Theatre Review: Mottled Lines (Orange Tree)

The latest addition to the growing canon of dramas inspired by last summer’s riots is Mottled Lines, the debut play by Archie W. Maddocks, which closes out this year’s Orange Tree season with a short (just eight performances) run at the theatre this week. A member of the Orange Tree’s recently-established writer’s group, Maddocks originally developed Mottled Lines as a “response” to the play that opened last year’s season, Václav Havel’s The Conspirators. But it’s clear that the piece has become very much its own, distinctive thing. What I find most admirable about Mottled Lines is its avoidance of fact-ratcheting, pseudo-journalistic, verbatim schtick. Eschewing mere reportage, Maddocks’s approach here is at once direct and oblique. His play takes the form of a series of monologues delivered to the audience by five “archetypal” figures who offer their viewpoints on the causes and the fallout of a set of events referred to simply as “the incidents.” Henry Bell’s production thus makes for a potent end to an Orange Tree season that’s dexterously whisked us from contemporary Muswell Hill to St. John Hankin’s England and Amiri Baraka’s America, via excursions into Crimp-land and the WWI trenches, only to land us back in our own present moment, with some pressing problems to face.

Maddocks’s thesis - that the riots developed from a breakdown in communication between social groups that lead to a pervasive (and still-spreading) climate of fear - is far from startling. And at times the characters’ endless eloquence (I don’t know about you, but I tend to flinch when terms like “ideology” and “hegemony” turn up in plays, somehow) becomes wearisome. But at its best, Maddocks’s writing has force, surprise and conviction. And, gaining from the intimacy of the Orange Tree space, the monologue form feels just right for a piece that’s deeply concerned with failures in communication and their results. The playwright has written some memorable arias of blame, accusation and self-vindication for his quintet of protagonists, who present their views in speeches that combine elements of harangue, confession, sermon and poetic reflection.

These soliloquies are vibrantly delivered by an accomplished cast who manage to bring some shades of particularity - and the odd subversive touch - to the archetypes that they’re embodying. Alert to the power of language and its abuses, The Fear (stunning Charles Mnene) articulates a pervasive and politicised sense of social disenfranchisement; for him, the desire to “take a little bit extra” is simply the natural consequence of many years of deprivation. Hipflask in his briefcase, Steven Elder catches precisely his politician’s mixture of insecurity and arrogant entitlement; for him, “taking a little bit extra” is a deserved benefit for a lifetime of hard work. As The Wolf, Gabeen Khan slickly and even sweetly spins utterly alarming theories regarding “those who are clogging up the gears of our country.” Akiya Henry imbues The Sparkle with her customary vibrancy and emotional transparency. (The play might benefit from a second female character, however.) And Michael Elkin’s aggressive, angry copper - big on animal analogies - gets some of the strongest moments here, especially an electric encounter with The Thug, in which he deconstructs the latter’s “urban ensemble” - trainers, baggy trousers, hoodie, scarf - as cultural signifier.

Bell’s intelligent, crisp production, which has the actors occasionally taking a pew to address specific audience members directly, keeps the mood charged, taut and urgent. The pessimism of the payoff feels pat, but there’s enough good stuff here to make Maddocks’s next work an exciting prospect. And to make you hope that Mottled Lines itself might have a further life.

Further information at the Orange Tree website.

Theatre Review: Three Farces (Orange Tree)

Farces have long been something of a staple of the Orange Tree’s programming, resulting in some of the theatre’s most popular and crowd-pleasing productions. Over the years, the theatre has presented work by Feydeau, Hannequin and Verber, and, last year, Reggie Oliver’s enjoyable adaptation of Hennequin and Delacour’s Le Procés Vauradieux, translated by Oliver as Once Bitten. For only the second time, however, the theatre has turned its attention to the work of a British farceur, in this case John Maddison Morton, the Victorian writer best known for his 1847 play Box and Cox, which was turned into an operetta by Arthur Sullivan. Editor Colin Chambers and director Henry Bell have adapted three short plays by Morton into one package, as Three Farces. The result is a most enjoyable evening that benefits from the wonderfully inclusive intimacy of the Orange Tree’s space.

Attractively designed by Sam Dowson and fetchingly costumed by Katy Mills, Bell’s production sweeps the audience up in cheerful bonhomie from its opening moments, in which Daniel Cheyne arrives on stage (complete with ukulele) to welcome us to this “veritable smorgasbord of farcical frolickings” and to introduce us to the other actors - Clive Francis, Stuart Fox, Edward Bennett, Jennifer Higham, David Oakes and Natalie Ogle - each of whom comes with their own epithet. Cheyne serves as “Master of Ceremonies” throughout the night, singing an introductory scene-setting ditty before each of the plays, and bantering with the audience during the two intervals. Proceedings kick off with “Slasher and Crasher,” the most anarchic (and also the funniest) of the three comedies. It’s a satire on duelling, with Francis as a patriarch concerned about the cowardice of the eponymous fellows (Oakes and Fox), who are suitors to his niece Rosa (Higham) and sister Dinah (Ogle). The madcap shenanigans culminate in a truly spectacular fight scene between Fox and Oakes, and there’s also a hilarious performance from Bennett as Lt. Brown, another potential suitor for Rosa.

It’s followed by “A Most Unwarrantable Intrusion,” an effective two-hander for Francis and Bennett in which a North London husband’s quiet day alone is interrupted by the appearance of a strange young man who’s trying to commit suicide in his garden. Underpinned by a hint of menace, the piece suggests the “home invasion” thriller as skewed by The Two Ronnies, and ends with a very neat, rather Brechtian flourish; Francis and Bennett are a dream team here. The final play, “Grimshaw, Bagshaw and Bradshaw,” also pivots around a home invasion, as Mr. Grimshaw (Fox) finds his room appropriated by a host of characters on the run. With its mistaken identity plot, disappearances into cupboards, and romantic confusions, this feels like the most conventional of the three pieces, but it’s consistently amusing nonetheless and played with infectious enthusiasm by the actors.

The star of the evening is undoubtedly Mr. Francis, who morphs brilliantly from fussy patriarch to befuddled bourgeois and finally Cockney-sheriffs-officer-cum-bovver-boy across the three plays. But all of the actors here get a moment to shine. The tone of Morton’s writing is less caustic and more generous-spirited than that of some of his French counterparts, and, mercifully, none of the plays resorts to funny-foreigner stereotypes or characters with speech impediments in order to draw laughs, opting instead for some marvellously surreal non-sequiturs. (The best involves a reference to a cotton umbrella.) Bell’s fluid, well-paced production avoids the trap of becoming too frenetic or strained, even as it embraces the self-conscious artifice and theatricality of the plays, and their glorious silliness. This is a thoroughly charming and enjoyable evening to convert even the farce adverse.

Reviewed for The Public Reviews.


Three Farces runs for 2 hours 20 minutes and is booking until 25 June. Further information at the Orange Tree website.