eshrag
05-09-2011, 10:12 AM
http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/92432?ns=guardian&pageName=Incoming+*+review%3AArticle%3A1555233&ch=Stage&c3=Guardian&c4=Theatre%2CAndrew+Motion%2CStage&c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CTheatre&c6=Michael+Billington&c7=11-May-08&c8=1555233&c9=Article&c10=Review&c11=Stage&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre
The Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk
Given that Andrew Motion is a poet, novelist and biographer, it's surprising it has taken him so long to get round to writing a play. But, prompted by an invitation from Halesworth's admirable Hightide festival, he has come up with a 70-minute play on the impact of the Afghan war on a single family.
It is a good, honourable work that shows that Motion has a gift for drama. It would be even better if he were less cautious about revealing his own anger towards the conflict.
In Motion's play, Danny, a soldier, has been killed in Helmand; his wife, Steph, is about to leave the family home. Each is alive in the other's memory. Each needs to tell a story.
Danny relives the experience of frontline conflict – the concern for "your mates" rather than any patriotic principle, the horror of lugging a scorched colleague on your back, the dreamlike sensation of the moment of death. But while Danny is cynically realistic about his own role in a dubious war, Steph needs to feel that her husband died a hero, that the war has had a purpose and that the Wootton Bassett funeral was something more than an example of the English gift for "glorious sadness".
Motion's play is at its best when it gets down to brass tacks and when the dead and the living offer radically divergent views of the Afghan conflict. Danny has a powerful speech in which he attacks the way war has its own unstoppable momentum: having gone to Afghanistan supposedly to curb the Taliban and al-Qaida and to stop people fighting, he feels that, by his death, he is "now part of the reason it goes on".
I wanted Motion to develop the anti-war argument. But the domestic setting prevents him from pointing out that, according to General Petraeus, there are only 100 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan. And, while Steph vividly recalls the heartless way she was told of Danny's death, nothing she says is as effective as his account of the way war is fuelled by the endless desire for retaliation.
I'm also sceptical about a coda where Danny talks to his son, Jack. The idea of father and son conferring only after death was done more movingly in JM Barrie's first world war play A Well-Remembered Voice.
But, in Steven Atkinson's production, Motion's piece is strongly acted by Christian Bradley and Penny Layden as Danny and Steph, and Timon Greaves as the son. And, even if Motion fights unduly shy of didacticism, he has written a good enough play to make you hope there is more to come.
The real revelation at Hightide, however, was Nicked, a musical about Nick Clegg that has now been expanded to include the AV debacle. The first half, dealing with the coalition's formation, is interesting; the second half, part showing Clegg in power, is utterly compelling. What emerges is less Clegg's hubristic vanity than his political ineptitude as Cameron and Osborne run rings round him, especially over tuition fees.
Richard Marsh's rhyming book and lyrics are on the button, Natalia Sheppard's snazzy score brings the sound of "urban" music into the theatre, and Jason Langley conveys all of Clegg's narcissistic naivety. Clegg may be dead in the water politically, but this musical, suitably trimmed, definitely has legs.
Rating: 3/5
Theatre (http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre)
Andrew Motion (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/andrewmotion)
Michael Billington (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaelbillington)
guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk) © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions (http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html) | More Feeds (http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds)
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أكثر... (http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/may/08/incoming-theatre-review-andrew-motion)
The Cut, Halesworth, Suffolk
Given that Andrew Motion is a poet, novelist and biographer, it's surprising it has taken him so long to get round to writing a play. But, prompted by an invitation from Halesworth's admirable Hightide festival, he has come up with a 70-minute play on the impact of the Afghan war on a single family.
It is a good, honourable work that shows that Motion has a gift for drama. It would be even better if he were less cautious about revealing his own anger towards the conflict.
In Motion's play, Danny, a soldier, has been killed in Helmand; his wife, Steph, is about to leave the family home. Each is alive in the other's memory. Each needs to tell a story.
Danny relives the experience of frontline conflict – the concern for "your mates" rather than any patriotic principle, the horror of lugging a scorched colleague on your back, the dreamlike sensation of the moment of death. But while Danny is cynically realistic about his own role in a dubious war, Steph needs to feel that her husband died a hero, that the war has had a purpose and that the Wootton Bassett funeral was something more than an example of the English gift for "glorious sadness".
Motion's play is at its best when it gets down to brass tacks and when the dead and the living offer radically divergent views of the Afghan conflict. Danny has a powerful speech in which he attacks the way war has its own unstoppable momentum: having gone to Afghanistan supposedly to curb the Taliban and al-Qaida and to stop people fighting, he feels that, by his death, he is "now part of the reason it goes on".
I wanted Motion to develop the anti-war argument. But the domestic setting prevents him from pointing out that, according to General Petraeus, there are only 100 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan. And, while Steph vividly recalls the heartless way she was told of Danny's death, nothing she says is as effective as his account of the way war is fuelled by the endless desire for retaliation.
I'm also sceptical about a coda where Danny talks to his son, Jack. The idea of father and son conferring only after death was done more movingly in JM Barrie's first world war play A Well-Remembered Voice.
But, in Steven Atkinson's production, Motion's piece is strongly acted by Christian Bradley and Penny Layden as Danny and Steph, and Timon Greaves as the son. And, even if Motion fights unduly shy of didacticism, he has written a good enough play to make you hope there is more to come.
The real revelation at Hightide, however, was Nicked, a musical about Nick Clegg that has now been expanded to include the AV debacle. The first half, dealing with the coalition's formation, is interesting; the second half, part showing Clegg in power, is utterly compelling. What emerges is less Clegg's hubristic vanity than his political ineptitude as Cameron and Osborne run rings round him, especially over tuition fees.
Richard Marsh's rhyming book and lyrics are on the button, Natalia Sheppard's snazzy score brings the sound of "urban" music into the theatre, and Jason Langley conveys all of Clegg's narcissistic naivety. Clegg may be dead in the water politically, but this musical, suitably trimmed, definitely has legs.
Rating: 3/5
Theatre (http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre)
Andrew Motion (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/andrewmotion)
Michael Billington (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michaelbillington)
guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk) © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions (http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html) | More Feeds (http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds)
http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/GE17Xf4D-q-F-2oPdVIRocLphtM/0/di (http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/GE17Xf4D-q-F-2oPdVIRocLphtM/0/da)
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أكثر... (http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/may/08/incoming-theatre-review-andrew-motion)