February 16, 2011
Monsters, by Swedish playwright Niklas Radstrom, concerns the 1993 murder of James Bulger in Liverpool by two ten year old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, a case which shocked the nation.
The play won the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation of 2008, but has also received a fair amount of criticism. Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby, who led the inquiry, has argued that this is a case which should not be kept in the public eye, believing it to be insensitive to the Bulger family; whilst pressure group Mothers Against Murder And Aggression, who were formed shortly after the murder took place, considered the play to be in poor taste, accusing Radstrom of writing about a serious subject simply to make a name for himself. It's a subject that, in the wrong hands, could be easily exploited.
Student theatre company Picnic Productions (supported by the Oriel Lions and the Experimental Theatre Company) have done an admirable job in regards to acting and production. The four players' interchange between roles. They alternate between re-enacting scenes based upon real transcripts from the court papers, mainly comprised of police interviews with Venables and Thomson and the testimonies of the parents of the boys, Bulger's mum included, and to a lesser extent narrative segments dreamed up by Radstrom.
These force the audience to question whether the passers by who did nothing to intervene when Bulger was getting dragged away by the boys are as guilty as the murderers themselves, and also if the audience are in some way implicated by sitting down in silence throughout the duration of the piece. It seems that in taking this viewpoint Radstrom is attempting to take the subject away from the realm of the press, pulling the case away from the tabloid demonisation of Venables and Thomson by giving them more attention in the piece than Bulger.
This is an extremely difficult piece to write about, mainly because of the subject matter. Whilst I don't think that Radstrom can be accused of sensationalising the subject matter, I did find some parts of the play slightly uncomfortable. I thought some of the narrative passages, many of which relied on questions designed to confront the audience, a little naive and unnecessarily confrontational; whilst a segment which recounted a few other cases of kids killing kids, which gave the ages of the kids involved and the years they took place, seemed slightly lurid and irrelevant, and was probably the play's most tabloidesque moment.
Also, in giving a predominant voice to the killers and the parents of the killers without attempting to make any serious points about how society can spawn terrible cases such as this there's a danger that the play could be seen as merely anti-tabloid rather than matter-of-fact, which is highly risky territory when taking into account the public furore that surrounded this case, although the passage based on Bulger's mothers interview, in which she tells of her dismay at the press changing her boys name from James to Jamie is admittedly moving, as are some of the tales of domestic abuse from the mouths of Thomson and Venables' mothers.
Matthew Goldhill has done a good job of directing the play, and Becca Kinder, Chloe Orrock, Fen Greatley and Luke Gormley all churn out fine performances. Although far from enjoyable, "Monsters" is an interesting, thought provoking and considered piece of theatre, albeit one I am unlikely to ever view again. Heavy, but highly memorable.
The play won the Anglo-Swedish Literary Foundation of 2008, but has also received a fair amount of criticism. Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby, who led the inquiry, has argued that this is a case which should not be kept in the public eye, believing it to be insensitive to the Bulger family; whilst pressure group Mothers Against Murder And Aggression, who were formed shortly after the murder took place, considered the play to be in poor taste, accusing Radstrom of writing about a serious subject simply to make a name for himself. It's a subject that, in the wrong hands, could be easily exploited.
Student theatre company Picnic Productions (supported by the Oriel Lions and the Experimental Theatre Company) have done an admirable job in regards to acting and production. The four players' interchange between roles. They alternate between re-enacting scenes based upon real transcripts from the court papers, mainly comprised of police interviews with Venables and Thomson and the testimonies of the parents of the boys, Bulger's mum included, and to a lesser extent narrative segments dreamed up by Radstrom.
These force the audience to question whether the passers by who did nothing to intervene when Bulger was getting dragged away by the boys are as guilty as the murderers themselves, and also if the audience are in some way implicated by sitting down in silence throughout the duration of the piece. It seems that in taking this viewpoint Radstrom is attempting to take the subject away from the realm of the press, pulling the case away from the tabloid demonisation of Venables and Thomson by giving them more attention in the piece than Bulger.
This is an extremely difficult piece to write about, mainly because of the subject matter. Whilst I don't think that Radstrom can be accused of sensationalising the subject matter, I did find some parts of the play slightly uncomfortable. I thought some of the narrative passages, many of which relied on questions designed to confront the audience, a little naive and unnecessarily confrontational; whilst a segment which recounted a few other cases of kids killing kids, which gave the ages of the kids involved and the years they took place, seemed slightly lurid and irrelevant, and was probably the play's most tabloidesque moment.
Also, in giving a predominant voice to the killers and the parents of the killers without attempting to make any serious points about how society can spawn terrible cases such as this there's a danger that the play could be seen as merely anti-tabloid rather than matter-of-fact, which is highly risky territory when taking into account the public furore that surrounded this case, although the passage based on Bulger's mothers interview, in which she tells of her dismay at the press changing her boys name from James to Jamie is admittedly moving, as are some of the tales of domestic abuse from the mouths of Thomson and Venables' mothers.
Matthew Goldhill has done a good job of directing the play, and Becca Kinder, Chloe Orrock, Fen Greatley and Luke Gormley all churn out fine performances. Although far from enjoyable, "Monsters" is an interesting, thought provoking and considered piece of theatre, albeit one I am unlikely to ever view again. Heavy, but highly memorable.