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| Edinburgh : A&E : Theatre: Reviews |
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Nightingale And Chase
- Scottish Premiere.
Serving a sentence even a short one sends shockwaves through anyone's life outside. It's clear, even from Nightingale's telling of the story things were not too stable before Chase went in. In this two hander Zinnie Harris has chosen to tell this story full of potential harrowing emotions through monologues, mainly Nightingale's. Chosing to let the male partner alone speak for the first half of the play nearly over mutes the available energy of having two actors before us but Lesley Hart's seldom moving Chase becomes a haunting prescence. The structure just works in this production but demands much from actors and audience, to keep understanding and sympathy Director Guy Hollands and Harris are fortunate in having Lewis Howden as Nightingale. Howden invests this seemly likeable man with tender and not so tender motives and actions. It's a short play and for much of it Lesley Hart's thin taracksuited Chase is silent looking away, or lying curled up like a oversized sad wain*. Chase's clearly a woman aged beyond her years and a undernourished child, Harris's script hints at lifes that never found fully solid ground on the straight and narrow. Not a ghastly slide from the right paths but its an all too common one in this country where possessions and purchases are seen as passports to happiness. The inherent high drama moments of the story are side stepped for the characters individual reportage where the balance and truth alters depending who is telling it. In many ways it's more natural medium for this dramatisation might be the airways but fine physical acting presences of both Hart and Howden make this piece watchable in the tight and confining space of the Stalls Studio. © Thelma Good 4 February 2004. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com. *wain - Scots for child. Cast of Citizen's Production of Nightingale And Chase. Nightingale - Lewis Howden and Chase - Lesley Hart.
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