Theatre Témoin make their second visit to the Everyman’s Studio this year with a play which confronts the problems soldiers encounter after returning home from conflict. It takes as its starting point and inspiration Homer’s The Odyssey which is about , err . . . a soldier returning home from conflict.
Grant (played by Will Pinchin) is well and truly buggered after returning from his third tour of duty in Afghanistan. He spends most of his time in the bathroom and a good deal of that in the bath itself while his pregnant wife Penny (Dorie Kinnear) longs for the loving, caring man he used to be. Odysseus took ten years to make his way home to his wife Penelope, having to negotiate various ogres and obstacles on the way. Grant’s journey is not so long and his demons are all in his head or, as he sees it, in the bath.
The bath, which dominates the stage, is used to good effect, being able to spawn and conceal figures from Grant’s damaged mind like a clever magician. The bath (a means of self-cleansing, geddit?) is, wouldn’t you just know it, blocked. Despite numerous entreaties by Penny and the liberal use of a plunger, it remains so until the end. There was little use of masks and none of puppetry in this production, although they have both been used to good effect in previous shows from this company.
Theatre Témoin (témoin = witness) seems keen on theatre as therapy and in each of the three plays I have seen by them they have taken a social theme to explore and develop. This is all well and good but there is a danger that the cause can dominate the effect and this does not necessarily lead to good theatre. Theatre is there to entertain and good theatre will inform and enlighten us as well – but it should never preach. I’m not saying that Theatre Témoin is doing this, but its comes quite close and the speech to the audience by director Ailin Conant before the play started bordered on being patronising and consequently, for me, got the whole thing off to a very bad start. Good theatre should not need explaining, nor should it be assumed that an intelligent theatre audience does not know the story of The Odyssey – a programme note would have sufficed as background.
That said, there were some really good dramatic moments especially at the end when Penny and a dying Afghan girl Grant took a shine to become interwoven. As I said, the bath was a clever device, despite the laden metaphor, and worked very well. The soundtrack was good without being intrusive.
Theatre Témoin is an original and innovative young company whose heart is undoubtedly in the right place. However, I think their talents and energy would be much better directed into creating plays strong enough to stand on their own merits without the need for explanation or justification. ★★★☆☆ Michael Hasted 19th May 2016
Photo by Jet Sun
