» Review: One For the Road and Ashes to Ashes
In this Pinter double-bill, the personal and political collided to create a menacingly oblique world with a dash of jet black humour. Sparse staging and lighting expertly enhances both plays. In Road, a death-loving instrument of an unnamed state interrogates a family for reasons never specified. Ashes presents a conversation between a man and woman whose relationship keeps shifting and within which there are echoes of sadomasochism and the Holocaust. The staging was slightly static in Ashes; a well placed subtle gesture or movement could have brought the excellent text to life and illuminated some of its mysteries. Acting was very good throughout but Jonathan Rice stood out as the terrifying interrogator.
Upstairs At Three & Ten, 20 November
4/5
Simon Plotkin
