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Two's a company and a crowd
Stephen Jones, left, and Conor Delaney Stones in his pockets
Malvern Theatres
**** IN THE style of
productions such as those by the Reduced Shakespeare Company,
Stones in His Pockets
is a fast-paced show with minimal cast playing multiple roles with huge
energy. It takes some moments for the audience to catch
up with the pace of changes from role to role with little more than a
flick of the hair at times. Conor Delaney and Stephen Jones are fundamentally
Jake and Charles, two local lads in an Irish village in County Kerry,
who are offering themselves as extras in a professional film being shot
in their area. They are two of many locals recruited as extras for £50 a
day. The play explores their fantasies and experiences
on set, and their grief at the suicide of their local friend Sean, which
necessitates a funeral that interrupts the filming for the numbers of
extras from the village. The two performers spring in and out of a whole
range of other characters - Caroline Giovanni, the Holywood star, Ashley
who directs the extras, Simon who directs the camera crew, Finn, Sean,
the school teacher and many others. The plot is limited: Jake is invited by the
matchless Caroline to visit her in her caravan for a ten-minute meeting
despite the objections of her security man. Sean, struggling with his
drugs issues, dies after filling his pockets with stones and walking out
into the sea. The action moves forward and back in time to depict some
formative background moments in their lives as well as these current
events. The life of the play comes from the humorous
swapping of roles as well as the rather dry and cynical Irish humour.
The writer draws on her close observation of the ordinary characters she
was surrounded by in her upbringing. They are the relative 'nobodies' in one sense,
the extras in society who survive on their fantasies and their
self-deprecating humour. They cope with the imperfections of life with
their ironic humour, unlike Sean who 'couldn't accept that life is not
perfect'. The set was a relatively bare stage with a film
strip across the back depicting a skyscape full of clouds. A row of
boots and shoes are neatly arranged upstage for the extras to wear. A
couple of chairs and a good-sized trunk sufficed to provide various
items of furniture when required and contained a handful of useful
props. Otherwise the actors provided us with plenty of mime to keep
things simple and place the emphasis on their dexterity in performance. Conor Delaney and Stephen Jones perform with
tremendous life and skill, maintaining great pace and a range of
accents, characters, postures and general variety. Nonetheless it is a
long time for two performers to hold the attention of an audience though
the reprise of certain roles and sequences added to the humour. This is a production that has been highly
acclaimed and it has earned a number of awards. Ultimately it is a
tragi-comic snapshot of vain Irish aspiration and dry humour which for
me, despite the versatility of the performers, lacked substance. Timothy Crow
14-11-14
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