Theatre Review: Backward Glance by Multi Story Theatre Company at Studio@QT in Barnstaple
Another thought provoking piece of dramatic theatre from North Devon's Multi Story Theatre Company.
Backward Glance is a multi story story, a story of stories. Celebrity scribbler (Gill Nathanson), famous more for her notorious drinking than her work, dies under a shroud of mystery and speculation. The finger of blame is pointed at her writer husband (Bill Buffery) by her gossip thirsty fans, her grieving mother and the police. Each of these accusers draws out a story from the bewildered and angry husband.
With a mere turn on her heel or a twitch of her eyebrow Gill Nathanson switches characters. She is the mother who saw her daughter's fantasies as a vivid imagination but those of her son in law as pure madness, she is the ex-lover journalist who has dirt to dig and an agenda of her own, she is the police interrogator good cop/bad cop trying to tease out the truth and she is the wife, held in limbo land. Nathanson's characterisation skills shine in her physical mannerisms and I heard more than one audience member praising her portrayal of the mother and how a simple movement of the hands identified her role.
A captivating physical chorus to punctuate the scenes was an entangled dance defining the nature of the couple's relationship; its turbulence and their complicity at once.
Ruth Milman's simple set of white stools and red wine was all that was needed for the here and now and flimsy curtains with visual projections added distance and an eerieness to the past and another world. Ken Parsons' sound design was subtle but effective and left us wondering at the end "for whom the bell tolls"?
Backward Glance demands the audience's attention ... it deserves and rewards it.
Amanda McCormack 2/5/2012
MORE THEATRE NEWS ...
Backward Glance is a multi story story, a story of stories. Celebrity scribbler (Gill Nathanson), famous more for her notorious drinking than her work, dies under a shroud of mystery and speculation. The finger of blame is pointed at her writer husband (Bill Buffery) by her gossip thirsty fans, her grieving mother and the police. Each of these accusers draws out a story from the bewildered and angry husband.
With a mere turn on her heel or a twitch of her eyebrow Gill Nathanson switches characters. She is the mother who saw her daughter's fantasies as a vivid imagination but those of her son in law as pure madness, she is the ex-lover journalist who has dirt to dig and an agenda of her own, she is the police interrogator good cop/bad cop trying to tease out the truth and she is the wife, held in limbo land. Nathanson's characterisation skills shine in her physical mannerisms and I heard more than one audience member praising her portrayal of the mother and how a simple movement of the hands identified her role.
A captivating physical chorus to punctuate the scenes was an entangled dance defining the nature of the couple's relationship; its turbulence and their complicity at once.
Ruth Milman's simple set of white stools and red wine was all that was needed for the here and now and flimsy curtains with visual projections added distance and an eerieness to the past and another world. Ken Parsons' sound design was subtle but effective and left us wondering at the end "for whom the bell tolls"?
Backward Glance demands the audience's attention ... it deserves and rewards it.
Amanda McCormack 2/5/2012
MORE THEATRE NEWS ...
