The National Theatre’s New Connections festival of youth theatre concluded at the Royal Lyceum on Saturday night, with Lyceum Youth Theatre providing the first half of a very slick, professional-standard double-bill.
Success by Nick Drake, inspired by the 18th century painter Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress, comes over as a 21st century morality tale peppered with quirky 18th century stylistic flourishes. The characters speak in a playful, semi-poetic language that enthusiastically references the banalities and brand names of contemporary urban living, while the costume design is a strange collision of “noughties” raunch and 18th century frills and bustles. In an unnamed city, Tom Rakewell (Hector Brown) suddenly makes his fortune, meets the girl of his dreams Lucy (Kim Donohoe) and comes under the thrall of the sinister Nick Shadow (Steve McMahon), his mentor/manipulator in filthy-rich living, as he figures out how best to capitalise on his new found success. While he begins with the world at his feet, inevitably, it’s all easy-come-easy-go, with the drama exuding the familiar and inescapable sense of desperation at the heart of every level of capitalist society.
Glamorous, extravagant parties on the one hand and the disenfranchised urban underbelly on the other
LYT’s energetically physical portrayal of glamorous, extravagant parties on the one hand and the disenfranchised urban underbelly on the other is enhanced by strong lead performances and a good all round ensemble, as well as the slick production values you’d expect from the youth theatre arm of the Royal Lyceum. However, with all the fabulous costumes, hip tunes and sexy dance sequences, they can’t help but make the unhinged hedonism of the first half look like a helluva lot of fun, so that the moralising of the second half seems a wee bit half-hearted in comparison. But perhaps this is simply a reflection of how hungry for success these talented young actors really are.
The second half, provided by Kildare Youth Theatre’s version of Anthony Neilson’s The Séance, continued the high production values set by LYT in the first half, but provided an enjoyable contrast in style and tone. On a hot summer evening, seven teenagers get together to hold a séance, complete with ouija boards, scented candles, and crystal glasses, in the hopes of communicating with the spirit of their dead friend.
love, jealousy, deception, death and madness.
Neilson takes this the almost retro staple of teenage drama and urban myth and turns on its head. Basically if you take a black-humoured teenage comedy-drama and make it all Chekhovian, you’ve got The Séance. All the drama is in the minutiae of conversation and bickering, the entrances and exits, what’s said and what’s left unsaid, ultimately sidelining the title’s (non-)event of the evening into irrelevance.
Rather than a cheesy supernatural thrill-fest, what we get instead is a convincing character piece which displays an admirable lightness of touch as it explores themes of love, jealousy, deception, death and madness. The bare-bones staging and lighting design allow the seven actors to really shine, with performances that are impressively polished yet demonstrate a faultlessly downplayed realism and terrific comic timing.
see Lyceum website for more info and upcoming shows