| |
Theatre listings >
Theatre Index >>
Man And Superman.
First published in 1903 with John Tanner's The Revolutionist's Handbook
and Pocket Companion (A Handbook well worth a read)
Part of the 2003 Pitlochry Festival Theatre Season for full details of
the theatre &
season
here .
Playwright - George Bernard Shaw.
Director - Richard Baron.
Set Designer - Ken Harrison.
Costume Designer - Monica Nisbett.
Lighting Designer - Mark Pritchard.
Company - Pitlochry Theatre
Company .
Cast - here .
Venue - Pitlochry Theatre e-mail booking
01796 484626.
Dates and Times - here .
Run Time - 3 hours including two 1O mins intervals.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Super play brims with wit and sensuality.
Man And Superman - Pitlochry Festival Theatre Production.
Octavius Robinson - Jamie Chapman and John Tanner - Dougall Lee.
© photographer 2003.
|
OH Shaw, how we have neglected you. But after this strong , deliciously
funny and full of meat, some of it really hunky, production perhaps theatres
in Scotland will realise what enduring real life there is in this dead
playwright's words.
Every year Pitlochry fields a good company of actors and this year the
pick of the plays and the castings are superbly good. It's a delight to
see Dougal Lee as John Tanner, the central Don Juan role, handling
consummately the speed and surefootedness of Shaw's lines. Tanner is a
man in charge of his character and philosophy, and needs a actor who can
portray instinctive and full blooded charm, Lee gives us Tanner's
maverick charisma in unstinting measure, well supported by his all fellow
actors.
Not least of whom is Guy Fearon as Tanner's leather jacketed and
jodhpured cockney chauffeur, Henry Straker, a labouring man who makes
his place work for him. Educated at a polytechnic (yes they had them then)
he's every inch (and Fearon is a tall young man), a worker who's
found a place that keeps his integrity. In one of Shaw's finest written
scenes, the one between him and Tanner when the vintage car breaks down,
Lee's and Fearon's exchanges brim full of superb comic timing
as well character driven political points. Nor is the rest of the production
lacking in this combination or in the life force that Shaw was so keen
to explore on stage.
John Tanner describes himself in print as a member of the idle rich class.
He names himself so in his radical text, The Revolutionist's Handbook
and Pocket Companion. He's a man who only labours with his pen, he keeps
aloof from manual work. He finds himself the co-guardian, with old fashioned,
Roebuck Ramsden, Martyn James, of Ann Whitefield, Amanda Beveridge.
Anne's quite a direct young woman but not as direct as Violet Robinson,
Shelly Otway. Violet's announcement in the first act with Otway's
performance is rightly a stop 'em dead one.
Violet's brother Octavius is a young poet given a drippy portrayal by
Jamie Chapman in ribboned patent shoes, he's meant to irritate and
he does. Octavius is besotted with Ann, behaving like a dim fawning lap
dog. But Ann plays a long game to achieve her goal. It's a highly erotic
play and Richard Baron's direction from the beginning makes sure the play
is full of sexual pheromones culminating in an aphrodisiac rich and sensual
final scene when Tanner yields to the life force, his destiny and to Amanda
Beveridge's sharply intent Ann.
Ken Harrison's set with first scene formal room architraves and plaster
columns, converts fluently into the drive of an estate with porticoes and
distant wings of a stately house in the second. Then, as the characters
find their true natures increasingly revealed in the heat of Spain, the
columns and pediments become ruins of past Roman control. And the frocks!
Monica Nisbett has created sumptuous ones for every scene. Ribbons and flounces
and sharply tailored gowns for the females point up how the men were and
still are diverted by women's appearances and miss seeing completely, the
real female and her naked intentions.
Ian Grieve and his fellow directors have chosen very well for this 2004
Season of plays and each production will be best of the season on many peoples'
lists but for me this one stands out for the sheer exuberance of the cast
and the enduring social accuracy of this play. A century old indeed but
its examination of class, wealth and the human sexual drive ring true today,
we women still scheme and men still fall under our spell. While the rich
like the poor are still with us, the only difference is more of the former
are working, the inequity is untouched.
© Thelma Good 26 June 2003 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast:
Roebuck Ramsden - Martyn James.
Parlormaid - Fiona Steele.
Octavius Robinson - Jamie Chapman.
John Tanner - Dougall Lee.
Ann Whitfield - Amanda Beveridge.
Mrs. Whitfield - Janet Michael.
Miss Ramsden - Clare Richards.
Violet Robinson - Shelley Otway.
Henry Straker - Guy Fearon.
Hector Malone - Steven McNicoll.
Mr. Malone - Moray Treadwell.
Mendoza - Iain McEwan or Frank Martin.
Man And Superman's Dates & times of Performances:-
.
June Thursday 26th
June at 2pm & 8pm.
July Tuesday 1st July, 8pm, Wednesday 2nd July, 2pm, Monday 7th July,
8pm, Thursday 17th July, 8pm, Saturday 26th July, 8pm.
August Friday 1st August, 8pm, Wednesday 6th August, 8pm, Friday
15th August, 8pm, Saturday 23rd August, 8pm, Wednesday 27th August, 8pm,Saturday
30th August, 2pm.
September Friday 5th September, 8pm, Thursday 11th September, 8pm,
Saturday 20th September, 2pm, Thursday 25th September, 8pm.
October Saturday 4th October, 8pm, Thursday 9th October, 8pm and
final performance on Friday 17th October, 8pm End of run.
Theatre listings >
Theatre Index >>
|
|
