December 11, 2009
This production is a pleasingly ramshackle re-imagining of Shakespeare, done up as a piece of Zimbabwean township theatre. Denton Chikura and Tonderai Munyevu take on the multitude of roles by themselves, armed with a suitcase full of bits of costume and plenty of energy. These performers' skills lie in their confident and engaging manner with the audience rather than an ability to slip between characters effectively. Perhaps this is the point, though the result is that the story is confused and becomes a series of set-pieces rather than a coherent whole. If you don’t know the story of Two Gentlemen of Verona (and I don’t) you won’t leave this production knowing it much better.
This should be pretty damning, but the enthusiasm of the actors carries the thing off and it's best just to relax and not worry about the plot or what’s going on and enjoy their exuberant mangling of it. They frequently address the audience, explaining plot-points, asking questions, distributing props and most memorably, utilising an audience member’s shoes to serve for Lance's monologue about his dog. I also particularly enjoyed the bit where Mr Munyevu recruited a group of audience members to be his band of outlaws.
The improvisational nature of the show, its mend-and-make-do attitude conjure up a vision of a different kind of theatre, one that North Oxford or indeed the UK do not see everyday – theatre performed where and when it can, under difficult circumstances perhaps but with joy and a sense of audience communion not seen here except in panto season.
The casual tone they strike is not without its drawbacks, and I would also argue that the play fails even by the criteria it sets itself. I didn’t feel the performers worked hard enough to communicate the story or to fully inhabit the characters – there is a kind of nudge-wink attitude to it all, not balanced by any genuine attempt to explore the themes of the play. Their whispering and confidential asides to each other, as they pretend to work out how to stage the next bit, the occasional jokey aside to the audience, serve to stultify the action, robbing the narrative of its drive.
It comes across at times as self-satisfied and complacent, the actors not ultimately working for the story. It is also too long and a lot of the stage-business requires sharpening up and developing, especially in the case of some inert longeurs between and during scenes. These, though are talented performers, musically, comedically and when they let themselves, dramatically.
This production does not work as a coherent piece of narrative but as a work-in-progress (intimated by the director's notes) it offers an intriguing glimpse at a very exciting method of staging.
This should be pretty damning, but the enthusiasm of the actors carries the thing off and it's best just to relax and not worry about the plot or what’s going on and enjoy their exuberant mangling of it. They frequently address the audience, explaining plot-points, asking questions, distributing props and most memorably, utilising an audience member’s shoes to serve for Lance's monologue about his dog. I also particularly enjoyed the bit where Mr Munyevu recruited a group of audience members to be his band of outlaws.
The improvisational nature of the show, its mend-and-make-do attitude conjure up a vision of a different kind of theatre, one that North Oxford or indeed the UK do not see everyday – theatre performed where and when it can, under difficult circumstances perhaps but with joy and a sense of audience communion not seen here except in panto season.
The casual tone they strike is not without its drawbacks, and I would also argue that the play fails even by the criteria it sets itself. I didn’t feel the performers worked hard enough to communicate the story or to fully inhabit the characters – there is a kind of nudge-wink attitude to it all, not balanced by any genuine attempt to explore the themes of the play. Their whispering and confidential asides to each other, as they pretend to work out how to stage the next bit, the occasional jokey aside to the audience, serve to stultify the action, robbing the narrative of its drive.
It comes across at times as self-satisfied and complacent, the actors not ultimately working for the story. It is also too long and a lot of the stage-business requires sharpening up and developing, especially in the case of some inert longeurs between and during scenes. These, though are talented performers, musically, comedically and when they let themselves, dramatically.
This production does not work as a coherent piece of narrative but as a work-in-progress (intimated by the director's notes) it offers an intriguing glimpse at a very exciting method of staging.