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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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Rose creates a fine bouquet
Rose & The Seven Innov8 MAC **** IT will be a
great pity of this latest piece from Innov8 dies after just one
performance. That is all the community-based, all-girl group
from Hodge Hill could afford to stage, and stage it they did before an
appreciative full house in the Hexagon theatre at the MAC. The play, written by the group's leading light,
Meanie Clarke, is about Rose and seven students thrown together sharing
accommodation at university – friends of convenience. Slowly through a series of episodes we find out
about each character, their very different home lives and backgrounds,
and see their relationships developing within the group. The last Innov8 production was about racial
tension, this is about relationships and family. The young cast of 12 are all believable, some are
exceptional but the play produced its own star in Trevelle
Robinson as Cassie. She gives a superb performance, painting a harrowing
picture of madness, of psychosis, a troubled life including 11 years in
a home waiting for her mother to come and visit, a mother, played
movingly by Sara Rahim, who is trapped in hospital in her own world of
madness.
Cassie's Ipod running out of power has her on the
edge of meltdown – the constant music helps drown out the voices. She
rings her hands, nervously moves constantly and even her feet seem to
want to hide from the world. You are left watching the raw hurt and pain
of mental illness. We see Rose, played with a quiet authority by
Aneesa Rehman, coping with a possessive mother who cannot understand why
her daughter would leave home and their cosy, stifling relationship to
go to Uni. Despite carrying the burden of maternal obsession from home,
or perhaps because of it, she takes Cassie under her wing. There is Doc (Najma Jokhia) who is 13 and
already at Uni, a child prodigy, or perhaps a freak, who could probably
tell you the capital of every nation on earth yet knows nothing about
friends or relationships. She has had a short life of pushy parents. Full marks too to Cyrene Blake, Charlene in the
last production, World's Apart, who turns up here as Michel, a
bolshy, arrogant, streetwise, life-stupid, teenage BOY. To be fair, until checking at the interval, I
thought it might just have been a boy with only the lumpy T-shirt giving
me doubts. Michel is the wild one of his family with “eyes
that have seen too much but not enough to see what is happening.” His
wayward life sees his brother Nathan shot in the cycle of violence
embraced by gang culture with a totally different performance form
Trevelle Robinson who doubles up as his grieving mother. A moving moment
as the first half fades into darkness to Enya's haunting If I
could be where you are.
For Michel to tell his story is a breakthrough, a
baring of his young soul as a closeness forms between him and the
permanently happy Summer (Anmbrin Amjid) Aanisah Sherbaz is another young actress who has
undergone a script sex change, playing the effeminate Charlie, perhaps
an easier role for a young woman that the angry, aggressive Michel.
Charlie is a gentle sort of lad with the hots for Rose – so he is not
that effeminate. Alex is the poor little rich girls student.
Designer clothes, awash with cash from a mother, Sally Timms, (Leanne in
Worlds Apart) who sees materialism as a more than acceptable
substitute for love. Pulling them together initially is the remarkably
confident Zahra, Emmon Kiyani, a dreamer and idealist who wants everyone
to indulge in a session of active silence, meditation and thought. They
agree if only to shut her up, which starts off the thinking and the
reliving of eight very different worlds with a common destination. The play manages to avoid clichés and shows
Melanie Clarke has a rare talent. It is funny, moving, well observed and
has a story worth telling which in turn is well told. Rose & The Seven is not perfect, but this was a first performance. Give it a few workshops and a few tweaks and it is good enough to become a youth theatre standard. Watch out for their next one, this is a new group with talent from writing through to performance. 12-11-11. Roger Clarke |
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