ένα υπέροχο θεατρικό έργο στο Λονδίνο

Ο Alexi Kaye Campbell είναι μισός Έλληνας και μισός Εγγλέζος και έχει καταφέρει να κρατήσει από τις δύο καταγωγές του ό,τι καλύτερο μπορούσαν να του διαθέσουν: την ελληνική ζεστασιά και οικειότητα και την ευεργετική εγγλέζικη απόσταση. Προσθέστε το humor, την ικανότητα παρατήρησης των ανθρώπων και μία έμφυτη καλοσύνη που διαθέτει ο Αλέξης σύν μία πλατειά μόρφωση (ελληνική και αγγλική) για να γίνει κατανοητό πώς ένας ηθοποιός γράφει τόσο καλά από τα πρώτα του έργα. Ίσως γιατί ήταν ηθοποιός.


΄Ολες αυτές οι αρετές του αποτυπώνονται και στα δύο του θεατρικά έργα: το Pride που δυστυχώς μόνο διάβασα (βλ. κριτικές στο τέλος) και το Apologia που παίζεται τώρα στο Bush Theatre.

Για το Pride έχω να πώ ότι είναι ένα κείμενο καλογραμμένο και σπαρακτικό. Θα το ήθελα να παιχτεί στην Ελλάδα γιατί είμαστε αιώνες πίσω στο θέμα των ομοφυλόφιλων και της αποδοχής (πόσο μάλλον της περηφάνειας). Το εύρημα της παράλληλης χρονικής ανάπτυξης του θέματος είναι πολύ ενδιαφέρον.

Mε το Apologia τα πράγματα είναι διαφορετικά γιατί είδα και την παράσταση. Ο Αλέξης ευτύχησε να έχει καλή σκηνοθέτιδα και εξαίρετους ηθοποιούς, απολύτως ταιριαστά με την ατμόσφαιρα του κειμένου του σκηνικά σε ένα εξαιρετικό θέατρο. Το κείμενο έχει ρυθμό, πιάνει το θέμα του από τα κέρατα, δεν πέφτει και δεν ξεπέφτει σε κανένα ολίσθημα από όσα του ανοίγονται μπροστά του λόγω θεματικής (φεμινισμός, πολιτικοποίηση του 60, σεξουαλική κακοποίηση παιδιών...). Στήνει τους χαρακτήρες του με σάρκα και οστά, με αγάπη για τα πάθη τους και με "εμπάθεια" που μπορεί να έχει ένας καθόλα μη ατσαλάκωτος (διάβαζε αυθεντικός) άνθρωπος για τους συνανθρώπους του.

Αλέξη, ευχαριστώ για το δώρο!

Apologia
By Alexi Kaye Campbell 17 June-18 July 2009
Direction Josie Rourke
Kristin Miller is an eminent and successful art historian. As a young mother, she followed her politics and vocation, storming Parisian barricades and moving to Florence. Her recent memoir secures her place in history but fails to mention her sons. Her birthday should be a time for celebration but when her son Simon decides to deliver his version of the past, everyone must confront the cost of Kristin's commitment to her passions.
Apologia is Alexi Kaye Campbell's eagerly awaited second play whose debut The Pride opened to critical acclaim at the Royal Court Theatre in November 2008.
Press Night Monday 22 June, 7pmMon - Sat 7.30pm. Saturday matinees 2.30pmSigned performance 27 June 2.30pmAudio Described performance 30 June 7.30pmCaptioned performance 1 July 7.30pm
All evening performances are now at 7.30pm and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm.Preview tickets £13 (£9 concessions)Tickets £15 (£13 concessions)
Book tickets online

κριτικές για το Pride:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/dec/02/theatre-review-pride
http://sebastiangillies.com/wordpress/?p=2323
http://hal-for-king.blogspot.com/2008/12/pride-by-alexi-kaye-campbell.html
http://www.skyarts.co.uk/theatre-drama/article/the-pride/
http://www.jjfeild.de/page8.php
http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whatson_reviews.asp?play=523
http://www.musicomh.com/theatre/features/critics-circle_0109.htm
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/show-23584271-details/The+Pride/showReview.do?reviewId=23595614

και η κριτική του Κωνσταντίνου για το Apologia

Theatre: one of these words we think we know…

Going to the theatre is not always a pleasant experience: it could be the crowds and the traffic on your way there, the stifling heat of an ad hoc play house, or the poor acoustics, the reactions of the people sitting next to you, or the play itself in those, unfortunately not so rare, occasions you leave the theatre lamenting your wasted time or simply feeling violated.

Perhaps it is a sign of our decadent times that experts and critics alike agree that if one has any kind of reaction to a performance, the latter has been successful in its function as a work of art. Regardless of whether one likes a play or not, even the slightest hint of boredom, awkwardness, impatience, or discomfort exhibited serves as an indication of communication between the artist and the audience: “Were you bored to sobs? how silly of you. This was the actual intention of the writer.” “You didn’t like the play? That’s irrelevant. It was not introduced to you in order to be liked or disliked. It’s not an acquaintance.” “You enjoyed the performance? How utterly primary.” “So it made you feel uncomfortable, didn’t it? That’s how it works, it’s brilliant.”
(…can I just say that making your Medea bark at the audience for 35 minutes while Jason is having a pedicure is uncomfortable to watch because barking and grooming are boring activities in the first place. Not to mention that sitting for two hours outside a male beauty salon next to a pound does not transport one into the heart of the myth and the literary paradigm of love and betrayal that you are shamelessly exploiting. Write your own play and talk about excessive male vanity and female aggressiveness. Actually, it doesn’t sound that bad. One could really make this work. Have naked men being groomed on stage while ferocious women bark at them and at the audience, chained to the front row of seats so they can’t get near the men. With a hint of Pasolini’s Salò and bits of the dialogue from La philosophie dans le boudoir…oh, and some glowing neon signs with words in French from Proust…hmm… who can play Jason, I wonder? we need a young Apollo for this one…

And there you have it. A brand new play. Another sign of our times: the exploitation of references, the tasteless concoction of cultural ingredients, the visible stitching of parts that make a monstrous whole, the pastiche.)

Last night I had a different experience. It was one of those rare occasions where one does not feel personally violated leaving the theatre but feels every bit of the violence with which society shapes molecules into persons. I was fortunate enough not only to meet the writer but to feel his presence in the room watching nervously his own play performed in front of friends and strangers. And then I talked to the actors and saw them walking away from the theatre, not driving in big shiny cars amidst adoring funs screaming their names and begging for autographs, but walking, holding a friend’s hand, looking for a cab or a bus, like all of us do when we finish work. That is theatre at its best. Written by real people, performed by real people and witnessed by real people.

It is rather ironic how such a convention that theatre is can feel so real. For Trudy, the American character of Apologia, it would be like leaving church after the liturgy. For me it was like a present one gets unexpectedly, and the original joy of opening the box to find out what it contains lasts well beyond realising that one loves the present. It is a present one always carries around, like the memory of first love or the wealth of friendship.

I don’t suppose one needs these ideal conditions to experience the magic of good theatre. Apologia, however, creates these conditions from within. The seemingly simple interplay of characters, mother, sons, friend, lover, in an intimate setting of a country-house kitchen involves the audience immediately. The comedy grips your attention initially, and then the choreography of empathy begins and one’s perspective is continuously shifting from mother to son, from daughter-in-law to friend, from absent father to the person sitting next to you, from people you know to those you are bound to meet. And this dance of gazes and perspectives, far from tiring and confusing, brings the audience to a cathartic state of understanding and accepting the cruel, irrational randomness of nature and society that shape us;
…effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.

It all starts with a present, the mask that Christine is offered: a symbol of disembodied otherness that signals the painful process of unravelling identities. It is left hanging on the kitchen rack, while the process of unmasking begins. This, however, does not exclude the audience, as it is a condition sine qua non for the function of theatre. We all come to the performance wearing our individual masks, some in the making, some falling apart form the wear and tear of time, some badly adjusted or loose. When the lights go down and the silence begins, unable to pretend or defend these identities, our masks come off and suddenly we are as naked as the people on stage.

We are not objective witnesses to someone else’s comico-tragic encounter with others. We are these others and, at the same time, it is us who are having these encounters. Actors are members of the public who offer their representation, like doctors offer diagnoses, and lawyers advice. And what we witness is not a well-tempered display of the author’s cleverness or wisdom, but a ritual of affect: a collective exercise in significant presence.
In last night’s performance in the Bush Theatre, the unbearable heat of the room, the scary proximity to the action in the middle, the bodies of those others next to you, made the claustrophobic interaction of the play all the more powerful for the audience.

The dreaded moment of visiting this stranger that you are supposed to get to love, because they belong to your loved one’s family; or of sitting around the table with family and friends that claim to know you and love you in so many different ways that you feel torn to pieces by the time dinner is over. And the comedy starts as it is one’s only weapon to avoid awkwardness, and the minefields of memory. We laugh along because it eases the pain of watching the innocent American girl targeted by Christine’s intellectual snobbery. The son’s embarrassment that quickly turns into hastily disguised anger is too familiar. And equally painful to watch; as is Christine’s frailty underneath the tough exterior of an academic dinosaur, an accomplished professional, a highly educated woman of superior intelligence. And the tragedy begins to slip under funny retorts, cruel innuendos, and witty remarks of a Wildean quality.

Authors, directors, and audiences often treat drama as a circus or, worst, as a freak show. What is it to be inspired by, or re-interpret ancient texts and mythological characters in such a way that the only novelty the audience is presented with is to have a peek into what it is like to marry one’s own mother, or be the absolute bunny boiler by replacing bunny with the off-springs of one’s betrayed love, than to visit a freak show? In the 20th century Eugene O’ Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller showed a different path by writing about ordinary people and their tragedies in suburban middle-class houses and backyards.

Along these lines Apologia presents ordinary people at that significant moment of realising an extraordinary thing: that what ever we are and what ever we do is in response to someone else. And by recreating in the theatrical laboratory the conditions of sustained pressure that define human relations and family ties, the author forces the audience to participate in a collective ritual of understanding, revelation, and forgiveness: the bearing of wounds, a glimpse of personal truth, and a foretaste of acceptance of who we are and where we came from.