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Bread And Butter
- Tour.
This play was first performed in 1966 at Cochrane Theatre London and was
the frist of C P Taylor's plays to tour abroad..
Playwright - C P Taylor.
Director - Mark Rosenblatt.
Designer - Jon Bausor.
Lighting Designer - Philip Gladwell.
Company - Dumbfounded Theatre email
& Oxford Stage Company.
Cast - here .
Venue - Traverse Theatre Edinburgh.0131
228 1404.
Dates - 17 - 21 June at 8pm also 2:30pm on 21
June
2003 Scottish Tour Dates and Times - here .
Seen to review at Traverse Theatre.
Run Time - 2hours 40 mins including 15 mins interval.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
A well filled round.
Bread and Butter - Dumbfounded Theatre Production.
Morris - John Stahl, Sharon - Emma D'Inverno and Alec - Michael
Wilson.
© Jonathan Kent 2003.
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Morris is always looking for the political upside to history's events.
His friend Alec just looks on the bright side, he too works in Morris's
father's factory . They are both Glaswegians and Jewish. Written in 1966,
and covering the times from 1931 to the 60's, Bread And Butter still gives
a well filled round of things to think about, served with a good helping
of comic lines. Comic mainly because of the characters' interactions,
as they speak to each other but rarely really listen, coupled with the
skilful and well spread timing from all the actors.
Its political context echoes interestingly now, as the pension schemes
the characters all looked forward to are today under considerable threat.
And while what was once a left of centre party not so much leans right
but falls beyond into state centralist arms. In the thirties Morris welcomes
Hitler, trying to defend the attacks on the Jews by saying the attacked
were only the rich capitialist ones. As the years go by Morris's search
for the Holy Grail of politics, finds him elated then disappointed time
and again as they fall from grace one by one. Taylor's script has a strong
ironic force sharpened more in our 00's than in the swinging 60s when
we thought all was becoming utopia and free.
Morris, charismatically played by John Stahl, is a larger than life character,
slightly excentric, the son of a Jewish garement maker. Spouting the Marxist
dialectic, he tries to join union after union but as long as he's the
boss's son he never gets his card. When he, his wife and four children
after the war go down in the world, living in the Gorbals, he still keeps
looking for how to make the revolution happen if not here, he despairs
of the British working class, in Palestine, or later in Ghana.
Michael Wilson's Alec is pitched just right, the kind of chap who is happy
because he doesn't care about the big picture, he's almost a simple man
who's still a boy. You warm to him instantly but not quite so much to
his wife Miriam, Pauline Turner. A fellow garment worker so careful
of her pennies almost seeming to be playing houses with Alec until the
early scene where they call each other Daddy and Mummy and with a shiver
you realise that is all they have instead of the patter of tiny feet.
There's immense sadness lurking in the play and in Mark Rosenblatt's well
pointed directed production. When Miriam looks at Alec talking to Sharon,
Emma D'Inverno a subtext look gives you her thought, "You would have
been more if you had married her."
Athough there's humour in the text what makes this play rise high in today's
theatre is the way Taylor kneads in the subtext and the conundrum of living
in the world whether you want to change it or just survive and have a
little happiness. And the pinch of salt in his recipe which adds dramatic
savour are the two marriages where, from less than best, the couples find
a flawed but yet emotional glue.
© Thelma Good 17 June 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast: Morris - John Stahl, Alec - Michael Wilson,
Miriam - Pauline Turner and Sharon - Emma D'Inverno.
2003 Tour Details Bread and Butter - Dumbfounded
Theatre Company and Oxford Stage Company C. P Taylor's 1960's classic
goes from Baldwin to MacMillian governments set in the Gorbals, Glasgow.
2 working class Jews sit on a park bench and chew over more than sandwiches.
Directed by Mark Rosenblatt.
11 - 14 June at 7:45pm Matinee: Sat 14 at 2.30pm. at Dundee Rep
01382 223530.
17 - 21 June at 8pm also 2:30pm on 21 June Edinburgh
Traverse 0131 228 1404.
24 - 28 June at 7:15pm Glasgow The Arches 0901 022 0300.
Tour Ends.
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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