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Hannah And Hanna -
Tour
Playwright - John Retallack
Director - John Retallack
Designer - Phil Newman
Music Director - Karl James
Choreographer - Andy Howitt
Company - Company
of Angels presented by UK
Arts International
Cast see end of review
Venues & Dates - see end of review
Seen to review at Tron Theatre Glasgow
Run Time - 1 hours 45 mins including 15 mins interval
Reviewer - Thelma Good
High calibre, well aimed and entertaining
Two 16 year old girls sharing the same name but Hannah sees not a potential
friend but foreign scum in Hanna who were put in Margate with her brother
Alvin and her mother after travelling across Europe in the back of a locked
lorry. Albanian Kosovans, they're taunted and shunned for being asylum
seekers, words we have perverted into a modern definition of leper. By
creating truthful teenage characters, both these young actors have us
routing for them from the beginning as they speak to us as if we are their
concience or their friends.
Staged in a succession of short, punchy scenes, at first the girls' encounters
are spiky and hard, for Hannah, Jenny Platt, has a lot of anger
about her place being "invaded". Even though her elder policeman
brother Joe is guarding the hotel Hanna, Erin Brodie, has been
put in, Hannah like her peers and boyfriend Bullfrog, believes in England
for the English. But things begin to change the night she finds that she
and her namesake are both pulling her boyfriend away to stop him kicking
Alvin's head.
There's a lively, creative use of modern songs from the well voiced two
including Tragedy, It's got to be Perfect and I Should Be So
Lucky, the sung emotions and sentiments adding to the urgent, difficult
feelings the young women confront. Andy Howitt's choreography ensure that
the night the Kosovans' football gets seized by Bullfrog, the attacks
they suffered or just the loose limbed, energy filled dance routines they
perform fit into the tautly directed production.
When the show ends Retallack's script keeps you thinking, why do we have
borders, why do we hate or love someone, does knowing someone make a difference,
and is the way we treat foreigners in the UK right. Retallack's play and
production won a Fringe First in 2001 and this production confirms its
high calibre and well aimed writing, production and acting. It's an entertaining
multi-issue play, these are people you rejoice with and worry about, like
the story it shows, Hannah and Hanna makes you feel warmer to your fellowhuman
even if she comes from out of town but would we befriend or stand up for
her?
© Thelma Good 25 September 2002. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast:
Hannah Jenny Platt
Hanna Erin Brodie
Theatre's production of Hannah and Hanna
Scottish Dates
24 - 28 Sep at Glasgow Tron Theatre 0141 552 4267
then tours in England return to Scotland on
28 Oct at Kirkcaldy Adam Smith Theare 01592 412 929
29 Oct at Cumbernauld Theare 01236 732 887
30 Oct at Stirling macRobert Centre 01786 466 666
31 Oct at East Kilbride, Village Theatre 01355 248 669
then tours to Belfast
4 - 5 Nov at Belfast Old Museum Arts Centre 028 9023 3332
returns to England for 9 more dates finally ending on
23 Nov at Ludlow Assembly 01584 878 141
End of tour
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