Orphans - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London

****

Written by Lyle Kessler

Directed by Paul Tomlinson

Mitchell Mullen

Imagine a play that presents itself as a cocktail of (an extreme take on) TV’s Only Fools And Horses with just a twist of Harold Pinter's menace and you start to get close to contemplating the enigma that is Lyle Kessler's Orphans.

Treat and Philip are brothers who (appear to) have grown up rudderless and orphaned in a Philadelphia apartment. Treat is the controlling chancer of the two, a petty criminal (think Del Boy, but with a nasty streak) and who appears to have kept his brother indoors throughput his life. Completely controlled, Philip's only connection with the outside world is through the views from his window and television.

When Treat bungles the kidnap of Harold, a man of impressive stature and murky connections, the interjection of this third man (who quickly escapes the clumsy rope restraints that Treat has tied around him) into the brothers' lives upends their distorted normality.

The drama is skillfully written: often oppressive in never leaving the close confines of the apartment; sometimes threatening; and on occasions, hilarious. The strength of this production however lies in the carefully worked interpretations that the three actors bring.

Alexander Neal's Treat is a brute with issues. Clearly in need of anger management therapy, he has only been able to care for his brother through ultra-control. And yet beneath Treat’s noisy bluster he bears a deep and caring love for his brother. As Philip, Chris Pybus offers perhaps the most nuanced performance of the night. His character is clearly beset with learning difficulties (largely because Treat has denied him all opportunities to learn) and yet Pybus plays him sympathetically, never pandering to cliché.

The heart of this production lies with Mitchell Mullen's wise, weathered and silver haired Harold. Aside from having the only authentic American accent of the three, Mullen brings a curiously compassionate frisson of danger to the proceedings. Much as he easily slips out of Treat's rope ties, so too is he keen to free Philip from his ghastly entrapment. There is a rich worldly wisdom to Harold and Mullen plays the sage old gangster to a tee – one could listen to his yarns all evening. 

Another intelligent production from Paul Tomlinson and Dilated Theatre. If you like your theatre served rare but feisty, it’s definitely worth catching.

Runs until 5th March

My Girl 2

Old Red Lion Theatre, London

****

Written by Barrie Keefe
Directed by Paul Tomlinson

Emily Plumtree

Sam is a social worker. An over worked, underpaid carer on the front line, confronting horrific child cruelty and neglect whilst drowning in debt. His wife Anita stays at home in their impoverished drafty council flat, a loving mum but emotionally chained and drained by parenthood and heavily pregnant with a second baby. Sam's 30th birthday looms and whilst he may be a hero to the abused at work, at home he threatens violence to his child and tells lies to his wife, as the couple drift further apart.

Sam is an everyday Walter Mitty, though possibly a far too recognisable reflection to too many. He avoids telling his wife about the extent of their payday loan indebtedness and spins pie-in-the-sky yarns to his bank manager about when the overdraft will be repaid. He is also involved in a relationship with a case/client which is at best inappropriate and at worst un-believable. In what is a tough role, Alexander Neal makes a fine job of bringing Sam's life into the confines of the flat from which the play's action never leaves. Burdened by painful boils, that he responds to with acute hypochondria he remains a whinger, whilst Anita remains the heavily tested glue that binds their nuclear family. 

Keefe is an astute writer who doesn't just have his finger on the pulse of modern England, he presses the nation's carotid, hard. Updating his 1989 play My Girl which was a comment on Thatcherite times, he is in fact at his best when he goes off-picket line and writes about people driven to extremes, rather than politics. In Emily Plumtree's Anita one finds a stellar off-West End performance as she wrings the profound perception of the human condition from Keefe's writing. Perceptive to her husband's failings, but unaware of the depths of his flaws, she dreams of escaping their urban slum for a big house in Braintree. As Keefe’s narrative reveals quite how deceitful Sam has been to her, Plumtree's character goes from disbelief to defiance and ultimately desperation. Brilliant, harrowing and often unbearable to watch, Anita is a heroine in a play that at times suggests a modern day Greek tragedy.

Paul Tomlinson directs with sensitivity, coaxing the nuances of well written cockney grit from both performers. My Girl 2 does not make for easy watching, particularly with an ending of ambivalent despair, but it is one of the more thought-provoking pieces of theatre in town.

Runs until 12th July 2014

Sus

Lion & Unicorn Theatre, London

****

Written by Barrie Keefe

Directed by Paul Tomlinson

Alexander Neal

Barrie Keefe’s Sus is revived in an intimate traverse setting at Kentish Town’s Lion & Unicorn theatre. Inspired by and drawn from the police’s  “stopping on SUSpicion” powers of the 1970’s that were widely misused against the black community, the producers are keen to suggest that not a lot has changed in the last 35 years.

Set on the eve of Margaret Thatcher’s first election victory, the one act play’s action never leaves a police interview room. Interestingly, the crime for which Delroy, a black man who has been brought in from the pub for questioning, is not a SUS matter, but rather the recent bloody death of his pregnant wife,  where CID officers Karn and Wilby have not unreasonable initial grounds to suspect him of her murder. It is the extent however to which these institutionally racist coppers pursue their line of inquiry, throwing their rule book out of the window and treating their suspect appallingly, that makes for such gripping theatre that is at times unbearable to watch.

Keefe’s writing has always been gritty, peppered with just enough coarse language and above all sprinkled with frequent exchanges of cockney gallows-humour that only an accomplished London writer can master. That a highly charged moment of confrontation can be reduced, in a moment, to a comparison of the respective sexual charms of TV newsreaders  Anna Ford and  Angela Rippon (this is 1979 remember) demonstrates Keefe’s ability to make one chuckle uncomfortably whilst at the same time cranking up the dramatic tension.

Wole Sawyerr is Delroy who, as the the mood of the piece darkens, digs deep to find his his grief and his rage . When he is beaten up by Wilby, one feels for the agony of the blows and his pleading tears crave our sympathy. Of the two cops, Nason Crone’s Wilby is perhaps the most stereotyped. His is the lesser educated of the two policemen, most capable of expressing his contempt for Delroy with his fists. Wilby is a complex character with whom Crone has yet to engage at an appropriate level of depth.

It is Alexander Neal’s Karn that is the engine at the core of this production in a performance that again demonstrates the excellence to be found on London’s fringe. Neal relishes every word of Keefe’s carefully crafted irony and chain smoking, moustachioed and with hair greased back, he embodies a truly ugly side of the police that Life on Mars’ Gene Hunt set about portraying in an altogether lighter vein.

Seen today, Sus is a fascinating piece of historical comment, that at the very least was prescient in describing the culture that was to surround the police response to the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence.  Two years after the play premiered at Theatre Royal Stratford East (where Paul Barber defined Delroy) Brixton and Toxteth erupted into riot, largely prompted by an abuse of the Sus laws. The programme states that this production is a response to the 2011 riots but that association seems a little opportunistic. The social and violent unrest of those more recent summer troubles was certainly a complex cocktail, probably fuelled by a lot more than just a kicking out at a racist police force.

As an observation, the packed audience on press night (some of whom were atrociously behaved and all credit to the actors for playing on) was entirely white, not an accurate reflection of this city’s ethnic make-up and Sus is nothing if not a play that deserves to be seen by all. A strong company, Neal’s chilling performance and Keefe’s still shockingly electric writing make for a troubling 90 minutes. Catch it if you can.