Review: The Death of a Muse (BelleVedere Theatre, GM Fringe)

Tuesday 16th July 2019
Lock 91, Deansgate Locks

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-31st July. As you may know already, I’m reviewing a selection of the shows that are on offer on this year’s festival programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM. The next show I saw was The Death of a Muse, which was on at Lock 91 on Deansgate, on Tuesday 16th July.

You may remember that I interviewed the writer and cast of The Death of a Muse for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special at the end of June, so I’d already had a flavour of what to expect. It was a very enjoyable interview to record, and as a result I was really looking forward to seeing the play. I am very pleased to say that it actually exceeded my already high expectations – The Death of a Muse is really a very good piece of Fringe theatre.

Written by Róis Doherty and produced by BelleVedere Theatre, The Death of a Muse is a play based on the lives of Maud Gonne and William Butler Yeats. But there’s a twist… the audience is invited to join Maud and William decades after their deaths, and to decide the ultimate fate of the two. Who will go to heaven? and who will go to hell?

In the atmospheric space of Lock 91’s upstairs room, poet William and his ‘muse’ Maud confront one another for the final time in an immersive and audience-inclusive piece that offers an idiosyncratic take on biography and memorialization. Characters address the audience directly and wander on and off the stage, in a direct attempt to persuade and convince us of their version of events.

The Death of a Muse is not a linear story of Maud and William’s relationship, nor does it give a full account of either character’s life, career or relationships. Instead, the play presents snippets – out of sequence – of the two’s brittle and tumultuous interactions over the years. Like opposing lawyers in a courtroom, Maud and William summon up flashbacks to key moments in their past, which they each claim will reveal the other’s shortcomings.

Kerry Ely plays Maud Gonne with a cool and critical detachment, which (on the whole) falters only in angry frustration at William’s protestations. Much of her side of the story is intended to rehabilitate her from the static position of William’s ‘muse’ (which, for many, is how she is now best known). From the start, she threatens to reveal to the audience that William was a ‘horrible man’, and her flashbacks are clearly intended to condemn him, rather than save herself. The play’s blurb describes Maud as ‘iron-hearted’ and ‘stone-hearted’, as well as an ‘activist first and mother second’, and this certainly comes across in the performance. Nevertheless, there are also glimpse into underlying motivations and backstory that help us to understand some of the more ‘iron-hearted’ decisions Maud made.

While Maud’s coldness and resentment are the driving forces of her presentation, Ely’s performance offers some wonderful moments where the mask of righteousness slips. Revealing a good sense of comic timing, she punctuates William’s earnestness on occasion – most memorably, in her reaction to his recital of ‘The Cloths of Heaven’. However, it is her performance of the final moment of the final flashback (no spoilers!) that will really stick with me. For all its verbal (and sometimes physical) knockabout comedy, The Death of a Muse doesn’t shy away from some darker aspects of Maud and William’s story, and Ely carries this skilfully.

Against Ely’s Maud is Patrick O’Donnel as William. Frustratingly for Maud – but highly entertaining for the audience – O’Donnel’s William is constantly threatening to steal the limelight. His performance perfectly captures the romantic and unrealistic intensity of William’s infatuation with his muse, but with a comical enthusiasm that’s quite infectious. O’Donnel’s apparently off-the-cuff silliness in the face of the task ahead is very funny – his baffled comment to Maud, ‘This is your flashback, where am I supposed to go?’, was one of my favourite lines. Certainly, the audience feels Maud’s frustration at William’s refusal to accept her as a human being (with a right to refuse his continued proposals), but I’m not sure we’re ever really convinced by her assertion that he is a ‘horrible man’. Even when we see glimpses of William’s more problematic behaviour, Doherty’s script and O’Donnel’s performance is so infused with affection and sympathy that it’s hard to see him as anything more than misguided.

The two main characters are supported by strong performances by Megan Challinor as Iseult Gonne and Liam Collins as John MacBride (as well as a couple of other incidental characters). Challinor does a great job of conveying the change in Iseult from a naïve teenager to a more worldly-wise young woman – though I did also enjoy her performance as a spiritual medium later in the play. Collins is given the unenviable task of playing someone who is, within the narrative of the play, an unquestionably ‘horrible man’. His performance is utterly chilling, and he delivers some incredibly dark lines with the calm certainty of a man with complete power. The contrast with O’Donnel’s performance as William is stark.

The Death of a Muse ends with the audience being invited to vote on Maud and William’s fates. I won’t tell you which way I voted, but I will say – despite the play’s assertion that Maud is much more than simply William’s muse – it was very hard to imagine these two flawed, obstinate, but ultimately sympathetic characters being separated.

With excellent performances and a very well-written script, plus good direction and set design (including creative use of a well-chosen performance space), The Death of a Muse is a superb piece of Fringe theatre, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Death of a Muse is on at Lock 91 on Deansgate Locks on the 9th, 16th and 24th July, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of events at this year’s Fringe, see the festival website.

Review: Blue Lines (The Hive, GM Fringe)

Monday 15th July 2019
Theatre, King’s Arms, Salford

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe is on throughout July, and I’m reviewing shows for this blog and for North Manchester FM. On Monday 15th July, I saw my next show from the festival programme – Blue Lines by Stefanie Moore. Blue Lines is one of three shows that have been produced for this year’s festival as part of the Arts Council-funded Hive project. Writer Stefanie Moore developed her debut play with mentoring by Tim Firth and Mike Heath, after winning her place on the scheme at the scratch night in January. You can hear my radio interview of the play on North Manchester FM on Tuesday, but here’s the blog version…

You may remember I interviewed Moore about the play for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special at the end of June. Having talked a little bit about what to expect from Blue Lines, I was very much looking forward to seeing the final product. And I’m pleased to say I wasn’t disappointed!

Blue Lines is a one-act play, a two-hander, which stars Nicole Evans and Jenna Sian O’Hara. Evans plays Sarah, a sex-ed teacher, tasked with both introducing her charges to the facts of life and answering any questions they throw at her. She is somewhat overwhelmed and under-enthused by the job, but an early example of the sort of questions she is faced with justifies this. (One question in particular, which Moore mentioned in our June interview is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying – especially with the knowledge that it is a genuine question drawn from Moore’s own teaching experience.)

O’Hara plays Abby, a 15-year-old student who is pregnant. Abby turns to Sarah for advice, not knowing that her teacher is struggling with her own issues around pregnancy and motherhood. Sarah is ‘trying for a baby’, but she’s struggling to conceive. Abby has accidentally fallen pregnant after her first (and only) sexual encounter.

The play takes place over the course of a couple of weeks. This is a difficult thing to handle in a short space of time, but wisely the production avoids multiple scene and costume changes. Almost all the scenes take place in Sarah’s classroom, which is transformed into a doctor’s surgery for one scene. The classroom setting allows for a neat little detail to show the passage of time – scenes often begin with ‘Miss’ writing the day’s date on the board – but otherwise there’s little alteration from one scene to the next. The effect of this is to concentrate the audience’s focus on the characters and their story, and allows for this to develop with a controlled pace.

Blue Lines is driven, not only by individual performances, but also by the strong and believable dynamic between the two. Evans is sympathetic and relatable as Sarah. Slightly highly strung, she switches between frosty, brittle and vulnerable as she initially attempts to keep Abby at arm’s length. However, as the audience comes to realize what Sarah is holding beneath the surface, Evans’s performance becomes even more nuanced – and really quite moving.

O’Hara is just excellent as schoolgirl Abby, convincingly evoking that precarious balance between childhood and adulthood in a believable and sympathetic way. Abby gets a lot of the funniest lines, but the audience is (almost always) laughing with, rather than at, her. Where we are encouraged to laugh at her naivety, there’s a gentleness and affection to this that steers away from outright mockery. Nevertheless, Abby also gets to deliver a lot of the ‘wisdom’ of the play, which is done with subtlety and a light touch.

What really impressed me was the relationship between the two. Evans and O’Hara have a great on-stage chemistry, and their interactions are infused with a warmth and humanity that leaves the audience really rooting for a good outcome for both. It would have been easy to play the relationship for laughs, or veer towards cliché, but Evans and O’Hara keep things down-to-earth and convincing throughout.

Again, there are some very funny lines in the play. Personally, some of my favourite moments came when the humour collided directly with the more serious and painful issues that underpin the story. A particular favourite was an exchange about a monkey sanctuary, which builds from an off-the-cuff (and slightly absurd) statement from Abby into a well-timed exchange that reveals a lot about both characters and captures something a bit more profound than just monkeys.

Evans and O’Hara’s performances are great, but credit must also be given to Moore’s script. The dialogue is really excellent, and the lines for both characters are written with sensitivity: laugh-out-loud humour at times, and pathos (even pain) at others. While I would happily have watched much longer performances from the two actors – and I found that, even after just an hour, I had become quite attached to their characters – Moore pitches the narrative arc just right. There is just enough story here, and the play ends where it needs to end.

While Blue Lines is a play that’s unashamedly about pregnancy, fertility and motherhood, it is also a study of two particular characters. I have no doubt that many audience members will find things to identify with at various moments, and some of the dialogue will have familiarity for some. However, the play wisely avoids gesturing at universality, and it has lots to recommend it to those of us who aren’t interested in having babies! Again, this is carried through a combination of sensitive characterization and strong performances. Blue Lines is the story of Sarah and Abby, and the way their individual problems intersect for a brief period of time.

Overall, Blue Lines is a well-written, funny and relatable piece, with excellent performances from its two actors. It’s a definite recommendation from me.

Blue Lines is on at the King’s Arms from 15th-17th July, the Way Theatre, Atherton on 19th and 20th July, and the Bury Met on 20th July, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind (Gare du Nord Theatre, GM Fringe)

Thursday 11th July 2019
Stockport Train Station

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe is on from the 1st-31st July, and I’m continuing my journey through a selection of the many shows on the programme for this blog and North Manchester FM. The next show I’m reviewing is The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind by Gare du Nord Theatre, which I saw in Stockport on Thursday 11th July. The radio version of this review aired on today’s Hannah’s Bookshelf, but – as always – here’s the blog version…

The Fringe is a multi-venue festival that takes place across Greater Manchester. One of the benefits of this is that the festival encourages people to travel to different boroughs and to visit theatres and studios that they haven’t been to before – already this year, for instance, I’ve been introduced to Twenty Twenty Two in Manchester and the Whitefield Garrick. However, another benefit of the Fringe’s multi-venue ethos is that some companies stage performances in non-theatre spaces as well. Step up: The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind… which was performed in a disused waiting room between the platforms at Stockport Train Station.

The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind is a production by Gare du Nord Theatre. You may remember that my first review this year was of Gare du Nord’s Underwater, so it was a pleasure to have the chance to see another of the company’s three productions on this year’s programme. It was also great to experience some site-specific theatre – the unconventional performance space for The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind isn’t just a gimmick, but rather a part of the show itself.

The play is a reprisal of their award-winning 2017 show, though with a slightly different cast. It’s an immersive (though light-touch immersive) show that offers a somewhat wistful and poetic meditation on journeying, adventuring and passing-by.

When you arrive at Platform 3 at the station for the show, everything feels fairly normal. Evening travellers are waiting for trains, and station staff are going about their business. However, you then spot a few unconventional travellers on the platform. Smiling and interacting with audience members and commuters, these travellers are dressed in quirky, slightly old-fashioned clothing. They look like they might’ve dropped in from a different time.

This is what I mean by ‘light-touch immersive’. The audience doesn’t participate in the action of the play, but the way the company use and inhabit the site transforms the way we look at the otherwise ordinary train station. For an hour or so, the ordinary becomes a little bit extraordinary.

The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind is a lyrical and whimsical tale – with a slight Gallic inflection – of connections and journeys. As a man (the eponymous beggars) sits and strums a guitar, another man (played by Geoff Baker) walks hurriedly in front of us, from one door of the room to the other. He drops a coin into the beggar’s guitar case, but he has no time to stop, because he’s just ‘passing by’. A married couple (played by Emma Yates and James Boucher) arrive to wait for a train. They speak at cross purposes to one another and are repeatedly interrupted by the passer-by. Eventually, the wife is distracted enough to talk to the stranger, and they discover a deep and significant sense of connection.

The play dispenses with naturalistic performance and dialogue to instead offer eccentric and poetic flights of fancy that conjure up romanticized vistas that can only be reached by train. The wife and the passer-by describe a wondrous and rather off-beat journey, imagining the incredible sights they could see together – only to have to their fantastical scenario shattered by the arrival of the last train. Is their brief interlude real? Or is it a dream? It feels as though we might be suspended between the two.

To add to the otherworldly feel, the dialogue of the first half is mirrored in the second. This time, as the couple fail to communicate with one another (with lines switched around from their earlier conversation, and the dynamic of the married couple reversed), it is the husband who is distracted by a passer-by – played by Martine Anson – and who begins an imagined adventure.

While their roles mirror and echo one another, I very much enjoyed the differences between Anson and Baker’s performances. Anson exudes a wistful optimism, combined with a neat glamour, that lends a hopefulness to her daydreams of adventure. Baker, on the other hand, projects a sense of sadness. His character seems isolated and awkward, giving his brief connection with a stranger at the station a real poignancy. Anson carries a barometer – wondering at one point whether the instrument describes the present or predicts the future – whereas Baker carries a clock, marking time. Interestingly, while Yates and Boucher’s married couple are an anchor to the story, it is the people who are just passing by that steal our (and their) attention.

Of course, the other star of the show is Stockport Train Station itself. While the performance is going on, trains come and go as though carefully choreographed. And as the heavy door to the waiting room is slid back and forth to allow the characters to ‘pass by’, the room becomes briefly filled with the sounds of the platform, creating a truly unique atmosphere.

The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind is an unusual and captivating show, with a little drop of magic in the way the play interacts with its venue. As I exited the show, I really did feel that I was looking at the station through slightly different eyes. A quirky, off-beat and rather sweet experience, this show is well worth going to see.

The Suitcase, the Beggar and the Wind was on at Stockport Train Station on the 11th and 12th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. It will be on at the Buxton Fringe on 13th and 14th July, and the Edinburgh Fringe on 17th and 18th August. For the full programme of shows on at this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe, visit the festival website.