Contrast and compare – the Hollywood movie machine on location and a small, rural Irish community. This is the premise for Marie Jones’ play Stones in His Pockets. Both are riddled with insecurities, both accommodate unconventional characters and while the latter craves respect, the former demands it.
It takes a while for the penny to drop that the two characters we are watching are in fact film extras hanging around on location for the cameras to roll, a sort of Waiting for Goddard. The two main characters, Jake and Charlie, are simple, everyday country folk finding themselves in a situation which, in their dreams, could be their passport out of their dead-end, cow-prodding existences – Charlie has written a film script and seeks every opportunity to get one of the crew to read it, Jake has already tried his luck in the States and returned with nothing to show for it.
But Jake and Charlie are not the only characters – there are fifteen in all. We meet the director, the 1st AD and the glamourous American star of the film, Caroline Giovanni, as well as many of the locals whose lives are disrupted and disrespected. All the characters are played by Charlie de Bromhead and Conan Sweeny. They create their secondary characters often by just a spin on their heels and a different posture, often for just one line. It is Conan who seems to have drawn the short straw and has more spinning to do, including to metamorphose into the slinky and seductive Ms Giovanni. Although some characters are more successfully portrayed than others Messrs de Bromhead and Sweeny give a masterclass in versatility, acting ability and, for a moment, their hilarious lack of Riverdance skills. At the end of each performance they probably need a good sit down and a cup of tea.
Stones in His Pockets has been around for twenty years now (exactly the same as Riverdance) and, from its humble beginnings in rural Ireland, has played the West End and Broadway and generally taken over the world even though, to a certain extent, it still hides its light under a bushel. This tour has been produced by relatively small, provincial and (forgive me) obscure companies, The Theatre Chipping Norton and The Dukes, Lancaster. They have almost put larger, more important producers/producing theatres to shame with this demonstration of what can be achieved with what I would imagine to be limited funds and resources. It is a pity more better placed regional theatres are not producing work of this quality.
Incidentally, the title refers to one of the locals weighing himself down before committing suicide by drowning and not, as I at one point thought, before seeing the play, to Samuel Beckett’s Malloy – or perhaps it does.
A little gem of a play very nicely done. Recommended. ★★★★☆ Michael Hasted 18th March 2016
