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Fiona Mountford's rating
, Emotional debt in Faces in the Crowd
By
Fiona Mountford
22 Oct 2008
It’s not a perfect match, but Faces in the Crowd is the nearest theatre has yet come to a credit crunch play. There’s talk of excessive buying on plastic and debt consolidation plans and, in the middle of one particularly impassioned speech, we half expect Robert Peston to leap out and start expostulating. Nonetheless, the kind of debt that really concerns playwright Leo Butler is emotional, the sort that can’t be whittled away via minimum monthly repayments.
Thanks to William Fricker and Rae Smith’s scintillating design, we look down at the action from on high, as if at a pit at the zoo. It’s actually a sleek, minimalist London flat but that doesn’t stop Joanne (Amanda Drew) and Dave (Con O’Neill) from prowling like caged wild animals. Butler drip-feeds the information but gradually the facts emerge: the couple were married, but 10 years ago Dave escaped from Sheffield to London, cutting himself off from Joanne and his family. Now she’s found him again and it’s payback time.
Butler worries at some weighty themes in his spare script, covering not only our have-now-pay-later culture but also the failure of feminist rhetoric when countered with the brutal facts of female biology. Frustratingly, though, his theoretical arguments are not pushed far enough, and nor does he engage us sufficiently in the couple’s back-story for these 100 minutes to break free entirely from the smack of dramatic contrivance.
Director Clare Lizzimore isn’t going to give up easily, however. She offers a thrillingly no-holds-barred production, powered by commendably raw performances from Drew and O’Neill, who are required to spend a not-inconsiderable amount of time in graphic, fruitless attempts at lovemaking. From our lofty position, we feel like voyeurs. An intriguing evening.
Until 8 November (020 7565 5000).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (2)
How dare you!
That play was absolutly Amazing.
Amanda Drew's performance was out-standing. Her best performance in four years.
I definitely didn't waste my money as I enjoyed it very much, the dialogue was great, the acting was spot-on by both Amanda and Con!
I do admit there were parts in the play which were slightly iffy,
but it's still very excruciating to know you didn't enjoy 'Faces in the Crowd'.
I do Apologize if I sound Touchy.
I'm sure he only wrote the scripts like that because he wanted it to be clear. It may not be irrelevant by any meaning what so ever. It just may seem slightly on the irrelevant side to you.
- April Parkinson, Bristol, 27/10/2008 23:06
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The worst play I have seen all year. One hour forty minutes felt like one year and forty days. Risible dialogue, poorly drawn characters with no understandable motivation for their behaviour. The male travelled the Thespian gamut of hangdog to Mr Shouty and back again, whilst the female went from miserable to miserable uber and so on for the duration of this interminable play. We were also subjected to bad sex followed by various gormless speeches of the 'society is to blame' and 'feminism promised me....' variety followed by yet more bad sex. This play seemed to have been directed by someone on vallium so I checked the script to see where the blame for this travesty could be laid - author or director - only to find pages and pages of irrelevant authorial stage 'direction' which had been yawningly followed to the letter by the director e.g. Joanne picks up glass. She sips. She places glass back down. She wanders about. She stares out of window, etc, etc. For pages! Avoid.
- Sine Murray, london, 26/10/2008 11:57
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