Theatre
Revrew l)()lJHl l Hill THE RUFFIAN ON THE STAIR 8. 4:48
PSYCHOSIS Citizens‘ Theatre, Glasgow, .0000
What is there left to commodify after sex? In an era in which our ease with the subject is partially explained by its comfortable accommodation into commerce, perhaps the only thing left to make us uneasy is the more amorphous and powerful concept of love. This double bill combines love, our need for it, and our sense of neurosis at its lack, as a thematic, powerfully conveyed through two plays, which on the face of it are bewilderingly disparate in both technique and subject matter.
In Joe Orton’s The Ruffian on the Stair we meet Mike (Andrew Clark) and Joyce (Candida Benson) 3 loveless couple in a seedy, overcoloured 60$ flat. Both the retired boxer and now hit man, and the reclusive and neurotic former prostitute have seen better days. So too has young Wilson (Pete Ashmore) whose lover (and, by the way, brother) seems to have been murdered by Mike. Mad with grief and lost love, he creates a succession of menacing scenarios to arrange a final tragedy. All this happens, not through realism (though Orton’s early Pinter influences are never more apparent than here), but through dark lumpenproletarian farce, and very funny it is, for all the awful urban alienation
The Lady Aoi
94 THE LIST ' ."r O ‘t .‘
The Ruffian on the Stair
evident in the characters’ lives.
Quite a contrast then between this, Orton’s first play and Sarah Kane’s last, at least in tone. Yet the rich poetics of Kane’s bleak and powerful aphorisms, beautifully captured here by three ‘voices’ (Lorna McDevitt, Vivien Reid and Candida Benson) caught sleepless in white pyjamas on diagonal plinths, are also concerned with love and its lack. Here depression becomes not the realm of desperate individuals, but something any of us can relate to. For all the talk of the drugs the patient must take, the sources of psychosis seem to be as much an emotionally impoverished society as neurological imbalance. The power of Kane‘s language is in its capacity to force us to relate to this condition that many of us think exists only in the realm of other, ‘troubled’ people. She articulates a common emotional discourse of thrilling power, as perfectly rendered here as in any of the many productions I’ve seen of this Fringe standard.
One can only admire both first-time directors Vivien Reid (Ruffian) and Julie Austin (4:48 Psychosis), with the latter’s rendering of Kane a particular splendour. Kenny Miller’s designs are also inventive and atmospheric, while Benson’s performances as both a frightened old hooker, much put upon by misogynism
and the icy, patronising, but ultimately insecure voice of
psychiatry are outstanding. But there are no weak points in the strong casts of both; it’s a grand night out. (Steve Cramer)
Review
MUM-Ell [Slit
The (jrtx's; nex‘. intonation '::>rt:;trarntfs. Ashrr‘or'e
meandering dralt1gae .‘Je
ll (int: d . 57. .‘.t:. .'.7)."T'W.'.‘77t‘~:.
THE LADY AOI & LA MUSICA Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, in rep until Sat 23 Oct. 000
Lost ones
Tbunng
t'n“:,-~~:':-'itj‘;. 'lrw- .r term In ther The, .‘rrzri'm‘tafo- ,r t'te innit: at ther (limit «at. We met ”‘.(lllifl‘,()". and Lat". The atrvtwri «- (rl‘t at far» alike ’3) 't ~if; an in." An'ra M":;u
("tarar‘ter a", the ire. e.
’(rttSSettilW: r,r'nJer:t allows; actor"; to rrxake their directing 'lehnt. and Carttlrda Penanrr anti Pete thrrrore come off nr'ett, .vell against the rrrxrio'wl
Bent; )l‘r drergtr; a translatr'in of a Japanese rr‘elo'lrarna. The Lady Aor. 'xx‘rule .nr'ks; .'.r:th Marguerite Dtrrafr' La Malena. hoth tales of love and lorrrjrrvj. and the :,tl'iratr’ltlbltfi‘fls of étll‘TJIlUYl [)trr'as' If) the stronger play ViXlllEillf. hut Benson's l8 the stronger direction. rrtakrnr; sense (it the ll?,’f;l‘;rl()tlf, S/rnholrsr i of At)“. The stor‘, at a 'r‘an. nrs; “hing safe and his spiritual mistress rs told .vrth recurring texttral rrr>zrges ")i lo‘.e. death. coldness. flowers. These do lose their sense of rr‘eanrng after a .‘xhrle. hot this may he a ‘.'.'eakr’tess of the translatron and not the rgrodrretmn. Benson i)lét,'8 opposrte Andre Clark rh La Mira/ca. as (lt‘.<)r"_;é;€:E3 s;a,ar‘d a long. t’rnai goodbye. and although Ashrnore har’tdlee their l. at tunes the Flt/Ihlttfi and breaks ll) the spemhes don't mg entn'et; true. Both Lead performers ( we their all. honexer. and the “EDS‘: of tone lost at .ts concurs/m is satisfy/thy, absolute.
Both peces nane their strengths and rr‘rnor weaknesses. but the overall lJTOt‘lthTiC‘l‘ as; an arxrszal. enp,ahle and a strong enough package of work to [Gareth Dan/rest