April 3, 2011
As I exit After the Accident, whilst lingering momentarily in the foyer area of the North Wall Theatre, I overhear a quite remarkable and bemusing thing. A fellow audience member comments, I assume in response to a question from her friend, that she had ‘felt nothing at all’. I wonder at this point if she had been watching an entirely different play, and had not in fact sat through the same hour and a half of intensely charged, highly emotional, engrossing drama that I had just witnessed. However, the North Wall is a small, perfectly formed little theatre, and as far as I am aware, there’s no place for a second auditorium to hide.
I conclude that although we had both watched the same captivating performances from the three actors, who so convincingly embodied the characters of anger consumed, grieving mother, guilt ridden, desperate father and part repentant, part defiant youth and unwitting killer of their child, in the accident of the play’s title, this unmoved viewer must simply have a heart of stone. My convictions are confirmed by the convulsions of the sobbing audience member who sat next to me, which I feel more accurately indicated the extreme emotional reaction the performance was able to induce.
The stage actor’s job is one of the toughest to do well. To take the audience along on the same journey as their character, to have them feel what that character feels, or at a different level, force the viewer to consider themselves in that situation, to question how one might feel in that circumstance, is a real challenge. Here all three of the actors did their jobs at a truly impressive level. I have no experience that relates even remotely to any of the characters, but nevertheless, I was uncomfortably in all of their shoes at different times throughout the play, or finding myself playing predict-a-script, pre-empting the next knife twisting, gut cramping, pain drenched line to be delivered.
With no real familiarity with the language of inner city youth, I’m not the best judge of the accuracy of the yardy slant or the accent of James Kozlowski’s tracksuit clad Leon, but I found it pretty convincing. I bought entirely into the irritating foot to foot, nervous energy fuelled shuffling that accompanied his monologues, as much as I did the subdued, downward gaze he adopts when bombarded by a tirade from the mother, and his total submission and defeat as he kneels, pleadingly, in the closing scenes.
Frances Ashman as Petra, the mother of the dead child, similarly effectively uses a body language of straight limbs, clenched fists, deliberate and precise movements, which emphasise the impenetrable battlements of denial she has placed around herself, but from behind which she launches a barrage of rage propelled razor edged speeches.
The character of Jimmy, Petra’s husband, played by Richard Stacey, is perhaps the most sympathetic role. This is in part due to his very naturalistic performance, as well as the relative ease with which the audience, through his recounting of memories and the blatant desperation apparent in his exchanges with Leon, the various implied councillors and ultimately his wife, is allowed to see into his world of pain and regret.
The very minimalist set of a white painted, angled square on the floor, defining the active space, a lit screen, to provide a backdrop and frame individuals, white painted chairs, which are moved around the stage to alter the setting, and which at times serve to represent the absent victims of the accident, act as both set and props, therefore becoming integral to the action, but never distracting from what is being said – and not said - on stage. The simple use of spotlighting to focus the audiences’ attention and indicate the shift of times, and a discreet musical score, whilst adding subtly to the atmosphere of the play, remained welcomingly unfussy.
After the Accident is a sensitively crafted, intelligently directed, thought provoking, powerful and, unless you are that woman with a heart of stone, a profoundly moving piece of theatre.
I conclude that although we had both watched the same captivating performances from the three actors, who so convincingly embodied the characters of anger consumed, grieving mother, guilt ridden, desperate father and part repentant, part defiant youth and unwitting killer of their child, in the accident of the play’s title, this unmoved viewer must simply have a heart of stone. My convictions are confirmed by the convulsions of the sobbing audience member who sat next to me, which I feel more accurately indicated the extreme emotional reaction the performance was able to induce.
The stage actor’s job is one of the toughest to do well. To take the audience along on the same journey as their character, to have them feel what that character feels, or at a different level, force the viewer to consider themselves in that situation, to question how one might feel in that circumstance, is a real challenge. Here all three of the actors did their jobs at a truly impressive level. I have no experience that relates even remotely to any of the characters, but nevertheless, I was uncomfortably in all of their shoes at different times throughout the play, or finding myself playing predict-a-script, pre-empting the next knife twisting, gut cramping, pain drenched line to be delivered.
With no real familiarity with the language of inner city youth, I’m not the best judge of the accuracy of the yardy slant or the accent of James Kozlowski’s tracksuit clad Leon, but I found it pretty convincing. I bought entirely into the irritating foot to foot, nervous energy fuelled shuffling that accompanied his monologues, as much as I did the subdued, downward gaze he adopts when bombarded by a tirade from the mother, and his total submission and defeat as he kneels, pleadingly, in the closing scenes.
Frances Ashman as Petra, the mother of the dead child, similarly effectively uses a body language of straight limbs, clenched fists, deliberate and precise movements, which emphasise the impenetrable battlements of denial she has placed around herself, but from behind which she launches a barrage of rage propelled razor edged speeches.
The character of Jimmy, Petra’s husband, played by Richard Stacey, is perhaps the most sympathetic role. This is in part due to his very naturalistic performance, as well as the relative ease with which the audience, through his recounting of memories and the blatant desperation apparent in his exchanges with Leon, the various implied councillors and ultimately his wife, is allowed to see into his world of pain and regret.
The very minimalist set of a white painted, angled square on the floor, defining the active space, a lit screen, to provide a backdrop and frame individuals, white painted chairs, which are moved around the stage to alter the setting, and which at times serve to represent the absent victims of the accident, act as both set and props, therefore becoming integral to the action, but never distracting from what is being said – and not said - on stage. The simple use of spotlighting to focus the audiences’ attention and indicate the shift of times, and a discreet musical score, whilst adding subtly to the atmosphere of the play, remained welcomingly unfussy.
After the Accident is a sensitively crafted, intelligently directed, thought provoking, powerful and, unless you are that woman with a heart of stone, a profoundly moving piece of theatre.