation enhanced by the excellent sound design. From the hyper-realistic traffic sounds to the low babble of trash tv, it is pitched perfectly, never threatening to distract the audiences’ attention or impinge on the audibility of the text.
However, it is the quality of the acting throughout the play that stands out. Craig in particular excels in the transitions between brothers without having to rely too heavily on the camp vs macho divide. Using the ancient arts of an actor’s physicality and voice, he needs neither gimmicks nor costume to ensure the audience is clear on which brother is which. Alexandra Metaxa easily matches the standard set, but both falter slighter at the revelatory moments which bring about the plays climax. The handling of these moments throw into question Alexandra Carey’s otherwise solid direction, as the overly emotional outbursts fail to correlate with the subdued sentiment of the ending, and the intended dawning suspicion of the characters having always known more than they profess, is felt by the audience amid some confusion.
The next offering, Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs couldn’t be more different. A frenetic opening catapults us in at the deep end, an opening made even more so by an outburst of broad Irish accents and dialects. Karen Collins, playing Runt, and Anthony Kinahan as Pig, deal admirably with both language & accent, and despite both slipping slightly on occasion, it is only in Cork itself that either would be noticed.
As Pig and Runt bring us through their lives from birth to 17, the pace and physicality never slows. Collins presents us a Runt with a certain level of niceness that at first jars slightly, but progessively makes her flip side all the more terrifying, while her yearning for a different life more profound. Meanwhile, Kinahan’s Pig is a frightening creation, his childlike aspect further added to by a fine delivery of Walsh’s childlike grammar. He manages to avoid creating a one dimensional lunatic, but at times describes graphically what he’d like to do to Runt sexually with a touching eloquence you’d not expect reading the words off a page.
The production wisely keeps things minimal, with a bare stage, single costumes, and a simple but effective lighting design allowing the space to be dominated by the language & actors. The latter's physicality rises to meet the barren stage, and the only technical quibble is an inauthentic soundtrack to scenes set in a rave. Whether this was an attempt to update a 90's phenomenon is unclear, but either way, while being rather nondescript, neither does it take from the production.
What is never in doubt is director Guy Unsworth’s handle on the tone of the play. He offsets the darkness with just the right level of humour, keeps word speed at about 80% of reality to give a British audience some hope of keeping up, and rightly refuses to answer the question of who the victim of the piece truly is. However despite the brave choice of play I cannot help but question how much an audience unfamiliar with Cork would actually understand.
Sarah O'Connor
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