Image: In A Forest, Dark & Deep
For the cast and director, they need to have a complete understanding of the characterisations, the “moments” and dynamics of the piece. For the audience, they are being asked to invest their valuable time and their implicit trust in what is unfolding before them. Getting this wrong means the difference between tedious and riveting theatre.
On paper, Winterfall’s production of one of Neil LaBute’s most recent plays, looks like a sure winner. Both the director and actors come with impressive credentials and, within the confines of Theatre Husk’s funky theatre, we looked set for a compelling, assured but (if LaBute stays true to form) dark and treacherous ride.
Sadly, this production was fraught with lost opportunities and what seemed like a complete misunderstanding of the play, making for a frustrating and confusing night of theatre.
LaBute has written an intriguing piece. Bobby is called to a remote cabin to help his older sister Betty, a university dean, clear up the belongings of a former tenant who has done a runner. Plagued by a past that haunts them both, the two bicker and fret over a history that has seen them at odds with each other for many years. As a result, we learn the truth of Betty’s life and what she is really doing at the cabin. With a dénouement that is intriguing at best but telegraphed half way through the play, the audience should be left to wonder what will happen to these two desolate individuals, as they try and scrimmage a sense of normality from the revealed facts.
This all sounds interesting in theory but for much of this production, the play felt contrived. There was a lot of yelling through exposition that didn’t sit comfortably with the actors, coming across as forced and unnatural. As the walls of lies come crashing down, there came a point where the repetition of it all became quite tedious with a voice in the head wanting to yell “just get on with it and tell him what happened!” None of this was aided by some awkwardly staged moments including an almost laughable slap, so badly delivered as to almost sum up the production. Towards the end of the night there was a cringe worthy moment where Bobby attacks Betty. It was obviously that Michele Williams as Betty needed to be in a certain position for this to occur. She wasn’t so tried to place herself correctly thus defeating the purpose of the moment. Christopher Connelly as Bobby, AFTER attacking her, seemed to have a moment of realising that he had forgotten to kick over the coffee table, so proceeded to do so. It was clumsy and frankly, ridiculous. Hopefully this was not an intended piece of blocking. Then Connelly delivered a rabid speech with more spit than a Simon Callow one-man play, shouting it with no inflection thus rendering it ineffectual.
The major issue with the two obviously experienced and talented actors was that they weren’t believable. It all felt very stagey. Connelly was very one-note for most of the play, never letting us truly get inside this brash, damaged man. Any vulnerability shown didn’t ring true, unaided by this strange habit of looking above Williams (and the audience) a lot, thus losing a connection on a physical level. Williams spent an awful lot of time fidgeting with her hair and neck. It was incredibly annoying but there was hope she was doing it for a reason. By the end, you could almost understand the reasoning for this habit but not enough to justify how distracting it was. As a supposed university dean, this woman came across as feeble and it jarred. A stronger personality would have made the war of words between these two far more interesting and fascinating.
Denis Moore moved the cast fairly well on the functional set for the most part but needs to be largely responsible for the many mishaps with his actors within the script. Not believing these people meant we didn’t care. It makes for a very arduous almost one hour and fifty minutes. The peaks and troughs of the script felt undiscovered and what moments were found were, as mentioned, stagey and contrived.
The set, utilising the full space of the warehouse environment, worked well although I questioned the kitchen area, with its Ikea-inspired bench and furniture. It contrasted badly with the rustic, cheap tones of the lounge and dining area. And a wooden floor would have worked better than the black and white checkered look, which didn’t seem to inspire the setting we were supposedly in. The uncredited sound design of the American radio station, playing pre-show and intermittently throughout, was a great touch and one of the few inspired moments of the production. Lighting design by Nick Merrylees was also evocative and functional for the playing space.
All in all, a very disappointing production that just didn’t work on many levels. Intentions felt misplaced and an inherent understanding of the play and it characters, misguided. I wish it could be put down to opening night jitters but I suspect it runs deeper than that.
1.5 stars
In A Forest, Dark & Deep
by Neil Labute
Saturday 2 November
Directed by Denis Moore
Presented by Winterfall @ The Theatre Husk
