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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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A catalogue of cruelty Girls Like That
Stage2 Youth Theatre
Crescent Theatre, Birmingham
***** EVER been bullied at school? Sneered at?
Ostracised? Cruelly mocked? Falsely accused? Made to feel like a pariah?
Stage2’s
Girls Like That
is a sensational staging of a brilliant play: in fact, it’s one of the
cleverest youth productions I have seen in years. Why? Liz Light’s young cast have talent coming
out of their ears. Their speaking is superb: full of guts and panache,
and real dramatic flair. Often they form a kind of Greek chorus, one
voice taking over from another with perfect timing, linked to what
precedes by a kind of artful enjambment. And their choric speaking, all
delivering at once, lands a terrific punc But it looks fabulous. Although it has a
multicolour impact, it seems to be colour-coded, with pinks, turquoises
and greens predominating, but apricot and fuchsia and electric blue in
strong support. The younger ones – masquerading wonderfully as five year
olds who grow to eights and then 11s – have a more pastel look. In fact
it’s they who as tinies begin the bullying. Innocent they may look, but
they have nasty sharp teeth. They led off the show; and utterly inspired
they were, as speakers, as movers. The older group – mid teens, roughly 14 to 16
year olds; one might call them an ensemble – take pleasure even more in
wielding the knife. They hold our attention from start to finish, with
no let up or failing. The production never droops for a moment. Mass
entrances are perfected, exits are slick. They never stop acting for a
second, and they are without exception dazzling, talented performers. Brandishing Iphones, snapping selfies, taunting,
never letting go, they sneer eagerly and carp viciously when they spot
their victim, Scarlett, has a mole above her breast, someone having
photographed her nude and circulated (“sexting”) the result, then tries
every technical means of making her life a misery. Lugging around colour-matched
stools (maybe just a little too often), they perform a kind of ritual
dance, beautifully blocked and superbly enacted. So beguiling and
bewitching are these girls’ scenes, it’s almost trance-like. Their moves
are electrifying and gripping, their speech mesmerising. Could one see
anywhere a better example of girls acting horrible girls – brilliantly? While both age groups
plot and connive, trying to improve on their heartlessness, the girl
Scarlett Smith, played by two performers, the charismatic Emily
Cremins (as the younger Scarlett, just turning
teen) and the passionate Megan Fisher (as the elder mid-teen) battles to
hold her own in an unfeeling world, and ever so gradually affects or
changes their attitudes, abetted by their own consciences and emerging
sensitivity. A highlight was Fisher’s urgent and
humanising soliloquy near the end,
interspersed with really telling additions from
Cremins. This was a story with heart, but here
was the heart of the story. If one of the girls likened them in their gaggle
to chickens, ‘Maybe chickens are horrible murderers . . . they’ll keep
pecking (the chosen victim) till they draw blood’ (someone later posits:
‘You are indigestible, girls; you are food-poisoning’), the boys - there
are 14 of them too, spanning the ages – have their own little nasty
streak, full of smirks and predictably dubbing one of their most
vulnerable ‘gay’ for scant reaso If Placey’s play, co-commissioned by Birmingham
Repertory Theatre, the Theatre Royal, Plymouth and West Yorkshire
Playhouse, and first seen in 2013, is mainly for chorus – Stage2’s girl
speakers clever, witty, acrimonious, venomous, but essentially trying to
find themselves; the boys less sophisticated, snide, naughty and and
naïve camp followers – four more characters are inserted who make a big
difference to the work’s pace and phasing. These are the Narrators (Haroon
Rashid, Karam Johal) who steer the story or fade in over the chorus to
give a new and wiser slant on events: both were strong and effective
speakers, and decked out in black added a marked, distinctive presence
too. The two others are described as ‘Flashbacks’,
played by Stage2 veterans Chloe Jones and Alex Butler. They intersperse
reminiscences of the way women have been treated over almost 100 years –
the 1920s, ’40s, ’60s and ’80s. They are able to provide an objective
view, their language is more elevated and their formed opinions more
incisive. They bring pause for thought amid the teenage witterings and
cruel blather. She was quite superb; he added support. Their 1940s
exchange between airman and ATA (Air traffic Auxiliary – brave, capable
women flying planes from one location to the other in the UK) was just
one of the many treats of the unrelentingly entertaining script. So – a triumph for Stage2, for its young members
and its management. This thoughtful play was matched at every turn by a
first-class, thoughtful reading and deft team performance. The young
teen cast simply romped home with a hit. Top marks all round. To
18-07-15 Roderic Dunnett
15-07-15 |
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h.
Enunciation, projection are almost professional. This would be a great
show even if we only heard them.
n.
Every now and then Liz Light’s production allowed for extraordinary,
unexpected silences, in which not a muscle moved; these were prolonged
and highly effective. Thanks to all the wonderful invention of the
skedaddling, criss-crossing moves (one block looked like a gathering of
waterlilies), one felt she was utterly in harmony with Evan Placey’s
superb, pithy new drama (Winner of Best Play for Young Audiences -
Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards 2015). This was direction that
could not be faulted. I didn’t spot one move that seemed misplaced,
misunderstood or forgotten. This performance looked utterly error-free.