The York Realist, Royal Court Downstairs, London
Crime and Punishment in Dalston, Arcola, London
The Cavalcaders, Tricyle, London
A love affair pulled apart at the roots
Sunday, 13 January 2002
Print
Email
The York Realist
This may well be a risky declaration to make in January, but I wager that – come next December – The York Realist will rate as one of the finest productions of 2002. Written and staged by veteran Peter Gill in the Royal Court's main house (for the English Touring Theatre Company), this new memory play is set in a traditional tithe cottage in the Dales. As the farm labourer, George (Lloyd Owen), washes himself over a butler sink and his devoted mother (Anne Reid) hangs his towel to dry over her coal-burning range, you might suppose you're back in DH Lawrence's era.
However, she talks of mod cons and George's nervous guest, John (Richard Coyle), sports a leather jacket. It's the early Sixties and he's a young assistant director up from London, working on a community production of the York Mystery Cycle (attributed to the anonymous medieval realist of Gill's title). John is keen to persuade George back to rehearsals, not solely for professional reasons. And George, though bluff, is discernibly smitten by him (and not Doreen, his prim, would-be wife from down the lane). As time passes, an undying ardour welds these men together although their roots look set to pull them apart.
Obviously this isn't the sort of raw, cutting-edge fare most commonly associated with the Court. Indeed, Gill pointedly embraces old-fashioned elements from theatrical history. Yet in so doing, he produces an exquisitely crafted drama that actually cleverly ties-in with the Court's long-term blend of the vintage and the new.
As a love story, The York Realist is riveting and heart-rending, performed with fine-tuned naturalism that's quiet and unhurried. Gill is always terrifically perceptive about male tenderness – as evidenced in his previous pieces, Certain Young Men and Cardiff East. Here, the men's hesitant passion is full of telling details – as John, for example, unconsciously fiddles with the airing towel then jolts back in embarrassment, as if George is wearing it. This is also a domestic comedy that satirises rustic ways and cosmopolitan superciliousness. What's great is Gill's ensemble manages to be funny while steering clear of potential caricatures, moving instead towards complex emotions and surprising mores. My only real cavil is that the closing speech – suddenly quoting from the Mysteries – feels strained. Overall, the personal and political are subtly united in a study of English masculinity, class and culture. Such outstanding work makes one eager to see the Peter Gill retrospective season, scheduled for late spring at the Sheffield Crucible.
Coming from different social backgrounds causes bloodier ructions in Crime and Punishment in Dalston. As you may surmise from its title, David Farr's latest play is a free stage adaptation that brings Dostoevksy's classic tale of murder and harrowing guilt up to date and close to home. Rather than a 19th-century Russian, our impoverished protagonist is a frenzied young black man called Darius who slaughters his Turkish landlord in East London's currently notorious "Murder Mile". And that's slap-bang where Arcola, which commissioned this piece, is located: in an ex-factory down a seedy alley. Thus Dostoevsky's dark vision of industrialising cities is persuasively shifted to post-industrial destitution. Additionally, Darius's specifically racial fury chimes bleakly with those recent outbreaks of violence in Bradford and elsewhere.
Farr's self-directed production is strikingly rough and dour in its aesthetic. Darius's bedsit is a grungy patch of carpet in a vast, gloomy space. Scant furnishings slump at expressionistic angles to reflect Darius's unbalanced mind. Moreover, Farr's truncated scenes relate to Darius's frequent black-outs or anticipate the brutal chopping action he'll soon execute with a hatchet. In practice, unfortunately, this approach sometimes looks clumsy. The murder, staged off in a corner, is curiously low-impact with rushed, unconvincingly mimed blows. Darius's monologues can sound baldly explanatory, too. Dostoevsky's lengthy novel is far more horribly absorbing.
Farr's later scenes are better developed and the murderer's repeated encounters with a seemingly naïve copper become engrossing as the latter proves a cunning inquisitor. Though some of the acting needs to be sharper, Dave Fishley's Darius is intensely charged. Some might also find hope in our anti-hero's love affair with an amazingly forgiving Turkish woman, and in his final determination to confess to the police. The Shadow Home Secretary, Oliver Letwin – judging by his pronouncements last week – would surely view such improving community relations and penance as promising a brighter future.
Finally, in small-town Southern Ireland, Liam Cunningham's Terry is haunted by a romantic past – and by wrongs which, we gradually discover, were committed sometime ago among a close-knit set of pals. In Billy Roche's The Cavalcaders, commendably revived by director Robin Lefevre, Terry's dilapidated shoe-repairs shop is going to be modernised by his apprentice, Rory – eventually. But the older man obsessively lives in the past, perhaps searching for an elusive age of innocence or fearing that full amends can never be made.
Essentially, Catholic ideas of purgatory and redemption underlie a humane, secular portrait of sexual ethics – or the lack of them. As he proved in his Wexford Trilogy, Roche can introduce you to a whole community with ease, and his ear for Irish chat is a joy. Liz Ashcroft's "slice of life" set – with its dusty bow windows and oak counters – has faded charm plus a hint of the funereal. As for Cunningham, he is potently brooding and launches into impressively choreographed, vicious bullying while offering moments of disarming comedy and sweet barbershop singing (which is Terry and his mates' sideline).
That said, the play seems a bit creakier than it did when first staged at the Royal Court in the early 1990s. Some plot developments seem predictable. Andrew Scott's Rory is slightly monotonous in his naïve phase. Dawn Bradfield as Terry's ill-used gal, Nuala, is fiercely affectionate but not really shaky enough for her tragic fate, and Roche himself – playing chirpy old Josie – milks the sentimentality just too much. Good but not absolutely first-rate.
'The York Realist': Royal Court Downstairs, London SW1 (020 7565 5000), to 2 February; 'Crime and Punishment in Dalston': Arcola, London E8 (020 7503 1646), to 2 February; 'Cavalcaders': Tricycle, London NW6 (020 7328 1000), to 9 February
