Tag: HighTide Festival

  • Brenda – stage review: ‘detached from the commonplace’

    Brenda Alison O’Donnell as Brenda Jack Tarlton as Robert. Photograph: Nobby Clark
    Curious relationship… Alison O’Donnell and Jack Tarlton in Brenda. Photograph: Nobby Clark

    In E.V. Crowe’s new play, coming to The Yard following its debut at HighTide festival, security guard Robert drags his reluctant girlfriend Brenda (Alison O’ Donnell) to their local Community Action Group. He hopes that sharing their story might persuade their neighbours to help the down-on-their-luck couple out.

    But while Robert, played by an ashen-faced Jack Tarlton, might be fretting over flats and the future, this isn’t what worries Brenda. She stares at the audience with a hunted look, her feet have left tar-like black prints across the floor and she can’t seem to say her own name. An explanation, of sorts, comes when she tells Robert matter-of-factly she is actually “not a person”.

    Sparse dialogue and slow dramatic action mean the roles are challenging but with Caitlin Mcleod’s direction Tarlton and O’Donnell give a convincing portrayal of this curious relationship. Robert is in turn cajoling and gentle as he persuades Brenda into taking the mic – he sings Bowie’s ‘Starman’ to encourage her to loosen up, electrocutes himself repositioning fans to cool her down but then calls her “selfish” when she won’t do as he asks.

    Later (the community group has still not arrived) there are fun moments tinged with pathos when Robert humours Brenda by “pretending to be upwardly mobile”. They mime getting a dog, calling it Colin, having friends over and burning the dinner. Brenda goes to put Colin outside and Robert catches eyes with the audience, as he slowly mimes washing up – will she return or is the game over? She does come back, but not for long.

    Like Mersault, the existentialist hero of Albert Camus’ L’Etranger, Brenda seems detached from the commonplace. But the audience doesn’t see her reach any kind of affirmation under the glare of the community hall spotlight.

    On paper the play says it explores what life would look like ‘free from the challenges of being a person’ – but rather than being liberated, for most of the play Brenda is just a non-person shackled to the banality of everyday human existence. And then she is through the fire exit and gone.

    Perhaps Brenda finds her freedom, but we can’t know how that pans out, and a lack of context or backstory means we’re left as indifferent as she is to what becomes of her.

    Brenda is at the The Yard, Unit 2a Queen’s Yard, White Post Lane, E9 5EN until 17 October

    www.theyardtheatre.co.uk

  • Radical play Brenda reflects on nature of being human

    Photograph: Dan Pick
    Photograph: Dan Pick

    An intriguing new play opening at the Yard this month has at its core the central question of what would life would look like “free from the everyday challenges of being a person.”

    Brenda, which transfers this month from the HighTide Festival in Suffolk, was inspired by playwright E.V. Crowe’s instinctive feeling about the nature of the self.
    “This feeling was so strong, I had to write about it,” Crowe says. “Once I had written a character who could say out loud ‘I’m not a person’ it felt like such a denial of everything we consider natural and true.”

    From this radical starting point, the play has been developed alongside acclaimed director Caitlin McLeod through a process of experimentation. The play was built as the rehearsal process unfolded, with everyone in the room contributing to what the production will be.

    “It’s a terrifying way to work in some respects,” Crowe admits. “But we think it will make the play more alive and real than other ways of working.”

    Crowe honed her playwriting as a member of the Royal Court Young Writers Programme Super Group. Her classmates at the time reading like a who’s who of today’s hot young playwrights: Nick Payne, Anya Reiss, Penelope Skinner.

    And although she had completed a MA in playwriting prior to her involvement at the Royal Court, she says it was her experience there that really showed her the possibility of becoming a playwright.

    Brenda is clearly at home amongst the challenging and unorthodox work which has come to characterise The Yard theatre, and which has won it such a loyal following across London.

    Previously Crowe’s work has been about very distinct subject matter but when talking about Brenda she can’t help but describe it in the abstract. “The play is about the unknown, the unknowable leaking out and disrupting all that we consider real,” she says.

    Ultimately Crowe wants the audience to experience the play on a “guttural, instinctive level. So even if there were no words, or you didn’t speak English, you’d ‘feel’ the play anyway.”

    Crowe is a big fan of East London and an advocate for young people breaking into the arts. Before becoming a full-time writer she worked for a youth project in Tower Hamlets. “There is so much talent in East London it’s crazy,” she says. “All young people ever need is an opportunity and then the confidence and support to take it.

    “I haven’t worked at The Yard before but I love their work and their approach, and that they’re willing to take big risks on artists and ideas.”

    Brenda is at The Yard, Unit 2A, Queen’s Yard, White Post Lane, E9 5EN from 22 September – 17 October
    theyardtheatre.co.uk