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Theatre listings > One Day All This Will Come to Nothing - World Premiere. Playwright - Catherine Grosvenor. Director - Philip Howard.. Designer - Pip Keppel. Lighting Designer - Kai Fisher. Company - Traverse Theatre Company. Cast - here . Venue - Traverse Theatre Cambridge St Edinburgh 0131 228 1404. Dates - 18 March to 19 April Tues to Sat at 8pm also Suns 27 March, 3 April and Sat Mat at 9 April at 3:30pm. Run Time - 1 hours 20 mins no Interval. Reviewer - Ksenija Horvat. Some good moments.
Ever since attending the Interplay Festival in Athens last year, with One Day All This Will Come to Nothing, Grosvenor seemed to have been the Traverse's best kept secret. The premiere of her play on 22 March 2005, directed by Philip Howard, and played by a formidable cast consisting of experienced and new young actors, has been presented as a remarkable debut by an up-and-coming young author. Upon viewing the production though, one wonders is she being promoted too much, too soon? Grosvenor's play is not bad at all as far as first-time plays go but the best point of this production is its cast. The interaction between Anne Lacey and Sean Scanlan, as the parents of a missing young man, Mark, is mesmerising to watch. James Cunningham offers his audience several truly inspirational characters, especially a Man in Street, an endearing image of an unhinged tramp who is also probably the only character in the play that one can relate to or feel sympathy for. There is also a moment when Michael Nardone moves across the stage with the energy of an erupting volcano before crouching in emotional and mental pain, a memento of what Paul's character could have been like. Molly Innes presents a hardboiled Anna, Mark's abandoned girlfriend, who is rupturing at the seams, and Mark Wood is deliciously flirtatious and fragile as Adam. The problem is, in its effort to be clever and make audience work hard for clues, the script is sometimes cryptic, but on the other hand reveals too often what could be discovered anyway. It comes across as bitty and too intrusive of potentially interesting interplay between actors on stage. Of course, all of this might have been done on purpose, but does it make good theatre? Vague clues, imprecise language, themes hinted at but not followed through, characters who are difficult to associate with, overwriting - all these are often characteristics of an new writer, and all those could have been addressed before the script entered the rehearsal room. Once in the rehearsal process, there are still opportunities to change, cut, edit and play. In this case, there might have been some exploration, but there's a feel that the theme of overwhelming loss has dulled the production. Philip Howard's direction looks sleek on the surface but scenes are cut short a few seconds before their natural closure, and are followed by clumsy scene changes. The stripping of clothes on stage is too obvious a metaphor for stripping/replacing of identity, while the supposedly surrealist scene between Anna and the Dead Man at the beginning of the play may produce a few giggles, but is theatrically weak. Aside all this, the biggest culprit, on this occasion, is a truly unimaginative set and constant shifting of furniture and props on and off the stage. The actors do their best with the bitty script, and they succeed in creating some good moments, be it a touch of a hand, a look, or a silent scream of despair. These moments are too rare though, and one wonders what would have happened if the director had laid bare the stage and the characters' souls alike, and gave the actors space to play. © Ksenija Horvat, 22 March 2005 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com Cast: Anna - Molly Innes, Paul - Michael Nardone, Adam - Mark Wood, Harriet - Anne Lacey, Martin - Sean Scanlan, and Dead Man - Man in Street, Young Man, Man in Hostel - James Cunningham. 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. Theatre listings >
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