This surely has to be the most impossible review ever. I have nothing to go off, except the title of the play and the name of the writer, Marie Greenhalgh. I cannot find any more information about this play, the company or the performers anywhere. Of course there was no programme, and since I had to leave directly at the end in order to get to another theatre for an evening show, and this one ran late, I could not stay to ask.
The Small Performance Space is actually a tiny circular area of the floor in the centre of the first floor exhibition at The People's History Museum, and is separated from the exhibits by nothing more than a grey curtain. There was some sound from the outside during the performance but nothing too much and too often thankfully. The space seated a maximum of 20 people with the tiniest stage area I have ever encountered. It was cramped and claustrophobic.
Before the play started two ladies spoke a little; one from the Museum introducing this performance as part of Manchester Histories' Festival, and the second lady I can only assume to have been the writer, as she felt the need to say a few words about the play beforehand - which would have been better in a programme surely. Apparently the play's characters and dialogues are real, and are taken from the memories of the elderly of Wythenshawe where the writer works as a Volunteer Companion to the elderly. The first scene / play is about the friendship of two girls who are thrown together in The Women's Land Army during World War 2. The second scene / play sees one of these girls married to a German Jew in Manchester if the late 50s, and their experiences of racism and integration. The third scene / play then come right up to the present day and we are the funeral of Len. And apart from Len being the granddad of the two actors on stage, we know no more about him or how he fits into the scheme of things.
The play itself was really rather poor and badly written. It consisted in fact of three separate plays which could easily have been performed as such and not as a triptych. The first two were connected but the third had no connection at all, save that the male character in it states that he had once met the male character from the second play! To be honest, the plays would work much better in an Alan Bennett Talking Heads style. All three playlets were duologues and all spoke directly to the audience or just simply narrated the story; hardly if ever actually acting to and with each other. If one character was written out of the playlet, and the other character was given a longer monologue to simply narrate, this would maybe have worked better.
Despite the smallness and intimacy of the space, I was still struggling to hear some of the cast - especially the females. The two male characters, one in the second play and one in the third, were by far the strongest and most convincing.
Sadly though I was bored and fidgeting after the first five minutes. They whole thing failed to sustain my interest in any way, and I found it all very insubstantial and inconsequential. I didn't understand the relevance of the title to the first two playlets, unless of course the third playlet was at the wake of the main character from the second - but it wasn't!
Further critique is somewhat pointless without knowing more about the company, the project and the cast. Suffice to say that it did not pull me to particularly want to know more in any case, and it simply failed to entertain or educate.
Reviewer: Mark Dee
Reviewed: 9th June 2016
North West End Rating: ★
