Tag Archives: The Print Room

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“Judgement Day” at the Print Room

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Having just celebrated its first anniversary, a spectacular year that has seen this new theatre run by Lucy Bailey and Anda Winters establish itself as an essential fringe venue, The Print Room presents Judgement Day. The play is a new version of Ibsen’s last work When We Dead Awaken that the adaptor Mike Poulton describes as Ibsen’s ‘confession’ about the price paid for a life lived for art.

Arnold Rubek, a renowned sculptor, is the kind of Romantic artist who’s hard to like and easy to mock. Quick to proclaim his genius and espouse aesthetics, he is aware that he has ‘sold out’. In a loveless marriage and on a constant holiday, he re-encounters his first muse, Irena – an ‘association’ neither of them has ever recovered from. Michael Pennington is engrossing as the objectionable Rubek, taking us past the character’s pomposity to make him profound.

Poulton’s version makes Ibsen’s concerns seem fresh and he brings out the master’s lighter touch when it comes to the women who have suffered from being in Rubek’s life. Sara Vickers plays Rubek’s much younger wife, Maia, brimming with intelligence and frustrated sexuality. She is so bored that when a dashing baron arrives on the scene, she’s willing to accept a trip to see his dogs being fed as a first date. Where Maia is full of life, Irena, Rubek’s old muse, lives in the past. Penny Downie convinces in this hugely difficult role, toying with her character’s ambiguity and succeeding in being always believable. No easy task when you’re being followed around by a nun as your rather Gothic fashion accessory.

Judgement Day is heavy on symbolism but Poulton’s text and James Dacre’s direction also deliver a gripping human drama. The language is poetically satisfying and accessible, giving you plenty to ponder on at the end of the play’s 80-minute run. The Print Room has a hit on its hands and, while you are buying your ticket, take my advice and book up for its next production, Uncle Vanya, at the same time.

Until 17 December 2011

www.the-print-room.org

Photo by Sheila Burnett

Written 22 November for The London Magazine

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“One for the Road” and “Victoria Station” at The Print Room

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One for the Road and Victoria Station are two short works by Notting Hill local Harold Pinter, and what would have been his neighbourhood theatre, the Print Room, provides a rare chance to see these disturbing, powerful mini-masterpieces together for the first time since their premiere in 1984.

Victoria Station is a Kafkaesque dialogue between a taxi driver and his controller – darkly comic with a sinister twist and only ten minutes long. One for the Road is a violent, sadistic interrogation drama (with a nod to Orwell and its date of composition) that lasts a truly harrowing half-hour.

Keith Dunphy is superb as the taxi controller in the first work – Pinter’s humour is slippery and needs intelligence to pull it off. Kevin Doyle takes centre stage in the second piece, playing the brutal questioner with a spine-chilling wish to be “scrupulous”. Jeff James’s direction retains the intensity of the writing and Alex Lowde’s design, looking like an installation from an art gallery, enhances the bizarre atmosphere.

Both pieces are at once obtuse and complex. It is remarkable that such short works can generate so much speculation and carry such emotion. The evening is one that Pinter fans simply shouldn’t miss.

Until 1 October 2011

www.the-print-room.org

Then transferring to the Young Vic 6 – 15 October 2011

www.youngvic.org

Written 21 September 2011 for The London Magazine

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“Snake In The Grass” at the Print Room

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For their second production at London’s new theatre, The Print Room, artistic directors Lucy Bailey and Anda Winters have chosen Alan Ayckbourn’s 2002 play Snake in the Grass. It’s a delightfully dark romp involving murder and a haunted tennis court, and the strength of this production confirms that London has an unmissable new venue on its cultural scene.

Bailey directs and deals with Ayckbourn’s black humour in a speedy, efficient fashion; she gets the laughs and spends time on the moving revelations that haunt the characters and give the play its real bite. With the audience sitting like spectators on either side of William Dudley’s spectral, derelict tennis court we are ready to watch a deadly game.

And the cast is equally compelling. Susan Wooldridge plays Annabel. Returning to the UK upon the death of her father, she has to deal with blackmail and an estranged sister who “accidentally” overdosed her father and pushed him down the stairs. Wooldridge is utterly convincing as a disappointed, yet practical woman. When she deals with her sister Miriam’s distress by waving a conciliatory handkerchief as if to shoo her away, you can tell that every movement in this performance is under control.

Sarah Woodward takes on messed-up Miriam with similar intelligence. Described as the gentlest of creatures but also criminally stupid, nobody really knows Miriam and Woodward plays her character mercurially. As for the blackmailer, Mossie Smith’s Alice is delicious to watch as she threatens the sisters and suggests their plans to move to Fulham be abandoned in favour of a caravan park!

Snake in the Grass isn’t just one for the die-hard Ayckbourn fans. With Bailey’s fantastic production getting the most out of the play, it’s game, set and match to The Print Room.

Until 5 March 2011

www.the-print-room.org

Photo by Sheila Burnett

Written 15 February 2011 for The London Magazine

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“Fabrication” at The Print Room

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The Print Room is a new theatre for London – and that, in itself, deserves applause. Artistic directors Anda Winters and Lucy Bailey, and BBB Marketing, which owns the building, should get a standing ovation for what they have achieved.

The Print Room’s first production, Fabrication by Pier Paolo Pasolini, is directed by Bailey. She is a bold director, intelligent and inventive. Indeed, Bailey’s only shortcoming seems to be her misplaced passion for Pasolini.

A caveat – I have never enjoyed Pasolini’s work. The Print Room has the coup of premièring his plas in this country, but it is hard not to resist the flippant response that we can see now why nobody else has beaten them to it. It turns out that Pasolini has a lot to say about theatre. But then he has a lot to say about everything. Trouble is, he doesn’t say any of it very well.

Despite Jamie McKendrick’s poetic translation being frank and direct, it cannot get past Pasolini’s perversely Baroque approach, which forces so many ideas on the audience they become opaque. There is no doubt an argument in the text for this. Pasolini toys with irony and the idea of a meaningless tragedy, just as he plays with plenty of other notions. The problem is that none of his arguments is satisfactorily developed.

What makes the evening all the more frustrating is how good the acting is. Jasper Britton gives a stunning performance as a Milanese industrialist who falls in love with his son, who is played with great passion by Max Bennett. Geraldine Alexander and Letty Butler are both wonderful as the mother and girlfriend who attempt to engage with this twisted Oedipal story. Martin Turner plays Sophocles in appropriately ghostly fashion and remarkably transforms himself into a beggar for the play’s final scene. Janet Fullerlove also has a great turn as a fortune teller, giving a highly nuanced performance that manages to add genuine drama.

All perform within designer Mike Britton’s clever set – a rectangular pen in the centre of the theatre that the audience peers into. And yet we return to the problem of what they are asked to perform: Fabrication is wilfully obtuse. But everything else about this production bodes well for the future of The Print Room, and supporting the venue cannot be endorsed enough. I just can’t wait for a different play.

www.the-print-room.org

Until 4 December 2011

Written 19 November 2010 for The London Magazine