24 - 29 Nov  |  For ages 11+

Shared Experience, Nottingham Playhouse & West Yorkshire Playhouse present

 

The Stage, 1 October 2010

A new translation from Alistair Beaton gives Brecht’s political morality tale some beefy new comic lines without straying from the original ribald style. Many of them are delivered in a laconic, throw-away manner. The characters’ thoughts are given welcome clarity and direction and Beaton has kept the play’s prologue, though it has been radically altered.

This Shared Experience co-production, staged with the playhouses of West Yorkshire and Nottingham, has a free rambling rather than a freewheeling style. It is played with gusto for the most part but a handful of sequences - the judgement scene is an example - would benefit from moments of frantic farce.

A surrounding wooden bandstand provides seating for the community chorus members. They give some inspired collective reactions to the events on stage, but it must be said they are still for long periods. Ilona Sekacz’s original music is a constant joy.

Matti Houghton shines as Grusha, a servant girl. She rescues an upper-class child and takes him on an epic journey steeped in ancient narrative myth. A life-sized puppet does charming service as the youngster. James Clyde spends the first half as the narrating Singer and the second as Azdak, the roguish hero who is made a judge. He is suitably commanding in both roles.

The ensemble players each have a distinct and highly personal movement vocabulary, thanks to choreographer Liz Ranken. They make themselves colourfully grotesque, none more so than Clare Perkins - and lest there be any misunderstanding, that is a compliment.