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Laughing at gilded butterflies

The Insect Playdir Nanw Rowlands1 – 5 NovemberOFSThe first thing to strikeyou about The InsectPlay is that it is visuallystunning. Not only is thecast strewn with contestantsfrom Cherwell’s very own ‘FitCollege’ face-off, but costumes andset are equally dazzling. It is refreshingto have the idiosyncratic resourcesof the OFS put to good use: its occasionallyawkward rake becomes atreat for the audience when the variousbalconies are clustered with vinesand busy bugs, making for more ofa three-dimensional sense of immersionin flora and fauna. Loungejazz accompanies the numerous butterfliesgadding about the first act aspseudo-English upper-crust typesfrom roughly the turn of the last century.Victor (Charlie Morrison) andFelix (Ted Hodgkinson) make for anantagonistic double act of suitor butterflies,the first as a nonchalant cad,the second as a hopelessly self-obsessedpoet-fop reminiscent of ThomasLove Peacock’s satire of Shelleyin Nightmare Abbey. The posturingpair reappear in the darker third actas ant commanders in a set-up redolentof Bush-Blair. As the mercurialand manipulative objects of desire(and bad poetry), Iris (Lucy White)and Clytie (Holly Midwinter Porter)complement an impressive first actteeming with life.It is only in the second act, withthe arrival of the miserly Mr andMrs Dung Beetle (Harry Ullmanand Charlotte Hayne) that you realisethere’s much more going on inThe Insect Play than nice vignettes,confirming the sense that the play’sprogression is more thematic thanplot-driven. Ephemeral insects playephemeral roles and many of the castconsequently double up on parts.There’s as much Journey’s End hereas there is A Bug’s Life. It is the presidingfigure of the broken-heartedtramp (Iain Dreynnan) who formsthe play’s lynchpin. A discursive momentumbuilds around him as hewitnesses the disjunct and senselesscausations of nature. If we’re to takethe anthropomorphism to be a productof the tramp’s mind, perhaps thebest way to think of this productionis as a kind of modern morality play.But far from being a just God, Nature’srules are haphazard and unfair:one dung beetle’s ‘capital’ is rapidlypilfered to become another’s. Just asyou’re growing fond of a charismaticinsect and greedily awaiting its onstagereturn, it’s reported unceremoniouslyconsumed. The implicationsfor human society in the repeatedrelationship break-downs betweenthe insects are measured against thetramp, whom we discover to havefallen foul of love himself. Can heconvince anybody, including himself,that humans are more civilised thanthe colonising ants? Is the whole playthe enactment of the tramp’s addledmind following his rejection in love,a rejection which will prove fatal tohim at the play’s close?Fear not. Nanw Rowland’s buoyantcomic touches consistently dispel anypossibility of descent into a grimlyreductive Mankind=Maggots sociopoliticalcritique. Even at the pointsof the play’s bleakest intimations ofFirst World War Europe, this playrefuses to commit itself to a decidedlysatirical or serious perspective.Thew Jones puts in yet another firstrateturn in Oxford theatre, in thisinstance as a capitalist ichneumonfly dedicated to feeding his larva (IsabellePelly) the tastiest morsels. ThinkBlackadder meets Terminator withVeruca Salt for a daughter and you’llget the idea. Similarly unresolved isthe role played by the chrysalis (SkyeBlyth-Whitelock). Delivering promisesof new life that hover somewherebetween insightful and banal, shedies tragicomically immediately afterbirth. This is a production that offersnearly everything you could hope toget from an Oxford show and doesso, moreover, with a dose of down-to-earth good humour.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

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