Post by Steve on Oct 1, 2022 12:48:40 GMT
Dave B already wrote a review of this in the general thread, but sus-pecting (lol) that it was too small a production to merit a thread of its own.
I feel it's a rare chance to see an excellent production of a rarely produced Barrie Keefe play, so I thought I'd create a thread anyway, despite similar misgivings. It's on at the Park 90 (unreserved seating) until October 15th.
Dave B's review (hope you don't mind, Dave
):-
"1979 and on the day Thatcher comes to power, two detectives have brought a young black man into the station. He assumes it's stop under suspicion (these days known as stop and search) and has been there and never charged many times before. The interrogation turns into warfare. The play takes every predictable beat but it's hugely powerful and deliberate in doing so. More than worth a visit to the lovely Park Theatre. Cast are superb and the whole thing is rightfully angry. 4 stars"
I agree with pretty much everything Dave said.
The play itself lacks the character-based richness that I loved in "Barbarians," the other Keefe play that I've seen (brilliantly produced at the Young Vic with Brian Vernel and Fisayo Akinade), being more plot based, but it is very effective dramatically, as a confrontation between two wiley prejudiced police officers and a world-weary but unbowed, affable young man; and is an interesting historical record of a true incident of racism to boot.
Some spoilers follow. . .
That incident, from the sixties, is transliterated craftily to 1979 (the ancient vagrancy laws that allowed police to drag in just about anybody under suspicion for just about anything were still on the books, in 1979, and as Dave suggested, have been resurrected periodically as "stop and search" laws) by Keefe, so that he sets it on the night Margaret Thatcher won her landslide election victory, making it possible for him to comment on the rigid, othering, hard right thinking of the Police Officer in charge, Karn.
To watch Alexander Neal's Karn conducting his interrogation is to feel like you're stuck inside a particularly prejudiced episode of "The Sweeney," where John Thaw's preening Regan has lost any redeeming characteristics he once had. Neal gives himself over utterly to seventies sexist banter about Anna Ford and Angela Rippon, to pretending to be be friendly, to withholding information, to, well, you've got to see it to find out.
Stedroy Cabey's suspect, Delroy, convincingly veers through a gamut of emotions, from bravado to world-weariness to overwhelming shock to sadness to outrage to rebellion, in no particular order, and he makes us care.
This is a really well-done and intimate production of a little seen Keefe play, directed with precision by Paul Tomlinson, who knew and worked with the playwright.
4 stars from me.
I feel it's a rare chance to see an excellent production of a rarely produced Barrie Keefe play, so I thought I'd create a thread anyway, despite similar misgivings. It's on at the Park 90 (unreserved seating) until October 15th.
Dave B's review (hope you don't mind, Dave
):-"1979 and on the day Thatcher comes to power, two detectives have brought a young black man into the station. He assumes it's stop under suspicion (these days known as stop and search) and has been there and never charged many times before. The interrogation turns into warfare. The play takes every predictable beat but it's hugely powerful and deliberate in doing so. More than worth a visit to the lovely Park Theatre. Cast are superb and the whole thing is rightfully angry. 4 stars"
I agree with pretty much everything Dave said.
The play itself lacks the character-based richness that I loved in "Barbarians," the other Keefe play that I've seen (brilliantly produced at the Young Vic with Brian Vernel and Fisayo Akinade), being more plot based, but it is very effective dramatically, as a confrontation between two wiley prejudiced police officers and a world-weary but unbowed, affable young man; and is an interesting historical record of a true incident of racism to boot.
Some spoilers follow. . .
That incident, from the sixties, is transliterated craftily to 1979 (the ancient vagrancy laws that allowed police to drag in just about anybody under suspicion for just about anything were still on the books, in 1979, and as Dave suggested, have been resurrected periodically as "stop and search" laws) by Keefe, so that he sets it on the night Margaret Thatcher won her landslide election victory, making it possible for him to comment on the rigid, othering, hard right thinking of the Police Officer in charge, Karn.
To watch Alexander Neal's Karn conducting his interrogation is to feel like you're stuck inside a particularly prejudiced episode of "The Sweeney," where John Thaw's preening Regan has lost any redeeming characteristics he once had. Neal gives himself over utterly to seventies sexist banter about Anna Ford and Angela Rippon, to pretending to be be friendly, to withholding information, to, well, you've got to see it to find out.
Stedroy Cabey's suspect, Delroy, convincingly veers through a gamut of emotions, from bravado to world-weariness to overwhelming shock to sadness to outrage to rebellion, in no particular order, and he makes us care.
This is a really well-done and intimate production of a little seen Keefe play, directed with precision by Paul Tomlinson, who knew and worked with the playwright.
4 stars from me.
