by “It would not be a big wedding without a blow,” is one of the many Zinger in Beth Steels demotically funny and deeply influenced the game, which unpacks a lot of social history through a summer homemade in Nottinghamshire.
Bijan Sheibanis now newly recorded was a hit in the smallest auditorium of the National Theater last February and lost a little intimacy during the transfer to the Royal Haymarket Theater – where the seats on stage make us complicit again that the wedding guests arrive – but none of his power. What a time to be alive when this, Evita and Stereophonic can coexist in the west end.
We are in Mansfield, a impoverished former mining community, which is now dominated by a huge sales camp and demographically changed by an influx of Eastern European. Sylvia (Sinéad Matthews), daughter of the widowed Miner Tony, is about to marry Marek, a starting pole that has worked through many “S *** jobs” to run his own company. The piece begins with a vortex made of galvanized female chat, hairspray and curlers as Sylvia, her sisters Hazel and Maggie, nieces Leanna and Sarah and the monstrous aunt Carol, they get ready.
It is no coincidence that this is a piece over three sisters. Steel fulfills her story with a Czechovian feeling of loss and longing. His characters who are hung when the world continues without them. It has a cosmic perspective on the course of time, but focuses intensively on personal and brings the policy of globalization to a local level.
Harcomed mother of two years Hazel (Lucy Black) suddenly has a husband, John, unemployed. Prodigal Sexpot Maggie (Aisling Loftus) is back after he flew mysteriously from the city. Sylvia watched her mother died of cancer and became her father’s helper. Tony and his own brother Pete have not spoken for 37 years because a strike post. Meanwhile, Pete’s wife Carol only wants to dance to Britney Spears and dance after sums until they barfs. (If you book seats in the front row on stage, pay attention: Those in the stands could also catch a few Flying support panties.)
The mood of the game shifts as quickly as the weather during the wedding, sunny one minute, the next. One of the hilarious sex scenes I have ever seen on stage is preceded by a slip in illegal desire, suspicion and violence. The script from Steel is moving. “This is not a language, it’s a Wi-Fi password,” says Carol from the Polish language. Maggie married one of her several husbands because he saw her “like a potato in a famine”. Steel can also nail a problem in a single sentence. “You have to decide whether you are victims or superior,” says Marek after a little damaged bigotry from Hazel, “because they cannot be both.”
Members of the original line -up and the newcomers realize seamlessly under the flowing direction of Sheibani. Matthews, Black and Loftus are heartbreakingly good as the three sisters. The shabby Alan Williams, whose presence in a line-up guarantees practically a good show, is excellent like Tony, who painfully reflects for a minute and re-enact a Tarzan impression of a lengthy social club competition in the next. Dorothy Atkinson hugs the comic part of Carol, who forever sparks the needs and shortcomings of her body with enthusiasm. Adrian Bower and Julian Kostov impress as John and Marek, but this is primarily a piece about the women.
Like the script, designer Samal Blaks deals with the guests both humor and respect. Until the stars come down, it is serious that it is serious, the turmoil.
Until the stars come down by September 27th in the Royal Theater, Haymarket, Nationaltheatre.org.uk.
