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Swimming
Playwright - Frank Deasy
Director - Frank Deasy
Company - Arches Theatre Company
Venue - The Arches
www.thearches.co.uk
0901 022 0300 253 Argyll St
Dates - 13
- 17 and 19 - 23 March at 8:00pm, £4/£6, 2 for 1 on opening
night
Runtime - 50 mins
Reviewer - Thelma Good
More telling in its subtlety
Deep in the corridors of the Arches are spaces where theatre pieces see
the light of day in this Festival Of New Scottish Theatre. In one of these
spaces Frank Deasy's Swimming surfaces and proves to have quite a few
strokes of ability and drive behind it. Using monologues as well as interactive
scenes within the play Deasy's structure unfolds the dynamic between a
mother and daughter and a so called member of the caring professions to
good effect with three very well cast actors.
The starting monologue is Lucy's, a artist troubled by her "fat lump
of a body". She's just had her graduate show, her self-photographs
showing the cuts she makes into her own flesh. "My very real scars
are like family snaps." she tells us. Laura Smales's Lucy
is edgy, and brittlely sexual, a young woman fascinated and repelled by
her body. Her mother Evelyn, played by the excellent Deidre Davis,
hasn't slept for 6 weeks and is now being treated by a therapist not a
doctor. David Ireland is striking as the therapist Valentine and
his confused but controlled state of mind, who as a teenager became attracted
to the swimming baths with their human bodies .
All three are just managing to keep above the waves that life flings at
them. Deasy's play in its gradual filling in of their internal lives reflects
how our selves are vulnerable to the cuts and trials of family life, perverting
us and dragging us down to nearly drown. The only flaws were the play's
last rather confusing revelation and the exits and entrances through the
audience both of which ripple the play's integrity. Often these topics
of human scars are dramatised stridently - this production is much more
telling in its subtlety.
© Thelma Good 14 March 2002
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