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Preview: Eight

If someone had chanced by the room where Eight’s press preview was taking place and peered through the windows, they would have seen a very puzzling scene – five people paying rapt attention to a single actor, unadorned, in the centre of a nondescript room. I had the pleasure of being inside that room,
and knowing what all the fuss was about. Eight combines a brilliant script,  ambitious directorial pair, and a crack team of first-class performers. Even in its present infancy, it could take to the stage tomorrow and put on a hell of a show.

The focus of this inspired piece is crisis, and directors Jessica Lazar and  Tommo Fowler have designed their production to bring out the universality
of panic. A total of eight monologues make up the play, with the script flitting between different locales and personalities: from the brash American Wall Street asshole who is the sole survivor of a London bomb blast, to the Scottish mother who cannot afford to give her children a memorable Christmas. The five night run will be split into halves – four of the monologues will take place on the first two nights, and the other two nights will showcase
the other half of the show.

Audience votes will dictate the four speeches that make it to the final night. Lazar and Fowler have assured me that the monologues will be carefully arranged for thematic purposes, and if the preview is to be any indication, their curative decisions are something to look forward to. Convincing accents add to the work’s global feel, and Hickson’s writing zooms from place to place with remarkable confidence and precision – when Miles (David Shields) talks about the snack stand at Kings’ Cross station, I thought of the time I bought cigarettes from that exact shop, and when Bobby (Phoebe Hames) describes a plush Christmas party, I could’ve sworn the room got noticeably warmer. Assured directorial hands milk a preternaturally accomplished script for all it is worth.

Monologue-driven performances are difficult because they give actors so little to work with, but I have full confidence that the cast will be able to spin straw into gold come opening night. The odds were stacked against them in this press preview: both actors were not off book, and to make things worse, the Worcester college geese were having a noisy and raucous party outside the room. The moment that Hames let loose her character’s energetic Scottish brogue, however, I instantly forgot all those distractions. Shields is just as good, keeping up a quintessential American brashness while subtly showing the cracks in his character’s traumatised psyche. Both actors possess a powerful magnetism that works well with the script’s uncomfortable intensity; it was difficult to watch them perform, but it was downright impossible to look away.

Any criticism I can make can be put down to minor instances of a lack of polish, wholly understandable for a preview held this early. For example, Shields’ relentless manic energy is every bit the coked-up banker, but he could vary it a bit more to suit the complexity of his character. I have complete confidence, however, that Lazar and Fowler will tweak every detail until they are satisfied. This is already a work that leaves most student productions in the dust. I’ll be making the trip to see Eight, and you’d be a fool not to do likewise.

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