Aunt Dan and Lemon - Wallace Shawn Season
Royal Court Theatre
What a lemon. Yes that is precisely correct, Jane Horrocks plays a right Lemon in this production at the Royal Court. If I can ‘squeeze’ another joke out of this I’ll be happy.
Lemon, played wonderfully by Horrocks, who appears more childlike than ever, opens the play explaining that she is sick, drinks nothing but fresh juices for sustenance and enjoys reading the political theories of the Nazi’s. Her imagination and memories become the main focus for the narrative, creating one large stream of consciousness set in and around 1960s London. The action is eloquently continuous, with each character using extensive monologues to guide us through Lemon’s childhood, and leaving us to make our own assumptions about the position she's now in.
Lorraine Ashbourne's Aunt Dan, appearing as a more mature Jessica Hynes, has arguably the toughest role in the production with hefty monologues and stories of politics, relationships and her love for Henry Kissinger. However, Ashbourne manages to enthrall the audience and, save for a few accent and line slips, glides through with relative ease.
After an array of entertaining monologues by Lemon, Dan and Father - Paul Chahidi - the narrative begins to focus on the elusive Mindy, an outrageous one-time friend of Dan's, which Scarlett Johnson (AKA Vicky Fowler in Eastenders – yes her with the confused Anglo-American accent) portrays with elegance and naivety, if a little too cutesy at times. These scenes appear with a cinematic quality complete with musical crescendos creating a stark difference to the events of Lemon's life. And please look out for the best bed ever: not wishing to ruin the fun, but there's a bed that allows a murdered Raimondo (Rene Zagger) to slip through the mattress therefore providing a seamless new scene without any interruptions. Well, I told you the action was continuous.
You are reminded of this play's writer with many of the male roles, such as Father and Nathan Osgood's Jasper, combining recognisable aspects of Wallace Shawn himself, in both look and in sound. It's not surprise that Shawn played these roles at the Royal Court premiere of this production in 1985 - thank you Royal Court for your wonderful programmes, you make my life ‘easy peasy’.
Where largely dialogue based productions sometimes leave me wandering off into my own world, Aunt Dan and Lemon keeps me enthralled and entertained. Being a relative newcomer to the work of Wallace Shawn (aside from his acting roles in US hits The Princess Bride and Gossip Girl) this production has left me wanting to learn more. Luckily for me, the Royal Court's Wallace Shawn season has now been extended until the 27th June. I hope you ‘pip’ along! (Sorry, I couldn't resist).
Izzy O'Callaghan
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