To rehearse and perform an entire student production before the second week of Michaelmas term is no easy feat – and The Man Who Turned into a Stick struggled to rise to the occasion.
This trio of short plays all rely heavily on the audience’s imagination and are drawn together, not just through repeated actors or reused set pieces, but through the moments where characters deny explicit moments of epiphany. Despite moments ultimately lacking vulnerability, the intimate venue, bare setting, and interrogative lighting brought out some engaging acting. Michael Gormley Jr.’s performance in particular tackled a difficult script with strength and sensitivity to the technical demands of the role.
It opened with sparks: in the first play, The Suitcase, two sombre women sit across from each other at an empty table and reassure themselves that they enjoy each other’s company. The halting conversation between the two women as they proposed forming a friendship showed them teetering on the edge of honesty. Half-confessions about the married woman’s controlling husband and how much they wanted to be friends were loaded with implications of deeper intimacy and connection, but the spark failed to catch-on for the actors.The small-talk progressed and I felt like I was watching a first date, but not because the script required it. When the married woman entreated her friend to stay and reassure her of her affection, it felt like reliving Freshers week: the hopeful promise of friendship between two people who lack chemistry continued even when the awkwardness failed to serve any emotional purpose. There was a self-consciousness about the performance that the actors were unable to shake.
When a half-naked man crawls onstage to be addressed as a ‘suitcase’ and treated like an inanimate object, the dynamic between the audience and the actors shifts. It is an easy decision for the actors to continue with the same performance, especially as their characters clearly see a ‘suitcase’ rather than a man, but it detracts from the ‘suitcase’ actor’s (Michael Gormley Jr.) impressive physical work.
As a suitcase, Michael Gormley Jr.’s onstage physicality was transfixing. Despite only moving inches at a time, barely shifting his weight between each foot, he enacted the epitome of objectification. Even his guttural moans, supposedly mimicking the sound of ‘insects’, were nearly intelligible, making it impossible to deny the humanity of the character-prop onstage. He accepted his role as a suitcase when the women twist a hair-pin up into his nose to ‘unlock him’, reacting with the conscious vulnerability of a child at the dentist.
This emotive performance continued into the second scene where he commanded the stage alone for the duration. As a boxer preparing for a fight which will determine his future in the sport, he reveals his ambitions as he works out, and finally enters the ring for the big event. Shadow boxing for the duration of a play is no easy feat: his exhaustion as he lay on the floor, looking at the Burton Taylor ceiling and wondering where the stars were, felt truly helpless.
The final scene was the strongest: joining the entire ensemble onstage helped rectify the feeling of disconnect throughout the earlier scenes as lines felt fluid and interactions felt more like real conversations.
The two punk rockers who are hit by a stick paralleled their characters from the opening scene, but this time the friction did not feel like a spark. Loneliness and isolation were apparent themes of the play itself, but towards the end the lack of chemistry between characters felt less like a choice and more like discomfort on the part of the actors. There were flashes of , however, between the partners in hell: although one actor had a book in front of his face throughout the performance, in a good-cop bad-cop style of investigation, they produced a feeling of professional familiarity despite their moral distances. For such a bleak play, where an entire ‘act’ is a man’s solo performance, it would have benefited from more moments of human connection.
The Man Who Turned into a Stick is not an easy play to perform. When the text itself depends on the viewer to understand its symbolic meaning, the actors are working double-time to convey the complexities of their characters but also the entire plot: words are not enough. This production was digestible: it was understandable and engaging enough to keep me entertained throughout. Yet, while there were moments of emotion and thoughtful performances, it ultimately failed to give me that sense of human connection that, for me at least, the play intended to address.
