Show: Handbagged
Society: Epsom Players
Venue: Green Room Theatre, Dorking
Credits: Moira Buffini
Type: Sardines
Author: Frank Kaye
Performance Date: 04/10/2018
Handbagged
Frank Kaye | 05 Oct 2018 17:08pm
Photo: Stuart Yeatman
Handbagged is an important play and Paul Falconer, the director of this Epsom Players show delivers a near perfect production at the Green Room Theatre in Dorking.
The director’s notes capture the profoundly political nature of Moira Buffini’s script and the show itself captures its exciting theatricality. This play is a director and actors’ dream with almost every aspect of theatre practice either demonstrated or lampooned. Early on we are told there are three walls as the playwright, the director and the actors determinedly ignore the conventional fourth wall. The actors speak directly to the audience both in monologues and very clever verbal ping pong; the two main characters, Thatcher and the Queen, are played at two different times in their life simultaneously in real time by four actresses; the other seventeen characters are played by two male actors; sometimes the actors come out of character to be themselves and sometimes the actors talk to characters; the characters sometimes interact directly with the audience holding conversations and walking amongst them. All of this is done with panache, pathos and humour though the existence of, and occasional use of, a prompt takes the edge off an otherwise brilliant production. One of the actresses notes that whilst being fun to rehearse and perform it has been “a bit scary too!” Knowledgeable audiences will appreciate that playing face out to the audience without having eye contact with fellow actors is tricky – to do so for a significant proportion of a two-hour production, as the four actresses do, is beyond daunting!
The staging, designed by Michael Leopold is crucial, and, in this case, the rather tunnel-like nature of the theatre is used to good effect. An initial image of the title, Handbagged, is projected on the back wall and is highlighted by clever chevrons on the side flats. The transition between scenes is signalled by projected images of the various events and clever use is made of silhouettes. Much of the dialogue is delivered from the front of the acting area with a secondary slightly higher level behind and finally a table and chairs about half way back. This allows for the six actors to occasionally be positioned on three levels in a reverse chevron to those on the flats. The whole is precisely illuminated by a sophisticated lighting set up courtesy of Richard Pike. The action is moved forward by appropriate music, video transitions and the occasional bomb blast! Stuart Yeatman notes in the programme that this is his first tech biog – it shows how much the director, and the audience, appreciate this clever stuff.
I like Paul Falconer’s note that the audience sees what is publicly presented but cannot know what went on behind the scenes. So, we don’t know the nature of the directing process, but we see evidence of a number of things. This play surely only works when the cast are totally familiar with what it is about and the context at the time of the various events. It also needs the actors playing these real-life characters to trigger a response of recognition in the audience. This is isn’t the same as impersonation but rather a connection with the essence of that character’s personality, mannerisms or values. All four actresses are successful on at least one of these dimensions.
The spookiest is Sarah-Jane Pullen’s portrayal of Mags. She gets the body language just right including a slight tilt of the head and narrowing of the eyes and her voice is almost hypnotically spot on. This in turn allows some of her statements of self-belief, hatred of socialism and general world view to both remind us of what Mrs Thatcher represented but also to occasionally trigger comparisons with the current state of politics.
Her older self, T, played by Laura Falconer concentrates on the values of Margaret Thatcher to very powerful effect. She also, as driven by the amazing script, corrects some of Mags more outrageous statements – “I never said that!”. Apparently, Laura had only three weeks’ notice of playing this part – she provides a rock-solid counterpoint to Sarah-Jane’s scarily accurate portrayal.
The younger queen, played by Vanessa Marchant, at times captures the Queen’s mannerisms and speech patterns, especially in the set piece speeches, but in the main it is the way in which she catches the non-intellectual playfulness of the Queen that makes the audience smile in recognition. Her comic timing is impeccable.
Linda McMahon as the older Queen is a comic tour de force! I have no idea whether she sounds or looks like the Queen, but the audience falls about on the delivery of such lines as, “A hairdresser…really!” Her twinkling blue eyes keep us in constant readiness for another comic put down.
This just leaves the two actors. If anybody in the audience ever wondered whether it would be fun to be a character actor, they now know! Not only that but they can also see that acting is about every gesture, every intonation of voice, every pause in delivery, every glance and – total self-belief that I am Geoffrey Howe or Neil Kinnock. Richard Williams provides an object lesson in such skills. Tommy Deeks does something rather different – he is almost Brechtian in saying, “I tell you I am this person; therefore, I am this person.” The two actors’ roles provide the genius of this play. They provide the mechanism for playing around with theatrical conventions and, if played correctly as they are here, they provide almost pantomimic fun without ever losing the power to be serious.
Whilst the Chairman states in the programme that Epsom Players aspire to professional standards he also notes that everyone involved also have “proper jobs”. This production brings home to me that there is something profoundly fulfilling in spending one’s spare time in the pursuit of artistic excellence with all its dimensions of aesthetics, politics and theatre craft.
Loved it!
Post Script 1: My early career was in the mining industry in mining camps that would obviously have a finite existence for as long as the economically viable ore body lasted. Just saying!
Post Script 2: Oh and one of those stints was in the copper mines in Zambia when Kenneth Kaunda, who was at the time regarded internationally as an avuncular paternal autocrat, was governing what was described locally, in a corruption of his slogan, as a “One Party Participatory Hypocrisy.”
- : admin
- : 04/10/2018