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Wrtten
by
Owen McCafferty
Produced
by
Sonia Friedman
Productions
Director
Robert Delamere
Design
Simon Higlett
Lighting
Chris Davey
Cast
Randolph
Packy Lee
Ding-Ding
Jim Norton
Petesy
Conleth Hill
Socrates
James Nesbitt
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Trafalgar
Studios
28 Sept - 10 Dec 2005 |
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The day
that Harold Pinter won the
Nobel Prize for literature
may not have been the best
to see any play in London.
Most contemporary theatre
cannot match Pinter, and "Shoot
the Crow" is no "Birthday
Party," "Homecoming,"
"Hothouse" or "Lover."
That does not mean that "Shoot
the Crow" is a bad play.
It is a good play, and its
four actors carry the evening
with bravado performances.
The tale of four Northern
Irish tilers on a building
site contains all the pathos
one would seek in an evening's
entertainment. The script
has as many laughs as tears.
Owen McCafferty, whose ear
for Northern Irish argot is
as sharp as Pinter's for silent
menace, does not bore. He
portrays four workingmen,
lost in a shrinking world
of work and obligations that
keep them working, as prisoners
of their age, their class
and their pitiful hopes. You
cannot walk out on these men,
and you wish them well even
as they plot a petty crime
for a little extra money.
It is hard sometimes to know
- and McCafferty does not
want us to know - whether
Randolph, the youngest tiler
on the site (played with aplomb
by Packy Lee), is any more
hopeless than the oldest,
cynical Ding-Ding (well acted
by Jim Norton). Drawn against
his inclination to help two
different workmates commit
the same crime, Randolph lacks
the self-awareness to understand
that his life might be Ding-Ding's
- albeit years behind.
The ninety minutes without
an interval go quickly, thanks
largely to McCafferty's lively
use of language, his clever
sequencing of jokes amid hopelessness
and direction that does not
allow for lulls. Taking place
in the tragic space of a day,
we see four men raise their
hopes, imagine the possibility
of making something for themselves
and, by nightfall, surrender
to the wretched fate of slaves.
If they are redeemed, it is
in this: despite anger and
fights, friendship or common
fate breeds a solidarity that
makes the worst of the men
- the miserable Petesy (played
by the excellent Conleth Hill)
- cover for a friend who skives
in order to visit his son.
"Shoot the Crow"
is also about fathers and
sons, explicitly so in the
case of the fourth tiler,
Socrates (James Nesbitt, whose
performance is exemplary).
Socrates weeps in front of
old Ding-Ding, who has no
patience for a man's tears,
as he recalls his own father.
Socrates's "old man"
was a bit of a character,
holding court at the bar and
telling the grand story. As
a boy, Socrates was proud
to be his son. Proud to see
himself as the boy of a man
whose back everyone patted.
"There is a difference
between being a character
and having character,"
Socrates tells Ding-Ding,
explaining how he came to
see his father in a clearer
light. Now a father himself,
he has - as his father did
- left his wife and child.
Unable to comprehend his repetition
of this abandonment, he weeps.
"My dad fucks off, and
I fuck off." Ding-Ding
won't listen, until later
in the play he too breaks
down in futility. The father
and son theme plays on between
Ding-Ding and young Randolph,
the latter clearly yearning
for a surrogate father - a
role Ding-Ding could no more
assume than Socrates's father
did. Ding-DOng is too worried
- as the other characters
are for most of the play,
and as many fathers are everywhere
- about himself.
This play lacks the thoughtful
silences of Pinter, as well
as the force of power unmasking
itself. Pinter never entertains,
but you leave his plays thinking.
McCafferty can entertain,
and "Shoot the Crow"
is worth seeing. But it will
not disturb your sleep.
Charles Glass |
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