Cuppers: an event that embodies the wide- eyed excitement of freshers (ourselves included) in those early flushes of Oxford life – full of hope and possibility that people might actually come and see a play that they’ve done. Relieved from the anxiety of niggling questions such as ‘can we really cut a two hour play down to thirty minutes?’ Or ‘where are we going to get all of our props given you couldn’t be bothered to get up in time to go to the OUDS store?’
We realise that cuppers was nearly two months ago now, but as the fresh-faced new editors of Cherwell stage we thought we might reflect on the nascent future of Oxford Drama by looking back at some of the cuppers productions that really shone (i.e. the ones we actually went to see) and the talent that we hope to see more of in the near future.
First, a slick adaptation of Jon McGregor’s Wires from St Anne’s directed by India Opzoomer. It was the cuppers production that felt the least like cuppers. It centres around a young woman (Franciska Csongrady) as she suffers the manipulation of her apparent rescuers from a car crash. This was a fraught, tense piece with the initial suspicion of the two men being skilfully ratcheted up to an intense terror with the aid of Tegan Eldridge’s lustrously windswept sound engineering. The factor that truly elevated Wires was the astonishing rehearsal-derived polish and the faultless harmony between tech and actor; impressive given the short time given to them.
100 from Keble was a story about purgatory – a specific vision of life after death where the deceased must choose a single moment from their memories to relive for eternity. The strong combination of Una O’Sullivan’s direction with Renee Kapuku’s tech made for a richly varied production, dipping into the myriad of memories of the freshly expired with great imagination. A particular standout was Gavin Fleming as the ‘Guide’ to the underworld, a lively perfor- mance that readily jumped between menace and joy.
Horror Story from Lady Margaret Hall was a darkly comic piece of new writing by Jack Bradfield and co-directed by Charles Pidgeon. It centred around and satirised all of the worst anecdotes that have been circulated about the interview process – the borderline psychopathically cruel tutor and the hapless and privileged candidate with no knowledge of his subject. There was great chemistry between Finlay Stroud and Eithne Brennan, on whose interactions the whole story relied. If any criticism could be levelled at this highly original and deeply witty piece, it would be that it was occasionally too clever for its own good; one too many levels of literary reference gave the play a slight air of self-satisfaction.
Merton College put on The Arrogant Student, a comedy based on the ancient Greek play The Swaggering Soldier, which played cleverly off its casting to aid the jokes that contained the risk of not translating well to a modern adaptation. Held together by a compelling narration, the piece effectively conveyed the comedy of mistaken identity while not losing or confusing the audience. It was a funny, albeit brief piece that was carried off entertainingly by all involved – if it had made the full 30-minute allotted run time, I think it would have been one of the more successful pieces.
Meanwhile Regent’s Park College put on a contemporary political comedy called The Party. Here, I the writer – also an actor in the Regent’s Park performance – must confess something. Yes, it was my error that I left Oxford during the second round of performances, meaning that though getting through, Regent’s did not perform again… Despite this error that *may* have affected Regents’ chances of winning cuppers, the original performance was at least strong enough to get through to the next round.
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