Theatre Review: Man To Man - Everyman Theatre, Liverpool

Image Source: Everyman Theatre

Written By: Scott Gunnion

Format: Play
Genre: Drama
Date: October 25 2017
Location: Everyman Theatre, Liverpool

Man to Man is a one-woman-show that unites gender bending with Nazi Germany, complete with inexplicable and deeply misplaced Scottish accents. Seriously. That might sound like a brilliantly bonkers combination, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

This is the tale of a woman who adopts her husband’s identity after he dies in order to step into his shoes in the workplace and survive Nazi Germany. But the plot doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny; as if nobody in her husband’s workplace is going to notice his newly-feminine curves and edges, the lack of Adam’s apple or five o’clock shadow.

Even Maggie Bain, protagonist Ella’s, best Groundskeeper Willie impression still manages sounds like an unmistakably female Glaswegian trade unionist or a female character from Rab C. Nesbitt, and that’s not to detract from the talent of the one-woman in question.

Maggie Bain puts in an excellently charismatic performance, complete with the previously referred to unexplained Scottish accent. At times, the impact of the performance was really powerful. You come away from it with a sense of having delved deep into the psyche of a mind walking the plank between sanity and insanity.

But the play fails to address the stresses and hardships faced by people who identity as transgender; the protagonist never does identify as transgender, though for all intents and purposes she might as well be. There is a real sense of claustrophobic and isolation that permeates throughout this production courtesy of the minimalist set comprised of single bed and armchair.

Apparently, the play is to translate to New York; that seems a rather undeserved milestone to have accomplished with this dry and lacklustre production. This is a production that hinges heart and soul on the heavy shoulders of the sole performer.

Bain’s is an excellent performance that resuscitates and breathes life into a stale and uninspiring script, a script which says nothing new and has nothing new or interesting to say in respect of an already widely dramatized era in history. It elevates the play from below average to just plain average.

I was bored senseless throughout. Unless you were an enemy of mine, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Overall Rating: 3/10 - Flawed

Theatre Review: The Tin Drum

Image Source: Everyman
Theatre (Photograph by
Steve Tanner)

Written By: Scott Gunnion

Format: Play
Genre: Musical
Date: October 3 2017
Location: Everyman Theatre, Liverpool

Based on a 1959 novel by Gunter Grass and 1979 Academy Award-winning foreign language film of the same name, Kneehigh’s The Tin Drum is nothing short of immensely impressive.

The Tin Drum follows Oskar, the rather obnoxious offspring of a greengrocer in the WWII era who, repelled by his predetermined fate to wind up a greengrocer like his alleged father, resolves never to grow old. He prefers to remain in his perpetual infancy, thinking himself to be superior to the adults around him.

Oskar, inflicted with delusions and pretentious of grandeur, makes his presence felt by banging his tin drum, the sound of which can shatter glass. He bangs his drum against elders whom he presumes to know better than. He never shies away from making himself known. On stage, he manifests in the form of a unique puppet, operated and voice by different members of the cast.

By opting to have the protagonist played by a puppet, the producers and directors abandon the conventional in favour of the insightful and the inventive. But Oskar is as cynical as he is superior. Having different actors voice him, far from creating a jumbled mess, illuminated the character as an omnipresent presence. The score is raucous - a sublime mesh of 80s electro. It may have deviated from the play’s setting, but it was incredibly infectious in doing so.

And nobody could have begrudged how well the music fit the setting: Nazis with a 1980s twang. The far right from left field. This was a well-conceived adaptation of a difficult subject matter, brought to life by a tight-knit, at times androgynous cast. The direction was simply exceptional. And the whole thing was expertly delivered, and entirely in song.

Overall Rating: 9/10 - Outstanding

Romeo & Juliet

Image Source: Everyman

Written By: Scott Gunnion

Format: Play
Genre: Comedy
Date: May 31 2017
Location: Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, England

Entering the theatre beset with preconceptions, I feared a word-for-word retread of the great Shakespeare. A loyal adaptation in all its untainted grandeur.

I was wrong. Shockingly wrong.

This was Shakespeare on a mild trip. Tradition and prestige joined in marriage with an air of psychedelia.

Immediately, with the onset of the first scene, wistful cries of "alone, alone, alone, alone" swamped the theatre; a most melancholy musical number that united the audience in a universal quiver.

The Everyman is theatre in the round. This automatically impresses upon one, I felt, an impenetrable sense of magic and awe. It immediately makes things interesting. There was a real buzz in the audience; somewhere in the region of 400 at the most conservative of estimates. Impressive.

A few scenes in, after a somewhat bonkers modern rave scene, I felt the intellectual purists and their jaws become slack and inanimate and then drop to the floor with an animated guffaw as it dawned upon the audience that there was no Juliet, only a Julius in his place. The instinctive cynic in me sniggered when I read about this before the performance.

If the man-on-man aspect was meant to illuminate the play in any way, then I concede that it failed. Not spectacularly though. More of a flatline with a mild thud. There was nothing daring or controversial about it. Something inside me suspected it had probably already been done before.

That importance criticism aside, this was Shakespeare with a modern twist and it was great. Loyal to the subject matter, but not afraid to thrust at the audience with a fresh perspective.

The actor portraying Mercutio excelled, swelling with uninhibited charisma and bombast. Real magnetic talent. At one point, he moons Julius' trusted Nurse. She too was a real scene stealer. Armed with a thick Barbadian accent and plenty of sass, she walks on stage at one point eating a box of fried chicken. Completely irrelevant to the plot, but the audience loved it, and nobody thought to question it because it was great, and when something is great we love it without prejudice.

Comic relief aside, this was all about Romeo, another one who emitted real magnetism. Forget Julius, who was largely - and unfortunately - forgettable. Romeo, on the other hand, sizzled. He commanded every scene and rippled with the promise of a young actor, fresh and ripe and (almost) upon his prime.

The lack of chemistry between the two leads cannot go unmentioned, but other aspects of the performance made up for this failing, examples being the lush kaleidoscope of costumes and playful injection of modern music into proceedings. Back to the negative, I just didn't buy Romeo and Julius as a couple. As an actor, Julius was no match for his on-stage companion.

In short, it was a feast, and a most unexpected one at that.

Bidding his Romeo farewell, Julius muses "for in a minute there are many days". That was not the case in this instance. The minutes melted away effortless. There was no clock watching or checking my phone; my eyes were fixed on the stage and the performance.

I have no reservations in heartily recommending this excellent production that succeeds in making Shakespeare accessible and palatable to the masses.

Overall Rating: 8/10 - Very Good