Last night at the second Short Fuse event in Camden, Broken Glass presented scenes from a new play, ‘Paul McCartney Is Dead’. The play is an interesting dramatical experiment: What happens when you take a company of young actors, fresh from a play with an pervading aesthetic, and throw them into a play that is primarily ‘ordinary’ in movement and voice?
For one, the play lacks the ready-made atmospheric possibilities of ‘The Golem’ that were provided by the music, highly choreographed movement and stylised voice work. Aside from one residual bin bag, the puppets were gone too, including the human shadow. Now, all the focus falls on the actors to create a world for the audience.
Furthermore, last Short Fuse, the scene from ‘The Golem’ which was presented (entitled ‘Salon Loisitscheck’), was a stand alone entity. Without telling the full story that the extended play went on to tell over the summer, the piece was coherent within itself. It also involved all the actors, all of whom were on stage all of the time. The offering from ‘Paul’ was instead the opening six scenes of a play, and the company have not begun work on any of the subsequent scenes (much to Daniel’s surprise!). This meant that the play had to gain a momentum, made possible physically by the culminating fight in scene six. Did the plot gain enough weight to leave the audience wondering ‘What happens next?’ ? If you were at the Camden Head last night, let us know!
Many of the actors have now left Cambridge, meaning that rehearsals were few and far between, and trains did their utmost to stop them happening altogether! And having Steve King living in the far far away land of Brummie cannot be good for the mental stability of the directors. There was also a quick actor swap two days ago, and director Alex was given a brief moment centre stage.
Reading over the above paragraphs I detect in my own writing a note of pessimism or negativity that was not intended. However, to list all the things I think we did brilliantly seems a little arrogant in a blog for the company website! Assuming we go on to finish work on the play (as I believe we plan to?) I look forward to upping the contrast between the scenes based in Paul’s formalin-filled home, and those in the clothes-strewn offices. The dystopian tinge to the play was not given much space in the opening scenes, but may have more space to breathe in the full play.
Credit to Miss Flood for another great script, and to the other actors for braving the train, rain and pain (?) to make it yesterday. Do let us know what you thought of last night as a whole, and of ‘Paul’… if you have yet recovered from the shocking Truth of the PMID!