NEW WRITING: Duty & Medium
Right now, around the UK, theatre is full of revivals, classic plays and musical theatre dominate, for the most part, regional theatre and the west end with few exceptions. For aspiring playwrights and even established ones it is becoming increasingly difficult to find venues and producers who will take a punt on new work. There are understandable factors of course, money being the most obvious one, but where will the Ortons, Pinters and Stoppards of the future come from?
Thank god then for companies like Lantern Theatre and ACT and their initiative Second Chance Fringe, a small venue attached to a drama school here in Brighton. Lantern is a classic fringe space, a black box studio theatre with a fine reputation here, in particular for hosting new work, especially in the fringe. And a 50 seat venue is about right for trying out new work, an intimate space in a welcoming venue.
Last week I was lucky enough to be invited along to see two short pieces, works already seen once but returning after further development. And works that we were asked to offer feedback on. So on this occasion I will refrain from my usual role as critic and hope that I can offer some of that asked for feedback.
The first work was Duty, written by Susanne Crosby, that looks at a slice of World War I history and the emergence of conscientious objection. Three boys, friends, are swept up by the call to arms. But one, John, is horrified by the idea of having to carry arms and being expected to take a life. And he feels it deeply, he feels it is his duty to make his friends Harry and Joe understand that the people that they will be expected to kill are simple and ordinary people like themselves. That the men behind war are seldom the men on the battlefield.
He fails to persuade them and they are swept up and sent into the army on a wave of patriotism. John stays behind to run the family farm, in a move orchestrated by his mother Mags. But as a result he is vilified by the town’s people and by his girlfriend who ends the relationship cruelly by a letter that contains the symbolic white feather.
Crosby fills the text with fine historic detail and local references, the story is set in and around Seaford, and there are some wonderful characterisations and fine playing. Matt Vickery has the largest part to play as John, and it is a difficult role to deliver. His heartfelt beliefs are very real but perhaps at times could be delivered with less anger and even an air of sadness as he fails to make his friends understand. Jordan Southwell as Harry is charmingly gullible, not the brightest button on his uniform but so believable as he is swept up by the concept of “for king and country”. In contrast Jake Marchant plays Joe as the brighter friend, he listens to John, and even understands, but in the end falls to the pressure of patriotism and signs up.
Writer Susanne Crosby plays Mags, John’s mother with a real sense of maternal love, and one that is not averse to pulling strings.
Playing in the week running up to Remembrance Day, and in a world torn apart by bloody conflict, looking at pacifism is so poignant and appropriate and this text has much potential. I would like to see and hear from John’s girlfriend certainly and the whole needs to be given more breath and space, not easy in a showcase performance sharing the evening with another play, but this piece deserves to be developed and seen.
The second piece of the evening was Medium, a play about spiritualist deceptions and one revived here after an earlier outing and benefitting from some funding investment. It’s still a work in progress we are told but as a piece it holds together well. The writing is confidently wrought, the language precise and carrying a real sense of period, late Victorian values tinged with strained morality.
Isaac Freeman’s play started as part of a writing course at ACT, based at Lantern and tutor and director Janette Eddisford has facilitated taking it forward. The story is based on a found anonymous memoir and concerns two spiritualist mediums. The action takes place in the London home of Thompson, an evening before he and Campbell are about to conduct a seance. But not all is calm, Thompson is a troubled man, Campbell is a worrying presence and the appearance of a character, know only as The Man, throws Thompson into state of tangible turmoil. Into the mix we get Madeleine Brooks, a young woman whose desire to become a medium herself is tainted by a desire for both fame and fortune.
Luke O’Dell’s delivery of Thompson is a toweringly dark and sophisticated presence. There is an air of confident deception balanced by a gradual decent into quivering fear as the evening unfolds. Totally compelling, both the writing and the performance.
Campbell, played by Dominic Hart, is a bluff and brusque character but I wanted to know so much more about who he is and why he is there. Bek MacGeekie is equally fascinating and the character more clearly drawn but again I wanted more, and as this is a work in progress I am sure that there is more to come.
Finally we have The Man, a bumbling presence but one delivered with so much confidence and reality in a compelling performance from Daniel Finlay that really does draw the whole together in a way that leaves you begging for more. Who really is he, how does he fit into Thompson’s world of deception, is he the deceived or the deceiver…
Medium works on so many levels and shows real promise and Eddisford’s design and direction with some excellently restrained lighting and sound pull the whole assuredly together.
Thank god for organisations like this, not only here in Brighton but around the country, where new work by new voices is given breath and a potential future. Funding bodies need to take note, invest in a future that goes beyond the predictable and safe and promotes future classics.
Andrew Kay
