23 September 2008

ice cream by caryl churchill

Hank - Daniel Cerqueira,
Hank's Mum - Nancy Crane
Drunk Woman - Sarah Goldberg,
Shrink - Kate Harper,
South American Woman at airport - Pauline Melville,
Lance's collegue - Nathan Osgood,
Narrator/Man in Devon - George Potts
Fellow Guest - Kyle Soller
Vera - Miranda Richardson,
Jaq - Andrea Riseborough,
Professor - Kerry Shale,
Phil - Ben Whishaw
Lance - Shawn Wallace

Directed by Shawn Wallace for this reading in the Jerwood Downstairs at the Royal Court.

Very popular production that once again warranted opening the circle for this reading.

Alexi Kaye Cambell and once again Eddie Redmayne grabbed a seat. Caryl was up in the circle too.

Brilliant, funny, confrontational and absurd. Ms Churchill in a nutshell. This is a short play but it packs more into just over an hour than some plays achieve in more than two. As we found out seat, the full impact of exactly how many people would be squashed onto the stage hit us simply by looking at the number of chairs provided up there but that was tempered by the sight of a paltry six chairs in the action area! As we reached somewhere near the middle we had been introduced to no more than six of these and I began to feel concern that the others would not get their turn! A silly notion, of course but the main bulk of the cast spent most of the piece quietly reading their script and resisting the urge to collapse into giggles as their fellow actors delivered these wonderfully sharp and often startling lines to a gleeful audience.

Shawn and Miranda worked perfectly together. Ben and Andrea were wonderful siblings and everybody else who wandered into their plot were able to give the perfect supplement to their performance.

I would be happy to witness a Caryl Churchill readings season EVERY year......and I have a couple more to go..... I am sad that I won't be able to attend the Blue Heart because I really enjoyed Daniel Cerqueira's short but impactful performance tonight.