The Sewing Group, Royal Court Upstairs
Nov 14, 2016 16:33:32 GMT
BurlyBeaR, mallardo, and 2 more like this
Post by Steve on Nov 14, 2016 16:33:32 GMT
Went Saturday night.
This production starts up as dauntingly baffling, and ends up as excessively explanatory, but in between there is an involving mystery and distinctly offbeat humour to tickle the funny bone.
Some spoilers follow. . .
In the 1700s, young Maggie (Fiona Glascott) joins a sewing group, which sews in virtual silence. From the start she struggles to fit in, wanting to make conversation while others want to sew. She is a 1700s Mr Bean in her clumsy attempts to fit in. . .
Audience members had no idea how to react. Is Maggie's behaviour offensive or funny? Is the silent sewing group benign or threatening? Is the audience supposed to behave like the sewing group or like Maggie? Are audience members who laugh disruptive or are they the only ones who get it?
To this extent, the show is a game in which the audience are participants, and how the audience adapt to the actions and revelations of this always intriguing 1 hour and 20 minutes is as important as the content of the play itself.
Not only does the play disguise it's tone, it's entire genre is slippery. Is this Beckett? Pinter? McDowell? Mischief Theatre?
Having played a game with the audience for most of running time, EV Crowe rushes at the end to make everything explicit, and underestimates her audience by being a touch didactic. As with the ending of Hitchcock's Psycho, I wish this play had spelled out less.
Fiona Glascott walked the wire of a character, who wants to fit in, yet is intrinsically a misfit, wonderfully. She is well-supported by the entire cast, especially by John Mackay (mostly recently seen persecuting Jack Farthing's Snowden character at Hampstead Theatre), the boss of the sewing group, precariously poised between understanding Maggie and being frustrated by her.
I loved the games this production played, I found Glascott's antics relentlessly amusing, I enjoyed the discombobulation of the audience, and the play left me with plenty to muse about.
3 and a half stars
This production starts up as dauntingly baffling, and ends up as excessively explanatory, but in between there is an involving mystery and distinctly offbeat humour to tickle the funny bone.
Some spoilers follow. . .
In the 1700s, young Maggie (Fiona Glascott) joins a sewing group, which sews in virtual silence. From the start she struggles to fit in, wanting to make conversation while others want to sew. She is a 1700s Mr Bean in her clumsy attempts to fit in. . .
Audience members had no idea how to react. Is Maggie's behaviour offensive or funny? Is the silent sewing group benign or threatening? Is the audience supposed to behave like the sewing group or like Maggie? Are audience members who laugh disruptive or are they the only ones who get it?
To this extent, the show is a game in which the audience are participants, and how the audience adapt to the actions and revelations of this always intriguing 1 hour and 20 minutes is as important as the content of the play itself.
Not only does the play disguise it's tone, it's entire genre is slippery. Is this Beckett? Pinter? McDowell? Mischief Theatre?
Having played a game with the audience for most of running time, EV Crowe rushes at the end to make everything explicit, and underestimates her audience by being a touch didactic. As with the ending of Hitchcock's Psycho, I wish this play had spelled out less.
Fiona Glascott walked the wire of a character, who wants to fit in, yet is intrinsically a misfit, wonderfully. She is well-supported by the entire cast, especially by John Mackay (mostly recently seen persecuting Jack Farthing's Snowden character at Hampstead Theatre), the boss of the sewing group, precariously poised between understanding Maggie and being frustrated by her.
I loved the games this production played, I found Glascott's antics relentlessly amusing, I enjoyed the discombobulation of the audience, and the play left me with plenty to muse about.
3 and a half stars
