I only wish I could tell you more of Alex Mill’s play itself. From what I can tell, I only saw about three pages of the script, some of which was still in its blocking phase and, owing to the Beckettesque-Pinteresque nature of the play, at the best of times deliberately disjointed and meaningless. There are only two cast members, neither of whom have names, separated by a red door and a mysterious third character, played in fact by the director, whose presence is never explained. I am told to ‘expect verbal fencing’ and ‘disquisition upon holidays, stars, swings, storytelling and porridge, with something much more menacing just beyond’. Not that this makes things any clearer of course.
Yet, this is part of the charm of the show. Out Through the In Door is a play about the rhythmic qualities and poetry of words in their every day use, and it’s something that Marc Pacitti and Mick Lyons, who play the two characters, are well on their way to demonstrating able to command of, as long as their don’t let their accents get in the way. Alex Mills is an intriguing director with a very eclectic musical taste. He interspersed the rehearsal by playing different songs from his iPod, in one instance to help his performers focus, in another, to help with find the rhythm in the script. It’s a wonderful idea and one that rendered nuanced and absorbing performances from the actors in the rehearsal, even if I didn’t quite know what was going on all of the time.
If all this mystère is some clever marketing trick, the person responsible for it needs a rather large pat on the back, for it has certainly worked on me, and I hope it will also work on you.
3.5 stars
