One Man Poe

 

One Man Poe

The first thing that strikes you about One Man Poe, a performance of four of Edgar Allen Poe's pioneering gothic tales, is the sheer spectacle of such a tremendous feat of memory. The stage is largely bare, just a few props here and there to suggest location. Your focus and concentration is entirely directed toward our actor, on whose shoulders the evening will stand or fall. It's almost criminal that his name doesn't appear on the flyer or the Watford Fringe webpage, as this truly is his performance.

His name, as you can learn by visiting the Threedumb Theatre website, is Stephen Smith, and his modesty could well be one of the reasons the production does not only stand but soar. Horror works best when there is a chilling sense of uncertainty. Mystery and suspense are essential to its grip on the audience. The anonymity of the actor assisted in his startling transformations, beginning as a straight-jacketed madman frustratedly arguing his sanity in The Tell-Tale Heart and closing as the bent and decrepit old man of the popular poem The Raven. He fully inhabited each character, creating a unique voice, stance, attitude and emotional backstory that not only perfectly matched Poe's intense, haunting language but actually helped illuminate it for the spellbound audience.

The Black Cat was a beautifully understated study of how even soft-hearted animal lovers can turn into cold-blooded murderers, but the tour de force was The Pit and the Pendulum, a prototype for the 'torture porn' subgenre we see now in films like Saw. Fetishistic and frightening details of a man being sadistically driven to his death by the Spanish Inquisition are painfully spun out in Poe's heavy, complex prose. It was at times a struggle to follow, but Smith's careful attention to the rhythm of the language helps guide the audience as he dramatises with visceral movements and rich emotional expression the action of the story.

Equally important to the storytelling are the magnificent lighting and sound which create an eerie, tense atmosphere and punctuate the monologues with layers of visual and aural action that drive the plot forward. In many ways, they become the second character in each scene, demanding attention and interaction with ghostly, supernatural force.

I especially enjoyed the choice to show the actor preparing for their next role on stage. Shrouded in dim light, with mirror and make-up to hand, we watched Smith alter his appearance and transform from one character to another before our eyes. Far from destroying the magic of theatre and mystery of horror, it emphasised the idea that we all have these characters inside us, that we all play many parts in our daily lives and can change from one person to another on the turn of a coin. Chilling.

There was a lack of connection between actor and audience initially, which is not entirely inappropriate to horror, but as a consequence it felt awkward applauding at the end of each scene. Indeed it was not until the very end of the evening that we saw Smith's own sparkling personality shine through. The intensity of Poe's language was also a little exhausting to be submerged in without a sense of context. I would have liked Smith to build a rapport with the audience, expounding a little on Poe's biography and background (itself a frightening tale) before going into each piece. He could do for Edgar Allen Poe what Simon Callow does so superbly for Charles Dickens, popularising and dramatising him for a broad and grateful generation. Poe's works are nearly 200 years old and without that guiding hand these recitations might remain rather niche, but with it they will surely garner the attention and admiration of theatre goers of all stripes.

Clean! A Feminist Musical

Clean! A Feminist Musical

On the advertising flyer Clean! is described as a feminist musical, a worthy subtitle it thoroughly deserves for its thoughtful and moving interweaving of 7 separate but connected female narratives. However, what struck me while watching was how much this was a humanist musical, filled with affection and optimism, and a far cry from the political diatribe or agitprop such a label could imply.

Nonetheless, the story, or rather stories, go some way toward redressing a long overdue imbalance in the prominence given to male narratives on stage, and the musical genre in particular provides a thrilling space for resonant female voices from across the ages to be enjoyed and appreciated.

Millicent is the oldest character chronologically, working in Brighton’s Mayo laundry in 1885. She’s followed by one of Brighton’s first female GPs Dr Helen Boyle and young suffragette Meg. Dot manages the laundry through the smallpox crisis of the 50s while Ruby is escaping domestic abuse two decades later. In the 90s Juliet explores menopause and empty nest syndrome, while Tasha bring us right up to 2021, drawing direct parallels between COVID and earlier pandemics.

The sense of place is important throughout, with frequent specific references to Brighton, binding the characters together by geography as we flit bird like through historical periods. The excellent staging and costume design on the one hand make these transitions seamless and comfortable while on the other give us the clues we need to identify eras with accuracy.

The personal narratives are by turns sweet and compelling, tender and brash, and these tonal shifts keep a sort of comfortable forward pace to the story telling. Although it never feels truly dramatic in the sense of any character delivering us tension or suspense, that is in part an inevitable consequence of the form. In keeping the characters monologuing rather than interacting, they are reporting events rather than experiencing them.

The real star of the show is Simon Scardanelli's music, which has an utterly seductive folksy charm. The actors frequently play their own instruments, a decision which beautifully reinforces the theme of them claiming their own stories and supporting each other in telling them. The harmonies are stupendously good and again underline powerfully the theme of sisterhood.

My personal favourite character was Judey Bignell as Dr Boyle whose prim manner and plum accent was an understated delight, while Jack Cryer’s Juliet coaxed the most laughs. Overall, Clean! is a life affirming show with an inspiring message about our shared capacity for tenacity and love which left the audience genuinely uplifted.

Going Straight to Gay... Or Something In-between

Going Straight to Gay... Or Something In-between is an hour long comic monologue delivered with gusto by actress Henriette Laursen. The topic is exactly as the title indicates. Laursen shares with the audience the highs and lows of her tempestuous love life, a life which just happens to involve falling in love with both men and women.

There are countless comic routines built around the traditional coming out story, so much so that in recent years it's become it's own subgenre. Some of Laursen's material focused on those old worn cliches, such as the father who struggles to talk openly about sex, and the frustration of family members delaying and interrupting her planned dramatic revelation. What made this evening special, and indeed exciting, were the parts that explored the particularities of her coming out as bisexual, not just to others, but to herself, recognising the impact of that identity on her own life and interactions.

It was fascinating listening to Laursen outline how differently she is treated when she's in public with a male partner as opposed to a female. She riffed on the peculiarities of going on a date with a woman, as a woman, having been socialised into dating the opposite sex. With two women, who buys the first round at the bar? How do you avoid the manipulation spiral? And worst of all, what do you do when you and your partner are the same size and she wants to 'borrow' your favourite jeans? Laursen mined every opportunity for comic potential, fully exploiting her actor training to deliver mini sketches and dialogues of her multitudinous relationship wrangles.

Laursen articulated confidently her unique perspective of experiencing the world both as a woman who others saw as 'straight' and fully conforming to the stereotypes of her gender, and also as a woman who others saw as 'gay', challenging those same conventions. This is a rarely explored point of view, and it gave her some fascinating insights into straight privilege, gender assumptions and the importance of Gay Pride which should be compulsory viewing for bigots everywhere.

Though her acting skills were an asset to the evening, the downside was that the comedy often felt forced. There was too great a dependence on the script and a resistance to spontaneity which made her relationship with the audience less intimate than it could have been. She often delivered a joke and then reversed it, breaking us out of the story she was spinning. I would have loved the monologue to be a bit shorter, so that time could be given at the end for a question and answer session where her idiosyncratic insights into life and love could be shared with a greater sense of direct connection. She's started an incredibly important conversation here, a conversation I'm sure many more people will be delighted to join.