Here we are again: another great evening with the Miniaturists at the Arcola. Six brand new plays, each coming in at around the 15 minute mark, a great showcase of writing, directing, acting and general theatrical talent, for one night only. The buzz and intense attention the performances get from the audience is a tremendous reward, and one hopes that some of these pieces will get the further outings they deserve.

On the menu on 22nd February was:

DART FIRED by Adam Brace, directed by Sebastian Armesto: a very funny and pacy piece about making a local television news item (going national) concerning a cow on the railway line, a cub reporter and the tricks she had to pull to get the story, the lighting and not least important, something to pee into just before going live.

SPORTS DAY by Louise Monaghan, directed by Laura Keefe: two friends watch their daughters compete at their old school, one pretending not to care about winning, the other not to care about losing and both failing utterly, most of all when they comprehensively mess up the three-legged race; a little wordy in the freeze frame moments but poignant and sharp.

PURPLE, SILVER, OLIVE, ORANGE by Helen Smith, directed by Gordon Murray: is the cheesy boyfriend actually a robot? Will he have to go back? Can he find rhymes for the title words? When the inspector calls, the girlfriend seems to decide that she wants the boyfriend to stay after all. Is the inspector a robot? Is the girlfriend? How real are these emotions? Are we all like that? Hmmm...

THE LAST ROOM I CHECKED by Laura Fitzgerald, directed by Tim Stark: like furies or ghosts, the former owners of a doll's house seem to come with it and have conversations in various languages about the new owner who has bought it to entice a child (hers but abandoned to a boarding school - perhaps for special needs of one kind or another?) called Zoe to stay with her, in a house on a cliff. Zoe (especially well acted by Tilly Oakshott, a third year drama student) seems damaged and closed off, unstable. But her rejection of her mother may have an altruistic purpose. A poetic and musical play.

FOURTEEN MOUTHFULS OF AIR written and directed by Rod Smith: this was an ambitious and impressive play about the making of plays and stage craft. A stage manager or director figure set up the stage with a series of random props (a yoga mat, a clothes rack with wire hangers) each of which was solemnly introduced. Then the actors came on and presented a series of very short scenes, punctuated by a hand bell from the SM, in which they used only fourteen words (oh, and, the, butter, collision ...) which seemed to have some significance and carry emotional content because of the way they were so expertly delivered by the cast, most of whom had RSC experience. A gamut of emotions and inter-personal relations passed before our eyes and ears thanks to their skill, but any meaning was veiled. Nicolas Tennant, whose cameos consisted of raging incomprehensibly about something at the back of the stage, and sitting in a chair laughing, was notably menacing.

THE SUNNYHILL SWEEPSTAKE by Joy Wilkinson, directed by Helen Eastman: a piece for one actor (Anthony Shuster), playing on the one hand a teacher declining from nervous debutant to wheezing Mr Chips, and on the other a hard-bitten bookie delivering a running commentary, continually changing the odds on the progress of an entire class of school children. At one point the headmaster's daughter looks like a good bet, but goes off the rails. The class swot goes into high finance and then burns out and so on.
       Short plays, like short stories, have to be complete in themselves rather than appearing to be an extract from a larger whole. In retrospect, the strongest of the vignettes presented that evening were the last two. Fourteen Mouthfuls of Air made a virtue of its artificiality, showing us the design, factors of production and delivery techniques of a play without the comfort of character, plot or any familiar landmark. This was a world we could look at from afar, rather than enter, leaving us disconcerted about our vulnerability to manipulation by theatrical technique irrespective of profundity or even meaning.
       The Sunnyhill Sweepstake, by contrast, raced through several lives and was absolutely transparent in meaning and tone with a single prop (the blackboard). The thrill here was the virtuosity of Anthony Shuster, being the teacher on one side of the blackboard and dodging behind to emerge on the other side as the bookie, the class list and odds being chalked up and rubbed out at dizzying speed.
       Have a look at the website and get along to the next one - 10th May at the Arcola. There's a great bar too.
James Flynn