Theatre
Rising Stock
Ted Whitehead Devil's Island (Royal Court) A Thought in Three Parts (ICA) °lie of the best things to come out of the Royal Court in recent years is the Joint Stock Company, in the sense that their work has largely been developed by people associated with the Court, such as David Hare, William Gaskill and Max StaffordClark. In their three years of operation they have evolved a distinctive method of working, designed to allow the greatest freedom of creative expression to each member of the group: the process starts with discussion of ideas between writer, director and actors, then there's workshop improvisation, then the preparation of a working text, which itself is subjected to further periods of improvisation and refinement up to the time of presentation. I get the impression of a
company deliberately opposing the conception of 'stars,' thespian or otherwise, and
dedicating itself to the exploration of a Particular theme: the nature of social processes. Their collectivism works beautifully to this aim, as has been demonstrated by their productions to date: The Speakers, about Speakers' Corner, Fanshen, about revolution in a Chinese village, Yesterday's News, about the Angolan massacre, and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, about the Ranters movement in Cromwellian England. Unlikely subjects, compelling theatre. Joint Stock's latest play is Devil's Island at the Royal Court. It presents six middle-class cfi aracters under the same names at different historical periods. The first act is a taut, vvell-written study of commitment or nonc°111mitment during the Spanish Civil War, When 'it is a crime to write a poem about a tree.,
, The second act is an intermittently
Sharp but rather forced parable of capitalist corruption in 1977, when the pursuit of Profits has made private fulfilment or Integrity impossible. The system afflicts both sexes equally, driving the good man to Murder and suicide, reducing the good woman to the position of 'the housewife in the scampi mines .. • living from one pill to another. This is what I was aiming for . . . this is what I was aimed at !' The third act is it melodramatic vision of a 1997 apocalypse, With the characters in a state of nearbarbarism, the men half-naked savages. hunting small animals for food, the women collecting firewood and tending the den, which is.
an abandoned car park (one of the women looks quite sexy in the style of a contemporary punk rocker, all grimy jeans and slashed on lipstick). The Show Play makes an honourable attempt to moral corruption resulting from a specific economic process, i.e. capitalism. But as not only the capitalist but also the revolutionary, the reformist and the liberal all come in for a bashing, we are virtually left in the end with the old bogey of human nature itself. There's an ambiguity, or rather a failure of focus, that undermines the play.
The collective effort, however, makes for excellent all-round performances by the cast, brilliantly directed by David Hare in the clean spare style that is the trade mark of the group. I wish other companies would follow the practice of Joint Stock in running through the three acts without interval (total time 1 hour 45 minutes), as indeed they run through the three short plays in their other opening this week, A Thought in Three Parts, at the ICA (total time 1 hour 25 minutes). To confound my description of their working method, Joint Stock offer their production of an American play which was premiered in New York by Joe Papp. Still, it's good to see them introducing controversial new work, and particularly to see such an austere and politically conscious group dealing with the subject of sex, which our leading ideologues seem to regard as a mysterious and private affair.
The author, Wallace Shawn, shows us three faces of sexual alienation. In the first play a couple of lovers unconsciously reveal the infinite isolation of their separate passions. The woman plays the conventional female role, preening herself in a variety of dresses, demanding the man's admiration and desire, winning it and then of course rejecting it : the man faithfully plays the conventional male role of dumb acolyte, happy to be put down in the hope that he will eventually be picked up again. The play ends with the couple embracing in bed, further apart than ever. There's loneliness, again, in the third play, as a solitary man sits eating his breakfast, and his thoughts flit from his soft-boiled egg to sex and from the birds outside to sex and from the character of the priesthood to sex . . .
Both these plays show a sympathy with the frustrations inherent in a sex-negating culture like ours. The central play shows a distaste for the frustrations inherent in a sex-affirming culture, (Heads you win, tails I lose.) It shows a number of young people compulsively gratifying themselves with finger, tongue, vibrator and any human
orifice or protuberance that's readily available. (And there are plenty available.) It is sometimes very funny in its candour, as when a young man pleads his ignorance of the female form, and persuades a charitable young woman first to let him see it and then
to let him share it ; funny, too, in registering the nervous embarrassment of a character
entering a room and finding the occupant in a frenzy of masturbation. It turns savage in describing the ugly possessiveness of our sexuality: as when a woman demands to know why her lover likes humble Alice, and dissatisfied with his explanation that Alice is 'nice,' launches into a vicious and humiliating description of her rival. Mr Shawn is giving us a grotesque illustration of the futility of sex when it is reduced to mechanistic coupling (or singling). He's ambivalent, though. On the one hand, he isn't suggesting that all you need is love, or marriage, or a bit of friendship. On the other hand, he is suggesting that sexuality with no personal element at all is a pretty joyless business. A moral lesson, then, which will probably appal the puritans it should appeal to.
Philip Sayer and Robyn Goodman are outstanding in a brave and excellent cast, directed by Max Stafford-Clark, who handles the outrageous material sensitively and surely.
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