Two lovers stand at either end of the stage, guns aimed at each other’s heads. They fire, the lights drop. The remainder of the play narrates Anna and Gabe’s journey toward this climactic point – their meeting in a suicide support group, their turbulent relationship and suicide pact– returning full circle at the end. A pleasing, but predictable framing structure.  

“Lover’s Suicide”, written by James Biondi, is one of the four plays to have won Oxford University Drama Society’s New Writing Festival and a coveted slot in the Burton Taylor Studio.

Student scriptwriter Biondi’s aim was to create a piece that told an old story in a new way. It is an hour-long exploration of suicide, love, isolation and death through the characters of Gabe, a struggling writer with little direction in life and Anna, a pharmacist with a tendency towards pill overdoses. However, it seems that in his attempts at originality, the scriptwriter got stuck somewhere between comedy and seriousness, because the play is neither uproariously funny nor particularly poignant.

On to the script. There are certainly some moments of clever dialogue. “If it weren’t for suicidal people I would want to kill myself”, Anna asserts. Work that one out… And moments of humour, too. Gabe concludes his romantic guitar serenade to Anna with a very unromantic “I need a wee”. Mostly, though, the script is mundane and unexciting.

On the whole, the acting is good, especially in the more minor roles. Nathalie Wright gives a sympathetic performance as Gabe’s lonely, concerned and slightly wacky mother and Doug Taylor is very comical as the pink-floral-shirt-wearing eager-to-please support group leader. The main roles are weaker. Though they are playing supposedly suicidal personalities, neither Gabe (Calam Lynch) nor Anna (Jenny Flynn) come across as convincingly depressed and their acting is a bit too reminiscent of A-level drama. Their decision to end each other’s lives is almost as forced as their sporadic snogs.

The conclusion is not at all satisfying. Of course, suicide always leaves the living with questions. But none of the characters in the play are developed enough to give the audience enough food for deep analysis. It feels like the writer simply hasn’t finished thinking it through – and ends only on a note of lazy ambiguity.

There’s something pretty Oxfordy about roman numerals in a title. Just like there’s something pretty Oxfordy about a “devised play”; a production that fights back against the notion that a script-writer “is God”, and that sees itself as on the edgy side of modernism. “We don’t want to do a play that’s just people round the table having troubles”, co-director Thomas Bailey tells me.

But the first scene I’m shown is precisely that. Mother (Lamorna Ash) and father (Sam Ward) replicate the empty routine of table conversation between a married couple, finishing each other’s sentences with a heavy clunk of the cutlery and frozen turn of the head. Then repeat. The second time round the scene is less interesting but more disconcerting – I think I’m finally experiencing the theatrical cliché of “alienation”, bandied around so much but rarely experienced. On the third time round , the sentence-finishing gets confused. “Have you cooked the…” “kids?” I’m not sure if I’m supposed to laugh or not. It’s either very profound, or very funny.

Or both. The other director, Tommo Folwer, assures me that for all its preoccupation with “fear”, these devised scenes also make up a comedy. They show me a scene which takes place inside the mother’s head, in which she goes to a family planning clinic having decided that she wants to “get rid” of her son. How long has it been? 16. Weeks? Years. “I’ll put him down as a ‘severe irritation’ Madam”.

I’m privy to three or four excellent scenes but remain unsure how the whole thing will hang together. The acting is undeniably excellent – apparently the cast spent vast amounts of time acting one another so it’s no wonder they’re all marvellously in sync. A moment of improvisation, in which the mother interrupts her son mid-flow on his vivid but debauched virtual life, brings a new fragility to the stage that I’m not sure is ideal just a week before the show opens. The team don’t seem fazed; “this is a classic rehearsal in that these two have never done this before”.

And how does a series of fragmented scenes come to an end? Thomas Bailey explains that his devised play can never really come to any kind of conclusion, because that would counteract the ultimate message of production: “we’re all essentially terrified of chaos”. I’m still pondering this statement as I leave, and the cast return to one of the calmest and most focused rehearsals I’ve ever seen. 

At the climax of John Ford’s most notorious work, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Giovanni brings onstage the heart of his sister – and lover – Annabella, skewered on the point of his dagger. In this production, the heart is a sheep’s – glistening, horribly real. By contrast, Giovanni wears a shirt covered almost completely in pinkish splotches of obviously fake blood, which sit oddly with the fleshy reality of the heart itself.

In many ways, this mixture of the raw and the slightly ridiculous is symptomatic of the treatment of the play as a whole: The contemporary setting is often elegantly realised; elements which, if mishandled, could be seen as anachronistic – such as the reliance upon the moral and spiritual guidance of Charlie Hooper’s Friar Bonaventura – blend seamlessly into the world the play establishes. There are, however, moments where modernisation is misplaced. Take for example, Giovanni tearfully vlogging about his desire for his sister (imagine the YouTube comments) in place of a more traditional soliloquy.

In opposition to this pointedly contemporary touch, a cardinal visits, dressed somewhat incongruously in ecclesiastical vestments, a bizarre relic of that play’s roots in its seventeenth-century vision of Catholic Parma. Fantasy sequences involving Kathy Stocker’s Annabella are also variable in effectiveness – initially intriguing, later instances seem more like over-exploitations of the play’s potential for raunch, and a slightly obvious way of providing insight into characters’ desires.

Gregory Mostyn and Kathy Stocker give accomplished performances as the central couple, particularly in the play’s first half, where they skilfully negotiate the innocence of falling in love with the guilt associated with forbidden passion, and the second we see Luke Howarth’s machiavel, Vasques, emerge as a plotting, scheming force for destruction. Unfortunately, several scenes are conducted all in the same tone of heightened emotion, which can make them a strain to watch, as well as occasionally lapsing into melodrama. When naturalism takes over from self-conscious rhetoricism, the effect is compelling.

There are many interesting directorial decisions and apt modernising touches in this interpretation of ‘Tis Pity, as well it holding the singular distinction of being possibly the first time that the incest taboo has been upstaged by an unorthodox use of a condiment. Any updating of a classic will present its challenges, and this production is a pacey, punchy take on Ford’s tragedy which shows that it retains its infamous power to both shock and entertain.

I really like sci-fi, but it’s hard to make it work on stage. Its conventions are so intimately enmeshed in cinema that attempting to make them play out in the theatre is to give yourself a difficult task. So, it is impressive that I came out impressed by what the writer, production team, and cast have achieved in ‘Love Plus’ – on at the BT this week as part of the annual New Writing Festival.

The play tells the story of an introverted young man, James, in a dystopian future, who finds himself trying to form a relationship with a  ‘Love Plus’— a sort of cybergirlfriend made 3D. As the play progresses we see him come to terms with the impossibility of making a real connection with a figure that is ultimately unreal. We also see Chris, with whom James is in love, take steps at his own self-improvement that calls into question where the divide between human and unhuman might lie.

The performances are for the most part impressive. Freddie Popplewell as James develops his performance to demonstrate a good sense of the comic lines and a sensitive understanding of the complex emotions involved in his situation, and James Mooney, as Chris, has a languorous delivery that proved an interesting energy on stage. Particularly impressive were Misha Pinnington, Katie Comery, and Isobel Jesper Jones, all playing the Love Plus, for making interesting a character that is necessarily hollow.

Helena Jackson’s direction was generally strong: the stylised movements of the Love Plus and the characterisation were indications that a lot of effort had gone into getting the best out of these actors, however the staging was perhaps unimaginative and the blocking often lacked direction.

The thing to really emphasize in this new piece of writing is the strength of Lamorna Ash’s script, which was surefooted and complexly layered. She has a real ear for great lines (“Your perfection disgusts me”) and an obvious understanding that sci-fi is a way to think about important contemporary issues. It is her script that makes sense of the theatrical space, playing with the fact that these are actors playing people pretending to be human. As the Love Plus says, “All people act and I’m mimicking people”.

This is, all in all, an exceptionally interesting and impressive work that, while not perfect, hits a lot of really interesting notes. Definitely worth a look, if not least to hear a lot of very endearingly hidden puns and see well-written sci-fi on an Oxford stage, a rare treat. 

Every year we wait with baited breath for The Oscars to grace our screens. Anticipation starts with the Golden Globes in January and by February’s BAFTAS things are beginning to look serious. Money exchanges hands, votes are cast, bets are placed, campaigns get bitter and the inter-web explodes when a deserving nominee gets ‘snubbed’. It’s hardly surprising that Joaquin Phoenix (star of this year’s Her) called the whole thing “total, utter bullshit.”

But there’s no denying that it’s great fun. A rip-roaringly farcical show of ruthless celebrities, who want nothing more than to wrap their grubby hands around that golden statue, being forced to sit cordially and smile agreeably as the prospect of inheriting the title ‘Academy Award Winner’ vanishes before their eyes. Their all there to win, or to lose while being photographed dressed in something expensive.

With viewers, voters and celebrities alike all taking the game far too seriously, it is easy to forget why we would watch The Oscars in the first place – namely, that it’s very entertaining. Last Sunday’s ceremony was exactly this. After Seth ‘We Saw Your Boobs’ MacFarlane struggled as presenter last year, Ellen Degeneres was suitably sarcastic and cynical without descending to ‘Ricky Gervais’ levels of offensive awkwardness, opening the show with the corker “Possibility number 1: 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture. Possibility number 2: You’re all racist. Here’s our first white presenter Anne Hathaway.”

Pizza. Pharrell. Wizzard of Oz costume changes. What more could you possibly want?

The secret to engineering a show as compelling as The Oscars is the probability that it won’t run smoothly. Indeed, it can’t, otherwise who would watch it? Everybody wants to see Jennifer Lawrence face-plant, or Melissa Leo casually drop the F-bomb. Hence, when a plastic John Travolta was rolled on to the stage, inundated with so much Botox he couldn’t even open his eyes, only to royally screw up the pronunciation of Idina Menzel’s name, everyone watching squealed with delight.

The same is true of Liza Minnelli, who was too short for “the selfie that broke Twitter,” or the tepid applause that followed Cate Blanchett’s mention of Woody Allen, or the silent but visceral groan when we realised Bette Middler was going to sing “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Again. These are the kinds of brilliant missteps which feed the micro-blogging appetites of a buzzfeed generation.

Yet it wasn’t entirely ridiculous. For every Zac Efron, messing up the autocue (it’s a good thing these people don’t read lines for a living), or Harrison Ford sounding like he was delivering a eulogy, there were moments which were truly touching. Bill Murray smuggled in a wonderful tribute to the late Harold Ramis while presenting the Oscar for Best Cinematography, and both Lupita Nyong’o and Matthew McConnaughey gave heart-warming, even important, Oscar acceptance speeches. A personal highlight was watching Darlen Love belting out “I Sing because I’m happy” after winning Best Documentary. Even amidst this ridiculous and ruthless circus, there is enough gratitude and humbleness in the eyes of recognised talents to legitimise the whole thing.

To debate whether or not the awards were correctly awarded entirely misses the point. It’s fun to get angry when Leonardo DiCarprio doesn’t win but, at the end of the day, The Oscars are nothing more than an orgiastic, self-congratulatory pat on the back for the American film industry. What’s more, this year’s pat on the back was mind-numbingly predictable. If it was about the talent, surely Barhad Abdi would have won? Surely Academy voters would not have confessed to voting for 12 Years A Slave without having actually seen it?

As we get riled and irked, spewing our irritation onto twitter, it’s important to remember that the Academy Awards have zero purchase over what constitutes a good film for posterity. After all, this is the ceremony that awarded the Best Picture award to How Green is My Valley rather than Citizen Kane in 1942, and to Dances With Wolves rather than Goodfellas in 1990, andto Shakespeare in Love in 1998 rather than Saving Private Ryan. Doubtless, before long, we’ll be saying the same thing about The King’s Speech winning over The Social Network. While the awards have a self-evident gravitas, important for smaller projects trying to get a foothold in the industry and rising actors, in time it’s the best films, the best actors, the best scripts who will be remembered. No-one remembers Laurence Olivier because he won an Oscar, and no-one is going to forget Leonardo DiCaprio because he hasn’t.

We need to accept The Oscars for what they are. Joaquin Phoenix is absolutely right that such award ceremonies are “total, utter bullshit.” Once we can recognise this, we can recognise that it’s fantastically entertaining bullshit all the same. 

★★★★☆
Four Stars

The Caucasian Chalk Circle is not a play to be approached flippantly, and that holds true both for theatre companies and theatre goers. Brecht’s style deliberately aims not only to educate but to alienate, and for this to be engaging requires commitment from both sides of the curtain. Luckily, flippancy is not something student theatre company Screw The Looking Glass’s latest Playhouse production could possibly be accused of. Every last chalk mark of this seamlessly crafted show has been chosen with care, presenting an unflinchingly Brechtian performance of a challenging piece of theatre.

The play is often subject to the ‘Hamlet’ predicament of being pared down into a more palatable bite; yet faithful even to the commonly axed prologue, the show opened on a group of Caucasian villagers meeting to decide the future of their valley. Resolution reached, the villagers are presented with an ancient Chinese folk tale reflecting the wisdom of their choice, narrated by the ethereal ‘Singer’ Arkadi (Jack Sain). This is the parable of servant girl Grusha, (Constance Greenfield) who rescues the child of a governor during the disarray of revolution. On the eventual return of the narcissistic birth mother, Grusha’s right to the boy is contested using the ‘Chalk Circle’ test, akin to the Judgement of Solomon, leaving everyone with their just deserts.

Greenfield’s fiery, sassy self-assurance prevents her role as moral heroine from becoming sappy, and sets up a powerful contrast with the vainglorious governor’s wife Natasha Abashvili, (Grainne O’Mahony) who combines hyperbolic vanity with poignant hints of self awareness. With the roar of Civil War outside the palace, Natasha sit pathetically clutching a sea of lavish gowns she refuses to abandon, only to suddenly wonder, “You don’t think they’d do anything to me?” The question hangs disturbingly unanswered.

Multi-roling allows the troop to flaunt their evident talent, playing everything from wheezing pensioners to prancing horses with equal ease. Florence Brady shines as both snobby aristocrat and world weary peasant, grimly debating the correlation between the fee and piety of marriage officiates. Luke Rollason, as the rascal elected Judge presiding over the Chalk Circle case, injected a madcap, energetic boisterousness to the second half of the show, which came as a very welcome refreshment. Prancing around flamboyantly in his pyjama suit, reminding us, “I’m not even wearing any trousers!”, he judges a girl’s particularly attractive bum as making her guilty of having “raped the poor man!” It is proof that Brecht can be funny, too.

Richly evocative yet deconstructed set design made full use of six canvas sheets hung from poles at the back of the stage, back-lit to cast striking shadow illustrations of everything from revellers at a tavern to the beheading of the Fat Prince. Dramatic lighting choices also created hauntingly vivid images, such as Grusha clung gymnastically to the side of the stage in a hairbreadth escape from soldiers, pinpointed by an unforgiving spotlight.    

This is an impeccably acted, lavishly designed production, which I feel sure even the most pious of Brecht devotees would be unable to fault. At three and a half hours, Brecht devotees are also its best audience – but it would be impossible for anyone to leave unaffected; so even Brecht himself would surely be satisfied.

Sir Alan Ayckbourn has been to the Playhouse before. As we climb the steps of the theatre in search of a secluded spot, he reminisces fondly: ‘I was under twenty, that’s for sure. I came on as an acting assistant stage manager and got a lovely lot of small parts; in Under Milk Wood; Henry IV… It was wonderful. At that point my sights were very much set on acting.’ Did he work with students? He chuckles.

“No students. Students tended to be rather snooty about the Playhouse in those days. When you did mainstream theatre they didn’t like it, and when you did Ionesco or Pirandello, the trendy buzz names at the time, they said, ‘no, we don’t think we like those either.’ It was a sort of battle between town and gown.”

By the time we’ve found a quiet corner I’m feeling completely at ease with this accommodating, astute, and intelligent man. Sir Alan Ayckbourn is one of those special people who commands respect simply by being so intensely likeable, although he has much to be superior about, having begun his remarkable career three years younger than me.

“I left school just after my A Levels, much to the horror of my House Master. I pulled all the contacts I could and left on a Friday. On Monday I was sitting in a rehearsal room with a professional company around me, so green – I had no idea. They all asked what drama school I’d been to! We had a three week gig at the Edinburgh Festival. If you’re an impressionable teenager and your first job is the Fringe, you’ll either go off theatre for life, or you’re bitten, as I was. Just magical.” I ask him if he’d recommend other young thespians to follow the same path, or stick out their degree.

“I can’t really tell these days, but I think if you want to do it, you do it. I’m always surprised when somebody in my company says, ‘I read philosophy’, and I think, ‘Ah well, it doesn’t make much difference to your acting, but at least you understand what you’re speaking about!’ The old saying goes, you don’t have to know anything to be an actor, you just have to be a good faker. All this research that goes on is a dead end really.”

Sir Alan has come a long way since these early days, with seventy-eight plays and numerous awards under his belt. His latest work, Arrivals and Departures, is more serious than the work he is most famous for. Was that intentional?

“Seriousness has been creeping into my work for quite a long time now. This is about as heavy as I get. It’s an old theme – distance between us. Two strangers meet, and although their whole back stories come out to us, by the end of the evening they leave just as ignorant about each other as they were at the start. You meet someone and make a snap judgement, and never know more. I’m always fascinated about what happens when you dig. It turns out of course that these two have so much in common that it’s almost tragic that they never reached out and touched each other.’

The play has thirty parts and eleven actors: “A big scale for me. I usually work smaller. As a person who ran a company once I know the most expensive individual items are the actors. My tip for a dramatist is write small.”

Sir Alan’s work is often referred to as farce, but he is quick to assert, “I wouldn’t call it that. It’s comedy. Dark comedy… darker comedy… I’ve only written one genuine farce, a play called Taking Steps. You take a sensible situation and twist it. I describe traditional farce like this: you start with the actors walking on the floor. In the second act, they start to walk up the walls, and by the end of the evening, they’re walking on the ceiling. If you can pull that trick off and it’s only at the end, when the actors fall down, that the audience think, how the hell did they end up there, then that’s farce. Comedy is more sly. I like modestly to think I invented the blend of darkness and light in single sentences and single speeches.”

This is certainly true, so Sir Alan can get away with it. We’re getting on so well I decide to reveal that last term I was in a performance of Absurd Person Singular, cut to half an hour for Drama Cuppers. He flinches with physical pain and murmurs, “Oh my god!” I have to come clean: being eight people, we also wrote two parts in. He looks faint. “Oh no!” But, I plough on, if the legend is true, and there is an Alan Ayckbourn play being performed every day in England, a huge amount of adaption must be unavoidable.

“I try and avoid it. I’m so close to my stuff now. Thirty years ago I started to blend the director and writer in me together so now no play of mine gets produced without me directing it. It’s quite dangerous to say all writers should do this, though. Some writers are car crashes.” He softens. “I’m fairly easy-going really. I write my plays for actors to interpret.” This is slightly undermined as Alan continues to muse, “Absurd Person. It’s a powerful play that; quite indicative of my writing. I’ve seen productions of it akin to the Nuremberg Rally.”

After apologizing profusely I only have time for one more question, so I go big – in all his myriad achievements, what stands out the most?

“Well… I got the Tony Award and the Olivier Lifetime Achievement Award a couple of years ago, and that was very nice. But, with a Lifetime Achievement Award, it can seem a little like everyone’s screwing the lid on you – trying to imply your career is over, which is certainly not the case. I have another play coming out next year, and plenty of things up my sleeve.”

He smiles. “I’ve got a while in me yet.”