|
Tuesday 17th – Saturday 21st January 2012
The Crescent Studio, BrindleyPlace, Birmingham, B16 8AE
“You had to keep reminding yourself that you were watching, not only amateurs, but a youth theatre. It is no exaggeration to say I have reviewed professional productions which fall well short of this standard” ***** Roger Clarke, www.behindthearras.com
After presenting the premiere of Brian McAvera’s 8 monologues in 2000, Stage2 revived their acclaimed production with a cast of 15, presenting the production in 2 parts on alternate evenings, each part consisting of 4 monologues. The 8 most dominant women in Picasso’s life were each joined by an additional character, mentioned but not featured in the original script, from a lover to a mother, child or friend.
Unlike many of Stage2’s previous shows, the stage was occupied by a maximum of just 2 actors at a time except for the additional presence of a psychiatric hospital orderly (Zac Quinn) to calm down Dora Maar (Chloe Jones), the artist and photographer Picasso had wrongly committed. A backdrop of Una Walker’s Picasso-esque sketches and minimal use of props and set brought each character ‘to vibrant life in what is a piece of top notch theatre with raw emotions and real passion’ Roger Clarke.
Each pairing spent 30 minutes each delving into the private life behind Picasso’s public façade to portray the ego of the influential artist, through the eyes of the women he used and abused. Some were driven mad, others put up with the infidelity until they were destroyed by the artist, and others, only 2 out of the 8 depicted here, found the strength to leave him. ‘When Pablo paints, he paints with other people’s blood’. The cast went into a great deal of research over the months leading up to the production, to justify their portrayals of these very real women, creating beautiful mood /research boards that were displayed in the Crescent foyer throughout production week giving the opportunity for the audience to understand further the life and times of these women.
For 2 hours each night the audience were immersed in Picasso’s world unaware that Olga (Emily Nabney) and Françoise (Rosa Simonet) were sitting amongst them, in parts 1 and 2 respectively, ready to burst into life at the beginning of their scenes, to the surprise of the unwitting audience member sat beside them. Some of the stories were more like fly on the wall moments, with audience as voyeurs to Fernande (Megan Santer) and her lover (Connor Fox), which served as more as a shock when Gaby Lespinasse (Charlie Reilly) began to conduct a survey on how much we can really trust the man sat beside us from the middle of the audience! For a few moments each night, no one was safe….
This production was an enormous project for the cast and crew and the audience response was fantastic, ‘There is no denying the quality of a collection of remarkable performances in a talented production which is at times quite brilliant and deserving of a wider audience’, Roger Clarke.
|
