The Pillowman

Apologies in advance for my terrible spelling. I'm tired. And a bit grumpy. It's a real pity when a great show gets crap audiences. Last night was the opening night of The Pillowman, and there were about eight people in the audience. It deserved to be a sell-out. It's one of those shows that demonstrates what we in Am Dram are actually capable of when we take risks, cast well, work hard and pick the right play. The Pillowman is set in a totalitarian state and begins with an interrogation of a writer. And that's pretty much all I want to say about the actual story because an important part of the experience is watching it all unfold. I will say that it's brilliant, dark and hilariously funny. For those who saw WAAPA's fantastic production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore last year, it's written by the same guy, Martin McDonagh. I'm pretty sure that after people in Perth have seen it, it won't be long before it's produced again by another club. The production its self is great. The direction is seamless and invisible. I think the director, Matt Longman, knew what a gem of a play he had on his hands, and avoided trying to do anything flashy. His main job was to keep the quite long play interesting, compelling and well paced, and he suceeded beautifully. I never felt the time passing. I will say that I thought the set could have been used more innovately to minimise the set changes. At one stage a matress was brought on for a scene only to be taken off and a different one bought on for the next scene. I thought there might be a way to utilise the space to make it seamless. Otherwise the set was perfect. I'm not a fan of the box set, I think a great production doesn't need one, and this is a perfect example of respecting an audience enough to use one or two peices of set to create a whole world. The acting was wonderful. It's a credit to the strength of the rest of the cast that Michael Hodgen's Tupolski didn't completely overshadow all of them. He's fantastic. His energy and focus never flagged. The role could so easily have been a characiture but never stepped too far into theatrics, because underneath the histronic manner is a well crafted and complete character. The gorgeous Phil Barnett's Ariel was a lovely contrast, naturalistic, troubled, resentful. His arc and levels were obvious without being laboured. I thought he allowed himself to be cowed a little by Hodgen's powerhouse performance at the very beginning, probably a function of Phil's natural modesty, but the scene in which Ariel finally gets his own time to tell his story was really lovely. By the end of the show my idea of his character had changed completely, which was the way it was meant to be, and some of Phils choices which had confused me made perfect sense. David Bowyer as Katurian was also great. His palpable fear in the first scene set the play up beautifully. His job was the hardest, and his character goes through an incredible amount during the course of the play. I believed in his experience totally, even with the odd line flub. The only critisism I would have is that in the third scene I didn't feel his reaction to the Revelation. He says some pretty horrible things and I wasn't sure why or how he felt about what was going on. He seemed a little matter of fact. But that's really just nit picking in an otherwise great performance of a very difficult role. Rod Worth as Michal is lovely onstage. His timing is great, so as you watch him you veer between horror, hilarity and pity. Sometimes during the course of a few minutes. The third scene is long, but I never felt it because of the lovely natural relationship between the writer and his brother. David Young and Marie Corrigan were both lovely, as were the kids Callum Fletcher and Jessica Mews. Tiny parts, but done with gusto and committment. I had some problems with the lighting. I liked the dim dinginess of it all, but there were a couple of points where I lost the actors faces. I talked to the cast afterwards though and apparantly there had been a technical problem which will be sorted for the rest of the run. So basically, The Pillowman is really really good. It's a great production of an amazing play. Don't let the words "dark and twisted" put you off. While they're both applicable, the play is also very very funny, very well directed, very well acted and very enjoyable. Go. Leah