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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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Two
Sutton Arts Theatre
**** PUBS are like magnets, attracting the
flotsam and jetsam of life; the sad, the lonely, inadequate, those whose
reality is, should we say, different to the norm. These are the
characters who populate Jim Cartwright’s Northern pub in his celebrated
and multi-award winning Two, set at
the fag end of the 1980s. Two
is a two hander, the clue is in the name
perhaps; two actors playing 14 parts. Not all actors can play seven
different roles in a season let alone an evening but if the actors are
good enough, as here, they bring the characters to life, their
chameleon-like changes a necessary part of the play. The monologues and duologues are relatively short with little time to create any emotional bond with the audience, but having the same actors creates instant familiarity, almost as if we already know characters we have never met before - a rapport before they even start. Simon Baker and Susie May Lynch greet us as the
landlord and landlady of their busy pub, full of bon homie to the
customers, and bad jokes in his case, but ready to kill each other
behind the bar. Theirs is a love hate relationship in that they
love to hate each other yet the whole play is really their story, a love
story we know nothing about until the emotional end when their anguish,
particularly from Lynch, is palpable. The pair find endless excuses to leave the bar -
and each other’s company - which introduces us to their myriad of
customers. There are the lonely and, adding humour, No couple can hate like our hosts and stay
together, animosity in every breath, without some traumatic event
painfully binding them together and, at the same time, ripping
them apart. Their clashes are funny at first but laughs become hollow as
you realise this is real and raw. But first the customers; there is the old woman
caring for her doubly incontinent husband who “is having the last bit of
her life”, finding her only happiness in her evening visit for a glass
of Guinness, and a platonic lust for the butcher. Then the old man with his happy secret life,
calling up his dead wife from memory and living with her in his own,
pathetic, parallel universe, dreaming of joining her in death. Comfort
in madness. Enter macho-man Moth, the poor - as in destitute
- man’s John Travolta, with cutaway vest, back to front baseball cap, yo,
and an eye, and not much else, for the ladies, chatting up anything with
a passable number of limbs and a pulse. He is with long-time girlfriend Liverpudlian
Maude who is being used and she knows it. He wants to get into her purse
while at the same time wanting to get into every other girl’s knickers,
with chat up lines even George Clooney in his prime would have struggled
with. Despite her financial doormat status Maude still
loves her man. Why? Who knows how the female mind works but she pounces
when Moth’s wings are clipped by serious back damage as he shows off his
lack of dance moves. For once she has the upper hand and uses it,
forcing him into a marriage commitment. For how long? Probably not even
to the end of the play. Less convincing as characters yet very funny were
Mr and Mrs Iger. She teetotal and obsessed with strong, muscular,
testosterone fuelled, Greek adonises. He, no backbone and even less testosterone;
timid, meek, submissive and with all the charisma of a pebble who still
hasn’t managed to be served at the busy bar after an hour. Bowler hatted
in a long black coat Baker’s Iger is clever and funny, silent movieish,
with Lynch’s Mrs a picture of pent up frustration and, dare we say it,
sexuality for a real, or even just a reasonable excuse for a man.
Opposites who, strangely, need each other. In the same vein, funny but not quite real, were
Fred and Alice, Fred looking like Mr Creosote on a day out and Alice
like a small airship. Fred and Alice are candidates for care in a
community that doesn’t care, really, and have a history of residency in
a place Fred tells us had white walls and where doors are locked at
night. Alice loves Elvis, who, we are informed
confidentially by Fred, died of a choked bum – a fact not publicised at
Gracelands! Never buying a drink, they are there to eat
crisps, in Alice’s case, and watch a western on the pub TV where they
seem to be obsessed with a minor very fat character and a Palomino horse There is no lack of realism with Roy and Lesley
though. Roy is a poster boy for domestic abuse, a bully, plain and
simple. He manipulates everything so that Lesley’s answer will always be
wrong. He is pathologically jealous, so much so that Lesley cannot look
at anyone, and is even timed going to the toilet – having to ask
permission first. To work Baker has to hint at Roy’s own
vulnerability, the insecurity which is necessary to create his character
while Lynch has to express her own miserable life from just her body
language and expression, both manage it well, so much so that Lesley’s
explosion when she finally snaps is a real shock. It jolts Roy into
repentance and abject apology, publically at least. Privately . . . well
. . . in Roy’s twisted mind, she had it coming, and that will stop her
doing it again. Then there is the other woman, not the first or
last to be sweet talked by a married man, who arrives to confront her
lover and his wife to find he, and she, just ignore her A little boy, who has lost his father at closing
time is the catalyst for the story we have known is coming all evening.
We finally find out why two into one does not go any more. It is
emotional, raw, moving and strikes a nerve with every parent and
grandparent as the finale of two fine performances. There is another star though, the pub set from
Colin Edge and his 15 strong team is worth a bow on its own, probably
the best I have seen for the play; in truth, and say it quietly, it's a
better bar than the one in the theatre, with authentic touches
everywhere – the juke box on the wall, saloon doors with BAR on the
glass panels, dart board . . . Sound from director
Claire Armstrong Mills and Jeff Darlow is also effective and with spot
on timing from the chinking and smashing of glasses to period music
including a running theme of a haunting piano version of Tears for
Fears' Mad World.
A mention too for dresser Helen Wilson, 14
characters means 14 quick fire changes, including fat suits and wigs,
and she ensured there was hardly a pause between scenes. The result is a
very solid, slick, confident and entertaining production of a much loved
play. It’s well worth popping in for a look . . . and don’t forget to
have a swift one, or two, while you are there. To 14-05-16 Roger Clarke 07-05-16 Bolton-born Jim
Cartwright is perhaps best known for
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, but
Two is perhaps his most performed play. It is small scale, lost in big
theatres, but ideal for studios, pub theatres, small spaces and Little
Theatres such as Sutton Arts and professionally it is popular with
producers as there are only two actors to pay and you can get by with a
minimal set. Twenty-seven years on
Two 2,
the sequel, had its world premiere at February this year at The Octagon
in Cartwright's home town where Two premiered in 1989, with the same
landlord and landlady, still bickering, this time whether to sell up or
stay, in the same pub which, like many a local, is now struggling to
survive.
Making it a double THIS play, written by Jim Cartwright in
1989, is to actors what the Olympic Decathlon is to athletes. It
requires two actors to assume fourteen different characters, as a night
in a Northern pub unfolds. As such it is hugely demanding of, and wholly
dependent upon, the skills of the two actors who take the parts,
initially, of the pub landlord and his wife. In this production the
roles are assumed by Simon Baker and Susie May Lynch. As a veteran of pubs in
that era I can confirm the authenticity of the bar room set, accurate
and atmospheric. It provided the perfect visual backdrop. The use of
audio, utilising excerpts from Mad
World and
Whole Lotta Love
also perfectly complimented proceedings. Simon Baker convinces
in the landlord
role, addressing the audience as if we are pub regulars at the curtain
up, drawing us into his world. His no-nonsense, world weary, wit and
bonhomie sets the scene for landlady, Susie May Lynch, flirty, and as
nimble on her feet as she is with banter with her customers, in a manner
beloved of so many landladies in
Coronation Street’s The Rovers Return. Thereafter we are treated to a whirlwind of
character, costume, accent and age changes as various pub characters
reveal themselves. Cartwright is strong on dialogue, but the inevitably
brief appearances of the characters mean that the time they have to draw
the audience in to relate to them, and their story, is brief. In this regard the second Act works better than
the first. The stand out scene of the evening is when Scottish couple
Roy and Leslie lay bare the reality of their abusive relationship. Roy’s
verbal, and finally physical, bullying is both compelling and profoundly
disturbing, made possible by Leslie’s supine, crushed, bewildered
characterisation. Director Clare Armstrong-Mills ekes much out of a
setting which is now a quarter of a century old during which pubs and
attitudes have changed much, even if human nature itself remains pretty
constant. Simple costume, shoe and wig changes, performed
in the blink of an eye as an exit was followed by an entrance, were
realised with consummate skill. However, I found the decision to eschew real
glasses and fluid for imaginary ones a curious one. The manner in which
a glass is held, and its contents consumed, is rich in character and
dramatic possibility, options not available in this production. The touching denouement
is sensitively performed by Baker and Lynch as the tragic secret past of
the couple surfaces in a play in which episodic delight features over
and beyond a conventional narrative. A well- attended opening night
rewarded both actors with deserved, generous applause.
Two runs
until Sat 14th May Gary Longden 05-05-16 |
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