Nathan and Jaehyuk say:

“Inspired by a conversation with the Cherwell photo section about prototypical English hipsters, we set out to find them. We searched charity stores and the Ruskin school, but alas found no hipsters. Instead, we met some of the colorful personalities that roam Oxford, complete with unique looks and stories. We are still looking for hipsters though so if anyone emerges from the Oxford underground let us know.”

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★★★★☆
Four Stars

The stage at the Burton Taylor Studio provides a strange sort of welcome for this piece of art: we are confronted with a single chair, and translucent sheets hanging from the rafters. While being strangely powerful, the minimal set confers the challenge of turning script into spectacle completely onto the actors, and they do a marvellous job. Audiences on Tuesday and Wednesday have been treated to a set of four monologues, the Eight being made up by a further four monologues on the following two days. Saturday seems to be the climax, as the best four will be performed in a BT slot which surprisingly is yet to sell out.

The characters of Eight, as incredible as some of them are, are extraordinarily convincing. Even Miles (David Shields), perhaps the most absurd character, manages to convince us in large part thanks to his actor’s portrayal. At first we see the big-headed banker full of bravado, but something is being hidden. As he talks about his experience on the number 30 London bus on 7^th July 2005, and his life subsequently, the mask is gradually removed; his loss of social identity becomes apparent and we are left wondering whether he will regain it.

The performances keep getting better. Miles is followed by the entertaining and humorous Millie (Alice Porter), a high-class prostitute who harks back to a bygone Great British era with a philosophy that frequently borders on misogyny. Whilst the previous monologue contained humour amongst darkness, with Millie it feels like a stand-up, albeit with a twist near the end when we realise that perhaps the character is not as happy with their existence as previously thought. It is a shame that in Millie’s monologue the climax is too short, leaving us begging for more which does not come.

But the swift end to one monologue pre-empts the rollercoaster of the next, as we head straight into the dark, troubled world of Mona (Millie Chapman). She is a character trapped, depressed, and mysterious. Chapman’s portrayal conveys the mental anguish perfectly, with impressive and convincing changes in speed, and a physical performance which held the audience silent, still, and sinisterly addicted. Mona makes for uncomfortable viewing.

The subject matter gets no more light-hearted with the final monologue. André (Christopher Adams) arrives at his art studio in the morning to find his boyfriend hanging from above. Again, the subject matter is serious, but Adams’ performance allows us to laugh at the strange, twisted humour of his character. The audience are not sure what to think, and not sure whether to laugh, but from this they hang on to every word.

André’s monologue is different from the others in that it includes a wider social commentary, but like Miles, Millie, and Mona, we are kept interested by characters that are never as they first seem. Characters whose initial confidence slowly ebbs away, and who come to conclusions neither we nor the audience were expecting. Thursday and Friday, with its different set of monologues, ought to be successful in a similar vein. And Saturday might just be a five-star performance. I am tempted to return.

International students tend to have a reputation for being reclusive, hermits in the nests of their rooms who emerge occasionally only to scurry to the closest shower. If it wasn’t for that thin sliver of light under a door you’d be tempted to believe they didn’t live in college at all. So many times I’ve heard questions like “Where do they eat?” or “How do they get to and from lectures with no one seeing?” bounced back and forth over dinner in hall. 

This, at least, was what I heard before arriving at Oxford. And what I was told again in the Freshers’ guide, and by the second years, and on just about every student forum out there. It seems to be a running joke across the colleges, but since I’ve been here I’ve been involved in a project that suggests just the opposite.

The name alone of the Oxford Spanish Play implies that it is an international affair; it’s quite obvious that it branches out beyond the stereotypical born and bred British Oxonians. This year the company’s production, a dual language version of La vida es sueño, or Life’s A Dream, by the Golden Age playwright Calderón de la Barca, is produced by Alejandra Albuerne, who is as Spanish as they come. But the countries involved extend far beyond simply Spain itself; the directors, Theresa and Luis, hail from Chile, whilst several of the cast members come from other parts of the Hispanic world such as Mexico.

Yet somehow the international feel of the production, which will be performed in the original Spanish, with English subtitles, has prompted foreign students with no affiliation to Spain to get involved. From Italian to American, Russian to Chinese, there is no shortage of diversity in the production. 

Perhaps this is because plays which are in English feel more inaccessible to those with a different first language. After all, Oxford has bred the likes of Alan Bennett and Oscar Wilde, so doing anything theatre related here feels pretty pressurized. What’s more, the more academic student productions tend to be dominated by students of English Literature, enough to make a budding dramatist from abroad run a mile. With the Spanish play all the actors are in the same boat; save the (surprisingly small) numbers of Spanish actors, everyone is performing in a foreign language. 

There are over 130 different nationalities in the undergraduate body alone at Oxford. But if we continue spreading the myth of the cloistered international student, we risk losing the richness that we could benefit from by living in such a multicultural university. People come from round the world to study here. Foreign languages are the perfect medium to encourage integration: they are a great unifier and equaliser, just as theatre is supposed to be.

“The Spanish Hamlet”, I am told of La Vida Es Sueño. “The most well-known play in the Spanish speaking world”. A play that deals with fate, illusion and reality. A Golden Age play, with all the mixing of philosophising, stock-character humour, and beauty of language that that entails. The play, to clarify, is in Spanish – the reason I am able to tell that the language is beautiful is due to the rather helpful subtitles, based on Michael Kidd’s translation, that are projected onto the wall.

The title means “Life is a Dream”, but the dream we are presented with is far from the idyllic image this conjures up. There are no pastoral meadows here – it is the Spanish Hamlet, after all. Instead we are given the staccato visions of the English-speaking Oracle.

Indeed, there is something ominous about the play. The juxtaposition between the late sixteenth century action and the stunning stylised costumes helps add to this disconcertion. The costumes are frankly, dazzling, as is the whole style of the play. One could simply go to watch what one could deem an incredibly useful stage costume and makeup lesson. This rather clinical description perhaps does not do justice to the monochrome majesty I am presented with, however. The pale face makeup of all the characters creates an otherworldly, ghost-like atmosphere, in a production where often the lighting has it that darkness pervades with light brush strokes of chiaroscuro and heavenly shadow-play.

I would not say that this is a normal play-going experience, in the fact that I feel very much known to be an audience member, ostracised, almost, by spectacle. There is one moment, for example, where the entire cast charge at me before a battle scene, their pasty faces bathed in red-light.

Sometimes the acting feels actively staged and contrived, which most of the time is captivating, but other times feeds into the detached, unsettled feeling that hangs over the play. However, there is much passion from the main character Segismundo, who succeeds in bringing out the scarily animalistic side of himself terribly convincingly.

It seems to me that this is an event of theatre rather than simply a play, and one would have to be prepared for that when deciding to view it. I am in the odd paradox of not thinking I would want to see it, yet being certainly glad that I did.

★☆☆☆☆

One Star

If you ever thought student Shakespeare was something to avoid, it might be worth taking a look at Merton Floats’ attempt at Phèdre. Its tediousness, exacerbated by technical flaws, is quite spectacular.

Racine’s play, written in the seventeenth century, draws heavily on classical predecessors. For unconvincing reasons this version is set in 1960s Italy, which is supposed to be brought out by the stark majesty of the venue, Merton’s chapel. Present-day high Anglicanism equates to twentieth century Italian Catholicism, the reasoning would appear to run. The bland, generally monochrome, contemporary costumes do little to contribute to any specificity of time or space, and nor does the set, which – generously – comprises of two chairs and a table.

The choice of venue is perhaps the most problematic part of this production. Merton’s chapel, renowned in the choral world for its excellent acoustics, is rather unsuited to drama. Lines have to be delivered slowly, or they risk being swallowed up in the echoes of the cavernous building. At numerous points during the play, especially when moments of anguish are reached, you are hard pressed to understand what is being said, a problem that is only compounded by the decision to put the seating in traverse.

If lines become inaudible, the actors’ expressions become more important. But, here too, Phèdre has been set up to be as incomprehensible as possible. Four stark white lights are the only additions that have been made to the gentle background lighting of the chapel, and they have been angled in such a way as to glare right into the audience’s eyes.

But on the occasions when the actors are both visible and audible, you realise you have not missed too much. Bridget Dru, playing Phaedra, is competent enough, but Hugh Johnson, who plays Hippolytus, spends more time engaged in repetitive hand gestures than in expressing anything, and when Theseus (Jonathon Oakman) asks his son, “Traitor, how dare you show yourself to me?” Oakman seems bored rather than emotionally involved.

The highlight of this production has to be the gong sounded right at the end, which must count as the single well thought-out use of the venue. The sound echoes deliciously around, and you realise you are free to leave at long last.