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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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Nothing to feel guilty about here
Dead Guilty
The Nonentities
Rose Theatre, Kidderminster ****
FOUR players and one disembodied
voice that comes out of the darkness are involved in Hugh Meredith's
fine production of this psychological thriller by Richard Harris that is
a world away from those other popular creations of his, such as
Outside Edge
and
Stepping Out.
In fact, on the first night, the only
thing that really went wrong, apart from the bottle of pills that nobody
could open – in, I think, four attempts – was that voice, the voice of
the coroner, the first voice we heard, right at the beginning. It came
in too soon, after which we sat back and waited for it to talk to us
again.
There's no accounting for these things.
It was a shame, but you can bet it is not going to happen again for the
rest of the run, so I hope nobody lost any sleep over it, because this
is a night of quality theatre.
The action centres on Julia, the young
woman who has been badly injured in a car crash in which her lover died
– a young woman who finds herself at the mercy of Margaret, her lover's
widow. Margaret, played with an increasingly ominous air by Pamela
Meredith, rivets the attention with her quiet intensity – but above all
with her eyes. They speak a page of script at a time. They demand that
we take notice. This is a performance to treasure.
Kelly Lewis is Julia – edgy, dragging
herself about on crutches, resorting to a voice liked scratched glass
when things really get too much for her and to a piping despair when
they get even worse. She makes the slow improvement in her walking
completely believable until she has the operation that sets her back
again. Her plight inevitably prompts people to go out of their way to be
thoughtful to her – but the result is that she feels overwhelmed by
collective kindness and reacts with impressive frustration.
Gary, the young man who helps about the
house and garden, is overwhelmed, too – overwhelmed by the people whom
he sees as rivals for Julia's attention, namely Margaret the widow and
Anne the counsellor. Lee Jones gives a tension-filled account of Gary's
frustrations and Judy Bassett combines sympathy with authority as Anne,
watching Julia trying to cope with inexplicable things relating to
CDs, underwear, wine bottles, a shrub and a vase, while wondering
what they are saying about her state of mind.
This top-quality cast has been given the
setting it deserves – an excellent ambience representing a small London
house – built by Nonentities members under Keith Higgins. A
repositioning of the wheelchair and later of the stylish armchair would
help to prevent much of the audience from having such an
over-the-shoulder view of their occupant when there is a conversation
taking place with somebody on the settee on the other side of the stage. But it's a production to be proud of. To 17.4.10. John Slim |
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