Abigail (Laura Turner, also co-writer of the play) and Mercy (Lucy Sheree Cooper) arrive in Boston, with some money and saleable articles Abigail has stolen from her uncle so, very naively, they think they can live independently and have an adventure. Of course they’re fair game for thieves and pimps.

Because she was – arguably – responsible for sending many people to their deaths as “witches” Abigail is haunted by Solvi (Sophie Jane Corner) who represents those people. The scenes between her and Turner are very strong. Corner, who uses a very deliberate non-English accent, finds a quality of moral certainty in Solvi and is a powerful presence. And if, the change in lighting and sound whenever she appears reminded me of Elivira in Blithe Spirit I managed to suppress the thought – mostly.

Turner brings a wide range of emotions to Abigail including jealousy because, like Mercy, she fancies Jack (James Green) who oozes false gentleness but is, in fact, a violent man whose only real interest is to pimp out the pair of them.  Sophie Kamal makes the landlady/Madam, Mrs Contstance, revoltingly unpleasant. The maid Milly (Sarah Isabell) is already working as a prostitute  and the seventh cast member Nathan Haymer-Bates plays several roles including the marshal, an officer of the law, and a brothel customer. The sex scenes are look-away graphic and remind us forcibly that women are easily exploited, then and now.

It’s interesting work from a new  female-led company whose mission is to tell stories which highlight issues facing women.

A word, too, about The Space –  a venue in Westferry Road near Canary Wharf, which was new to me. A former Victorian Presbyterian chapel, it’s very pretty. There are two problems, though. First the space is so lofty that there’s an acoustic issue. Sometimes the echo blurs the sound, especially when a voice is relatively high pitched. Second, there’s a bar upstairs (so theatre goers can get drinks – good)  which also doubles as a public facility with garden beside the building. That means – because of course there’s no sound proofing – that there’s the constant, distracting sound of drinkers enjoying themselves quite loudly.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/abigail/

Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando (1928) was written as a quasi homage to Vita Sackville West (author, gardener, aristocrat etc)  with whom she was in a relationship. Both women had open marriages to men. Nearly a century later Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation is fresh, lively, funny  – and, of course, very topical. We meet Orlando (Taylor McClaine) several times in different personae over five centuries variously presenting as a young man or a young woman. It’s a piece about time, transformation, sexual ambiguity and “ a great variety of selves.”

Ruhl’s script shifts continually from first person to third so that we never lose the stylistic sense of a story being told by an outsider. And bringing that off requires a great deal of speaking in synch, rapid symbolic costume change and movement round Jermyn Street’s rather awkward playing space. The cast manage it in spades. The faintly jokey physicality is fun and the whole piece dances along at speed so that it never goes off the boil.

Recent graduate from Lir Academy, Dublin and richly red-headed, Taylor McClaine gives us a well nuanced Orlando with plenty of youthful sassiness spliced with wide-eyed wonder and witty grins. Rosalind Lailey, Stanton Wright and Tigger Blaize form a chorus from which all the other roles emerge. All three provide very accomplished voice work and are good at bouncing off each other. The knowing looks between Lailey and Wright when they’re servants is a good moment and Blaize (very good)  has fun as a sex-changing suitor among many other roles. Skye Hallam’s smaller role as Sasha, a Russian princess idolised by Orlando in each incarnation is less successful.

Roly Botha’s sound design and music adds a lot to this lively, energetic production too. We get appropriate music for each era that Orlando lands in.  It underlines “the spirit of the age” which almost becomes a character in its own right  in this sparkling production.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/orlando/

Two friends attend the same school in a deprived Essex seaside town. One leaves for university, gradually finds a different sort of life and settles down with a young woman whose background is more privileged. The other stays and is unhappily sucked ever further into emotional and economic poverty. Tensions build over the eight year  narrative span and there’s a great deal of anger, angst and guilt. It’s hardly an original story although many people will identify with it.

This seventy-minute piece is Jack Condon’s first play (he also plays the confused, disappointed, furious John) for Jawbones, a new company he has set up with Sarah Stacey, who directs. Although it’s a generally pleasing debut some of the writing is laboured especially in the first half hour which includes far too much clunky expositionary dialogue. The “issues” stick out clumsily. It does, however improve as it proceeds.

But the acting is excellent.  Condon stomps about being outrageous and often furious as well as deeply flawed and hurt. As James, Theo Ancient finds calm, reasonableness in his character and we identify with him because John really is difficult to deal with. Yet there’s also a troubled complexity especially in the memorably powerful  final scene when Whitney Kehinde, now his pregnant wife, tries to confront him about his unhappiness  so that they can move on together. She is calm, determined and worried, all of which Kehinde conveys beautifully and the way the two actors bounce of each other at this point packs a real punch.

First published by Sardines:https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/if-destroyed-still-true/