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Author
Chris O'Connell
Director
Liam Steel
Lighting
Natasha Chivers
Performers
Steven Hoggett
Karl Sullivan
Joseph Traynor
Eddie Kay
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Lyric
Theatre
Hammersmith
19 April - 07 May 2005 |
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Hymns
by Chris O'Connell was first
performed on 14 September
1999. After much demand it
has been revived, and revised,
this year; and has been performed
in Manchester, Winchester,
Brighton, Coventry, Leeds
and Liverpool before coming
to the Lyric, Hammersmith
in London. At the end of its
run it has acquired a polish
and timing that is impeccable
and impressive.
The four male-cast play four
characters attending a funeral
of a friend, who, it transpires,
has committed suicide. Beneath
the beery camaraderie guilt
lurks, as each in his way
feels he did not do enough
to prevent his friend's death.
Was each unresponsive to his
silent cries for help? Was
each too involved in his own
lfe to see what was going
on in someone else's? Did
any care? The funeral and
its aftermath acts as a catalyst
for their emotions. They accuse
each other sometimes to divert
their self-accusations.
This subject has been visited
often before, but seldom with
such allusive brevity. The
play only lasts seventy-five
minutes. It explores the tensions
within the group and within
each member of the group,
both in words and balletic
actions. Sometimes, I wondered
how the young men had enough
breath to say the lines, let
alone the physical ability
to perform the contortions
on the ladders, the table
and the stage-floor. As a
spectacle the play and its
production are spectacular.
But what about the serious
content of the Hymns
?
Hyperbole has been heaped
on the play, which has been
described as 'heart-piercing'
and 'clever, beautiful, and
better than that. brave",
to quote two reviews on the
back of the text-cum-programme.
Brave, it may be, as far as
the athletic antics of the
players, but not intellectually
brave, as guilt has provided
the material for stage-works
from the beginning of time.
Imaginative would be nearer
the mark. The combination
of speech and balletic action
is extraordinary. At first,
it is not easy to discern
what is happening as the four
characters gyrate suspended
mid-way on four ladders. After
a while the metaphor of the
ladders as points on the journey
of life, or self-discovery,
becomes clearer and, as a
result, gains significance.
Elusiveness and allusiveness
almost always require a second
visit, and with the play is
worth seeing several times.
Bit by bit it becomes clearer
what the dances represent,
and the actions begin as speak
as loudly as the words. There's
one magnificent dance that
simulates synchronized locomotion.
Depths of feelings are covered
by sick jokes, hearty banter
and some initial signs of
aggressiveness. Confronted
by the reality of a suicide
forces the characters reluctantly
to face their own morality.
Scott's mobile phone at the
beginning of the play suggests
his hiding behind work and
success to avoid his crucial
involvement in his friend's
death, and Karl's gradually
reveals his inability to face
his emotional and physical
incapacity to cope with finding
his friend's hanging body.
Amongst Scott's many self-recriminations
was his inability to grant
his friend's last wish to
lie down next to him to feel
the warmth of human closeness.
For Scott this was too gay;
but as a last request he wonders
what stopped him doing it?
That's what the others ask.
Finally there is one
coup
de théatre
,
which I won't spoil for readers
of this review, but I realized
how well this play builds
to this moment.
Overall this is a very impressive
piece of theatre that rightly
claims to combine words with
significant movements. It
would also justifiably claim
the movement as integral and
suggestive of meanings and
feelings that the elusive
words could not express by
themselves. In a sense the
play is Wagnerian in that
the movement does what Wagner
claimed for music: it 'emotionalises
the intellect'.
Does it say the last word
on guilt? No, but then neither
does Murder
in the Cathedral
,
or
Winter's
Tale
or
Macbeth
(to name just a few). But
it is an impressively imaginative
and subtle way of dealing
with four characters whose
lives are impacted and changed
by a tragic act, and who have
to learn to find a way of
dealing with the fact that
each was inadequate to the
moment.
Just as the play is about
the tensions between the characters,
so the performance embodied
this. You can't fall off a
chair backwards from a table
without trusting the person
stopping you dropping to the
floor and breaking your neck.
So the friends (Scott, played
by Steven Hoggett, Steven
played by Eddie Kay, Karl
played by Karl Sullivan and
Simon played by Joseph Traynor)
while verbally criticizing
each other, enact a vital
form of mutual trust. The
very contact and confidence
in each other they display
at this moment in their lives,
is exactly what they removed
from their departed friend.
This is just the kind of situation
EM Forster had in mind in
Howards End when he delphically
pronounced "only connect".
But how? That's what this
excellent play explores in
its most unusual way. Brilliant.
Roderick
Swanston |
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