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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Girls just want to have fun . . . Why is John Lennon wearing a skirt?
Stage2
Crescent Theatre
**** WHY is John
Lennon wearing a skirt? was Birmingham
born Claire Dowie’s award winning one-woman show from 1990’s Edinburgh
Festival, stand-up theatre . . . But this is Stage2 we are talking about here,
and, as anyone who has been to a Stage2 performance knows, they don't do
monologues, they do manylogues . . . so for a one woman show, how about
a cast of 84. Director and founder Liz Light makes a promise
that every term, every child who wants to be in a production will be,
with no audition, and keeping that promise demands not only imaginative
script interpretation, adaptation and directing but no mean skill in
crowd control. There is a scene, for example when the entire
cast depict a crowded cinema, and with no props to help, just an empty
stage, we are presented in seconds with a tiered wall of faces as if
seated in a cinema, heads moving in unison, Wimbledon style, as comments
and observations come from six girls spread in the aisles. It is remarkably effective and despite having numbers to rival the audience at an almost full Crescent, the cast are so well drilled and disciplined that at the times when everyone is on stage it always looks controlled, choreographed, never a rabble, seen best perhaps in the speed everyone gets on and off stage - as well as appearing in aisles and upon balconies at regular intervals. The production also included a more than half
decent live band on a shelf at the back of the stage reeling off Beatles
numbers with Charlie Reilly, who is also musical director, playing a
mean keyboard, keyboard, Alex Earle on drums, Mark James on lead guitar,
George Mee on bass and Jacob Otomewo and the impressive Ella Otomewo as
backing singers. But back to the 84 woman, and man, show. which
Dowie herself, along with Colin Watkeys, her director and producer -
both patrons of Stage2 - have worked on with Light and the cast
to create this huge production out of a simple, no frills, monologue. Last month the pair even ran a workshop for
Stage2 members to explore the play, what it was about and what it was
trying to say, so this production is not only new but straight from the
horse’s mouth.
Dowie’s original monologue is a sort of coming of
age piece about someone who does not want to come of age, set in the 60s
and 70s. It is a time when boys have all sorts of heroes and the girls
have . . . well Barbie, and, at a push, Lulu and Sandy Shaw. But they
don’t speak and they don’t have opinions, they just stand around and try
to look pretty. Claire wants more than that . . . oh and she wants to
play football, and fight and do all the things boys do. In fact she
wants to be a boy because they have more fun. So its bye bye Barbie and hello Beatles, the
rebel, non-conformist and heroic fab four - she even takes to secretly
calling her three best friends, played by Isabella Jones-Rigby, Goldie
Mutta and Sophia Adilypour, George, Paul and Ringo while she, of course,
is John Lennon – and forced to wear a skirt by school convention. Light manages to squeeze 14 Claire’s out of the
script, four young, Ellie Waide, Izzy Cremins, Violette Sprigg and Emily
Cremins, six middle aged – moving up to secondary school – Laura
Dowsett, Phoebe Stephenson, Emily Hawtin, Teigan Jones, Alice Nott and
Meg Luesley and then four old Claires, heading out of teens and beyond
in the safe hands of Chloe Jennings, Sarah Middlemiss, Annabel Butcher
and Rose Nisbit. Being Claire nos 1-14 is not an easy part as the sentences of a monologue are broken into snatches said by different Claires, but they still have to flow as if spoken by one person which demands both timing and complete confidence in the lines and not a slip was noticed all night. Each group of Claires became in effect one person, one Claire speaking with one voice. A special mention though for Rose Nisbet, tasked with a long monologue towards the end as Claire tries to continue being a tomboy long after all her friends have succumbed to conformity and femininity. This is a Claire in transition when year's of frustration, of not fitting in, nor wanting to, a turned into words. It is a speech about individuality, about
equality, about gender which takes the play out of the cosy realms of
nostalgia about growing up the 60s and 70s, that time ofmini-skirts,
swinging 60s pop, glimpses of navy blue knickers and fumbling hands at
the cinema. Suddenly it has become grown up theatre posing real
questions about how society sees women and their role, and how women see
themselves; questions which are little more answered now then they were
on the play’s 1990 debut or in the 60s and 70s when it was set.
I suppose you could say they are playing
themselves but the many Claires and huge ensemble gave a remarkable
accurate impression of giggling, chattering schoolgirls, not easy to
recreate, while the crocodile of would be Lothario boys, initially
running away at the first glimpse of gusset and eventually turning into
office lechers was a nice touch.
Some of the more explicit parts of the original,
such as Claire’s rather fundamental definition of femininity, were
wisely omitted but there is still plenty of female anger and frustration
in there, such as Claire’s bitter assertion that society “saw me as
nothing more than breeding equipment, a womb, a womb-man.” And this is no women’s lib tirade, Claire is as
dismissive of that movement, with its everyone is the leader structure
and its hatred of men, as she is of the middle class luvvies at the arts
centre where she works for while, where every little “issue” had to be
discussed by everyone at a meeting. A mention too for Claire’s mum and dad, Helen
Carter and Connor Fox. Both actors have been around at Stage2 for some
time and have fully embraced the Stage2 philosophy that only props are
inanimate on stage. Even sitting on the balcony at the side with nothing
to say they are part of the action with gestures and expressions to show
they are alive, characters who have a part in what is going on, if only
as observers. Their parts are not huge but enough to be noticed and Carter, in particular, is showing a remarkable stage presence these days. The butterflies might well be fluttering in their thousands inside, but outside she has a natural, calm, confident manner; early signs she might possess that indefinable "it" which makes for a bright future treading the boards - if that is what she wants. Stage2 are one of the leading youth
theatres in the country and the level of discipline, commitment, and
sheer hard work – you never see a prompt listed in a Stage2 programme,
nor hear one – is there for all to see with productions as good and
professional as this. As for the answer . . . well boys then had more
fun, and, it seems, all the Claires believe they still do! To 19-04-14. Roger Clarke
18-04-14 |
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