Off-WEST END
REVIEWS
ROYAL COURT THEATRE
Sloane Square, SW1
TWO VENUES: Theatre 'Upstairs' &
Theatre 'Downstairs'
BOX OFFICE: (020) 7565
5000
JARWOOD THEATRE -
UPSTAIRS
Reviews by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet
Magazine
JARWOOD THEATRE -
DOWNSTAIRS
CLYBOURNE
PARK
by Bruce Norris
Now
playing until 2 October
In Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris
fearlessly steps up to the plate to challenge taboo and political correctness
in suburban America.
The framework that he uses owes a lot to Caryl
Churchill's Cloud Nine, exploring the topic from the viewpoint of a single
house in the eponymous district of Chicago at two points in time.
The first act takes place in the late 1950s, as a couple
prepare to leave a property that has become a hell on earth for them. Two years
earlier, Russ and Bev's ex-army son had killed himself after admitting to
terrible war crimes while serving in Korea.
Steffan
Rhodri as Russ is seemingly living on a knife edge and while clearing the house
is just bearable, the arrival of a stream of visitors is not. Sophie Thompson
plays his wife as the kind of woman who could drive a saint to distraction with
her constant bright inanities.
In a symbol of the times, they treat Lorna Brown as their
"Colored" girl, Francine respectfully,
rather like a pet but when talking, ignore her presence as you might a dumb
puppy.
The parish priest played by Sam Spruell
has a knack of winding Russ up to the extent that he is driven to defending
himself angrily with "language more appropriate to the locker room".
However, the key arrival is Martin Freeman's obnoxious,
outraged Karl who reveals that, unknown to all, the
house is to be sold to a Negro family. He demands that this is stopped, by
whatever means, in a speech that beggars belief half a
century on.
The early somewhat whimsical tone soon gives way to sinister
undercurrents as the play develops into a dark and frequently extremely funny
comedy.
After the interval, the house has been gutted and a yuppie
White couple played by Freeman and Sarah Goldberg are trying to move into what
has become a Black neighbourhood. In doing so, they fire up an equal amount of
passion in a carefully constructed reversal of what we have already seen.
The new group, who make allusions to their predecessors,
start with polite debate but soon dissolve into tirades of offensive abuse that
becomes bitterly hilarious, even duelling with a stream of jokes that, told by
a stand-up, could lead to race/gender/disability riots.
Designer Robert Innes-Hopkins gets both sets and costumes
exactly right, immediately placing us in the dowdiness of the 1950s then, after
the interval, bringing things up to shabby date.
At times, while building in a carefully crafted crescendo,
the plotting can seem overly schematic as Norris ensures that his ideas are
conveyed unequivocally. This can also bleed into the characterisations,
especially of the paired characters played by Sophie Thompson and Lucian Msamati.
Best served are Steffan Rhodri before
and Sarah Goldberg and Lorna Brown after the interval respectively but in
particular Martin Freeman, who gets many of the best lines in his dual bigot
roles.
Clybourne
Park may be a comedy but it makes some telling points about prejudice and the
way that in the last fifty years, rather than disappearing, in fact, it has
merely changed and is as strong as ever.
Norris's previous London outing in the same theatre space,
The Pain and The Itch was the first that Dominic Cooke directed after taking
over at the Court and launched what has turned out to be a fertile period for
the theatre in fine style.
This highly entertaining play, which suggests that the writer
has a unique authorial voice offering biting social satire within domestic
settings, consolidates that impression and will be a very hot ticket.
Reviews by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet
Magazine
]
DONMAR WAREHOUSE
Earlham Street
WC2
BOX OFFICE:0870 060
6624 (No booking fee)
Reviews by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet
Magazine
THE YOUNG VIC
66 The Cut
SE1
BOX OFFICE: 020 7928
6363
Reviews by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet
Magazine
SOHO THEATRE &
WRITER'S CENTRE
21 Dean Street
London W1
BOX OFFICE: (020) 7478
0100
(24 hrs - no booking
fee)
Reviews by Lucy Popescu for Theatreworld Internet Magazine
JERMYN STREET STUDIO
THEATRE
16b Jermyn Street
(off Lower Regent Street)
BOX OFFICE: 020 7287
2875
(occasional
reviews)
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