THEATRE REVIEWS: Walking To The Ark & Reservoir Dogs

A pair of recent Derry-Londonderry productions set their sights on real history and reel history respectively

If you told me that the theatrical landscape in the still very recent City Of Culture felt a little bit barren nowadays, I'd say you wouldn't be far wrong. The city's theatre goers were frankly spoiled for choice in the years leading up to and the closing months of 2013, if not slightly beyond that. Back then, it was not uncommon to take theatrical spectaculars for granted, considering the apparent richness of the cultural landscape in the North West.

But while the money may no longer be available, at least not to the same extent, the area continues to thrive artistically, with talent both established and burgeoning keen to exhibit their skills on and off stage. Nowhere is this more visible than in a pair of recent plays performed inside and outside the city's walls. One sets its sights on real history; the other has fun with reel history.

The set design in Carlo Gebler's Walking To The Ark, directed by Kieran Griffiths, is symbolic of both history and the present day, the bumpy wooden path which separates a stately living room and a prison cell metaphorically representing the rocky travails between the bottom and top rungs of society. This is the gap between those in comfort outside the walls and those entrapped within them during the Siege Of Derry in 1689, Gebler's source of information and inspiration for the script.

Walking To The Ark's historical background revolves around the story of Williamite Colonel Thomas Whitney (Peter Hudson), his mistress Martha Darcy (Tara Breathnach) and their imprisoned, illegitimate son, the Jacobite Captain Nicholas Darcy (Dermott Hickson), giving additional resonance to a thoughtful, edgy and verbose play. The narrative, non-linear, torturous but tightly-paced, is guided humanely by Griffiths to a powerful conclusion.

Gebler's vocabulary and Griffiths' direction are ideal for Tara Breathnach, who utterly excels as Martha. At first, she is an excitable, nonsensical, even flirty mess, but Breathnach compellingly unveils the enslaved and frustrated soul within, mastering the character and capturing our attention. When she tears a Bible to shreds and hides the pages away, reflecting absorption of all guilt and regret, it is the epitome of the role and her performance, spectacularly mirroring Martha's fury and despair. Even when Peter Hudson's Thomas undresses her, she gives no quarter, her vulnerability only exposing itself once her son's situation is unveiled before our eyes.

The heart of the production lies in and emerges from the general confines of Nicholas Darcy's prison cell, watched over by Pat Lynch's creepily amusing Turnkey. While Nicholas's frustrations mirror Martha's, Turnkey, as the middle man between authority and prisoner, gradually develops from stereotypically wisecracking to the voice of reason he initially purports himself to be. The roles and positions of the colonel and captain change, Martha's agony intensifies, and Turnkey's wisdom grows, in a society that literally and fundamentally hangs by a red thread of clothing. Once again, it's metaphorical, of the ever-thinning bloodline that strains to connect a mother, father and son searching for both family and liberty. And you can't help but hope that this particular thread strengthens rather than snaps.

Blood - of the fake kind, thankfully - is everywhere to be found when the North West Regional College travel back in time to take on Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. The difference between film and play is simple, yet effective; newcomers have the chance of enjoying the 1991 classic, generally adapted word-for-word, from a more youthful angle and intimate point-of-view. Like Walking To The Ark, you need not be familiar with the source material or the inspiration to fully appreciate it.

The NWRC theatre is converted into a direct replica of the film's abandoned warehouse hideout. A table & chairs, live band and pre-recorded film & audio are also used as every single one of the film's iconic scenes are brought to life, if not necessarily in the order and manner you may expect.

For here, every single one of the coded gangsters are played by women. Amy McLaughlin, Jessica Shaw, Kristian Logan, Andrea Nic Eimeid and Clare Sweeney step into the shoes of Blue, Brown, Blonde, White and Pink respectively alongside Oisin McCool's Joe Cabot and Ryan McGlinchey's Nice Guy Eddie, while Mary Crossan & Niamh Gaffney do double duty as the partly all-action, partly heavily wounded Orange.

The solid directorial hands and heads of Liam Craig & Michael Poole point the young cast in the right direction, Sweeney, Nic Eimeid and Logan especially impressing. On the whole, Tarantino's ability to indelibly, excitably merge everyday nothings with potentially stomach-turning violence is efficiently and effectively embodied. Needless to say, these Reservoir Dogs have plenty of bite. Read more...

THEATRE REVIEW: EXiT

A one-man rock music play achieves pointed resonance through passionate performance

A winsome one-man spin on a popular formula, Eaman Craig's EXiT, directed by Colm S. Herron, hits the spot by opening up every beat in the book of the washed up, conflicted rocker in a tried, trusted but effective manner.

As the symbolically named Jonah Walker – someone trapped in a big, bloated whale of an industry who also looks tempted to walk away from it all – Craig is the personification of relatably restrained acceptance with occasional outbursts. Walker is part flamboyant, part ruffian, defined by his unshaven, unkempt, burnt out yet white suited appearance. Like a cross between Freddie Mercury at his peak and a young, hungover Roger Daltrey.

Patiently, and worryingly, Walker pours out his heart and his thoughts to the audience on a quest to find his bearings and recover his sanity. In a quest for freedom, creatively and relatively, he initially struggles to distinguish objects from humans, talking to a Henry hoover as if it is a real person and likening past girlfriends to record companies. He is wrestling with the decision to join a record company or stay independent, and Craig delivers Walker's words with a cutting, direct precision, getting to the heart of his character's dilemma and state of mind.

The varying paths of a musician, both as a person and an artist, are concisely documented and well expressed through numerous moods, memories and musings, which you almost certainly suspect will result in new lyrics if not a new deal for the mixed-up Walker.

EXiT contains plenty of wry humour, mainly arising from Walker's mimicry of others and his mockery of what people perceive him to be. It's just one part of the frustrated pressure cooker building inside Walker, which near the end, leads to his biggest rant of all: a scathing swipe at the prominence of reality shows, where contestants' dreams amount to little more than half decent cover versions. It's common sense, of course, but Craig is so passionate that he achieves the pointed resonance that we seek and Walker is searching for.

Perhaps more, too, as Craig's mere references to these supposedly star-making shows prompt a timely and necessary warning about becoming drenched in nostalgia. Unless, that is, something is done about it. And perhaps, if Walker finds his way again, he may well be able to do something about it. At least in his own life.

Rating: **** (out of *****)

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FILM REVIEW: Shooting For Socrates

This "football film" tries to be topical and timely but sells its cast terribly short

In analysing James Erskine's Shooting For Socrates, one has to look beyond what the film tries to do and ask why they even tried to do it to begin with. What we have here is a distinctly lightweight "historical" drama that strives for social relevance but ends up striking the wrong note on four accounts. It's a rags to riches, father and son, football and Troubles casserole that leaves either a bland or bad after taste, with a poorly thought through plot that does no justice to the cast's quality.

Set in mid-1980s Belfast and Mexico - although you wouldn't think it, given the sightings of the Hilton hotel and BT tower in the film - Shooting For Socrates tells the story of nine-year-old Tommy (Art Parkinson) growing up in a troubled neighbourhood with only his burgeoning football fandom and his wise father, Arthur (Richard Dormer), to guide and enlighten him amidst violence. Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland national team, under Billy Bingham (John Hannah), have qualified for the World Cup in Mexico, and are facing the prospect of taking on the world's best, among them a Brazil side featuring the philosophical Socrates (Sergio Mur).

Arguably, Shooting For Socrates could be much about a group of football players gunning for Socrates on the pitch as a group of terrorists focusing their lives on what they perceive Socrates' words to mean. But the film never develops this theme. Instead, the strand of young David Campbell (Nico Mirallegro, just about mastering the accent) trying to make his mark in the Northern Ireland squad is thrown in, leaving us with a film that demands more than its consciously undemanding script is willing to deal with.

While I am all for films that don't suppress their actors into their plots, that don't squeeze the life out of characters for the sake of narrative advancement and give their casts time to breathe, one should not encourage stories that give the actors almost nothing to work with. Erskine's screenplay, co-written with playwright Marie Jones, is not packed with unreasonable or ridiculous developments, but as an alternative, it offers nothing that we haven't seen before, or no one that we can care about. It comes across as clichéd, platitudinous and heavy-handed (even the death of team captain Sammy McIlroy's mother feels like a Dead Relative Ex Machina rather than the poignant moment it should be), with unconvincing recreations of football matches that capture neither the intimacy of drama nor the epic spectacle of a sporting showcase.

With the human touch of a Ken Loach or a pre-Les Misérables Tom Hooper, Erskine could have given us compelling drama in the mould of Looking For Eric or The Damned United, both of which are miles better than this hodgepodge. Instead, he skims over character in a narrative that already sells its talented cast short - and that's not merely troublesome. It's fatal. The brilliant Richard Dormer is utterly wasted, as is Bronagh Gallagher as his stereotypically stressed out wife. Fine actor though John Hannah is, his Billy Bingham is a blank slate with the wrong accent, and Nico Mirallegro fares little better, despite his best efforts. Fortunately Conleth Hill (Game Of Thrones) and Paul Kennedy (Made In Belfast) are on hand to lend humour and humanity to Jackie Fullerton and Pat Jennings respectively, at least as often as the film will let them.

Shooting For Socrates wants to be about the unifying effect of The Beautiful Game in not-so-beautiful times, but doesn't feel like it's about anything. Except, that is, a cynically calculated attempt to capitalise on the goodwill emerging from Northern Ireland's almost certain qualification for a major tournament again, exactly three decades later. Read more...