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Theatre index>
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Reviews of productions
directed by Vicky Featherstone.
who will be the inaugural Director of the National Theatre of Scotland
from November 1 2004.
EdinburghGuide reviews of shows she has directed
for Paines Plough and Graeae.
also
Other shows she has and will directed elsewhere.
Background
Vicky Featherstone's NToS appointment - News
and reaction.
Reviews
The Drowned World by Gary Owen. seen 2003. Company
- Paines Plough in assoc. with Graeae.
Tiny Dynamite by Abi Morgan. seen 2002 Company
- Paines Plough.
Crazy
Gary's Mobile Disco by Gary Owen seen 200 . Company -
Paines Plough.
Splendour by Abi Morgan. seen 2001. Company
- Paines Plough.
The Drowned World by Gary Owen. Company - Paines Plough
in assoc. with Graeae.
Seen at the Traverse Edinburgh as part of their
2002 Fringe Programme.
Reviewer Daniel Winterstein.
Paines Plough in association with Graeae's new show is a masterpiece of
black humour. Torture, murder and the extinction of the human race (in
the most miserable way) are all are grist for Gary Owen's dark jokes.
Drowned World presents a brutal totalitarian state where surface beauty
is all that matters. The ugly people have taken control, and are exterminating
all who are beautiful. Why, they reason, should they be reminded of their
failings?
The title is probably a reference to Victor Hugo's comment that ideas
and values cannot be killed anymore : "The new world which emerges
from the chaos will see the ideas of the drowned world soaring above it,
winged and full of life." The triumphant ugly people have not found
freedom - they are still trapped by their old failings and selfish desires.
If I have to fault this play - and I am hesitant to do so - it would be
that it hits out at an easy target (the worship of beauty and the destructive
shame associated with being ugly), and that none of the characters are
ever properly fleshed out into believable people.
The plot, which revolves around a couple on the run, has lots of tension,
driving the play along at a fair rate. The set fits this strange dark
fantasy well. It has - appropriately enough - a slightly creepy underwater
feel. The style is disjointed, freely mixing different locations together,
and frequently switching between dialogue and narration. This suits the
dry humour of the play which the cast deliver perfectly. The result is
very nasty, and very funny.
© Daniel Winterstein. 5 August 2002 -
Originally published on EdinburghGuide.com in Festival Section.
The text is published by Meuthen Drama www.methuen.co.uk
Tiny Dynamite by Abi Morgan. Company - Paines Plough.
Seen at the Traverse Edinburgh as part of their 2001 Fringe Programme.
Reviewer Thelma Good.
This is a quietly moving play whose fine actors Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett
and Jasmine Hyde bring to life a story quiet but powerful in its effect.
It lets you glimpse how odd things are to someone who doesn't understand
them like so called normal people do.
Anthony encounters lightening at the age of six and his take on the world
is permanently changed, he becomes obsessed with freak accidents. His
friend Lucien the shy boy tries to look after his disconnected friend.
In adulthood their relationship is still like very young boys. The current
between them changes when they encounter Madeleine at the holiday resort
they are staying at.
With a simple set of a diagonally planked square and a background of dangling
light bulbs, this first production of Abi Morgan's new play is visually
satisfying in its simplicity. Directed by Vicky Featherstone it's interweaved
narrative shows the confusion which can happen in a person whose view
of reality is subtly different from our own. This play and its production's
beauty and depth contains a scene of such intensity to make the hairs
of on your arms stand up on end. On till 25 not 13 at various times
© Thelma Good 5 August 2001 - Originally published
on EdinburghGuide.com in Festival Section.
Splendour by Abi Morgan. Company - Paines Plough.
Seen at the Traverse Edinburgh as part of their 2000 Fringe
Programme.
Reviewer Thelma Good.
Four women wait in a affluent home for a man to arrive. One is his wife,
another is her friend, the other two are strangers- a photographer and
her interpreter. Abi Morgan's characters talk as they wait, sometimes
to each other, sometimes to themselves. At times the dialogues goes back
on itself and starts again an exchange that we have heard before. As the
play progresses the rewind and replay buttons are pressed more often until
it becomes tenser and tenser, and more and more disturbing.
This is an extremely well cast production of a play where the actors,
Mary Cunningham, Faith Flint, Myra McFadyen and Eileen Walsh, directed
by Vicki Featherstone combined to make a fascinating text absorbing theatre.
It captures so well the way women relate, using words and body language,
at first with a bland courtesy and then the fingernails slowly emerge
to become honed talons.
My only reservation is about the set which had a swimming pool bottom
as the floor, on which were placed some items of posh furniture and above
was hung the rim of a swimming pool. Whilst it is mentioned in the text
I don't think that the very realistic look of the swimming pool rim quite
worked as well as a rather more stylised one would have done.
© Thelma Good August 2000 - Originally published on EdinburghGuide.com
in Festival Section.
Other Major productions that Featherstone has
directed for Paines Plough include - On Blindness by Glyn Cannon, The
Cosmonaut's Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet
Union by David Greig, Crave by Sarah Kane; Sleeping Around by Stephen
Greenhorn, Hilary Fannin, Abi Morgan and Mark Ravenhill; and Crazyhorse
by Parv Bancil.
Next year, Ms Featherstone with Paines Plough is due to launch a season
"This Other England" of four world premieres at the Menier
Chocolate Factory in London by Enda Walsh, Philip Ridley, David Greig
and Douglas Maxwell. David Greig's and Douglas Maxwell's plays are co-productions
with The Tron, Glasgow, and Dundee Rep respectively and will be seen in
those theatres. Also starting next year is the off-Broadway production
of Abi Morgan's Tiny Dynamite, also directed by Featherstone, and a children's
opera, developed with Improbable
Theatre.
Ms Featherstone's recent awards include two prestigious TMA (Theatrical
Management Association) Awards in 2001 for Best Play and Best Director
for Splendour; and three Fringe First Awards - in 2003 (The Drowned World),
2001 (Splendour) and 1999 (Riddance).
Vicky Featherstone's NToS appointment - News
and reaction.
Background of Vicky Featherstone - She
spent much of her early childhood in Scotland, attending primary school
in Alva, Clackmannanshire, before moving to India with her family. She
has worked in Scotland for a significant part of her career and has spent
many years forming fruitful relationships and collaborations with established
Scottish writers such as David Greig, Douglas Maxwell, Gregory Burke,
Mike Cullen, Stephen Greenhorn, David Harrower and Linda McLean, to produce
some of their most exciting work. Linda MaLean and David Grieg both have
work being produced by the Traverse Theatre company and premiering at
the Traverse in Edinburgh at the
2004 Fringe.
Ms Featherstone is also well known as a champion of other world-class
writers, including Mark Ravenhill, Sarah Kane, Abi Morgan and Gary Owen.
Her extensive international work includes international tours with Paines
Plough and master-classes for foreign companies visiting the UK. She recently
directed Caryl Churchill's A number for the National Theatre of Slovenia
and has worked in Mexico, Finland, Sweden, Italy and Lithuania.
Vicky Featherstone's NToS appointment - News
and reaction.
Theatre Editor, Thelma
Good's e-mail is thelma@edinburghguide.com
Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted
for any errors or omissions.
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