Friday 14 June 2013

The Kite Runner – Liverpool Playhouse – 13/06/2013

We are welcomed to the auditorium by Hanif Khan, sitting downstage left playing tabla. Behind him lies a stark, curved space slightly resembling a skate-park. However, when the house lights dim and the performance proper begins, Barney George’s set comes vividly to life, with the help of Charles Balfour’s lighting and William Simpson’s lavish and complex sequence of video projections, which transform the magic carpet of the stage floor and the backdrop of elegant screens that fall and rise like sails, bird’s wings or maybe even kites.

It is against this background of ever-changing visuals and Jonathan Girling’s atmospheric score, accompanied by live tabla, singing bowls and other tuned percussion, that Giles Croft directs his large cast in this adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling novel. It was first brought to the stage in Matthew Spangler’s adaptation in San Jose, but is seeing European stages for the first time in this current co-production between Nottingham Playhouse and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse.

The story follows the mixed fortunes of Amir and Hassan, as their lives take them from Afghanistan to America and back via a series of events, some happy, some tragic, and into the next generation of their families. As we take the journey with them, we learn of the unbreakable ties that bind their lives together despite terrible acts of cruelty and abandonment.

The book is densely written and not always an engaging read, and stage adaptation was bound to be a tricky business. It has been remarked elsewhere that a good deal of the storytelling in this version is delivered to the audience directly by Amir in the first person, acting as narrator. But short of adding another good hour to the running time, I fail to see how the whole of the saga could have been related without cutting out too much back story and meaning, and I for one was happy with the use of the technique as a way of getting swiftly to the point.

It is the dramaturgy that really animates the piece, and the use of “virtual” settings enables the pace to be maintained between scenes so that we really don’t notice the passage of time in the theatre.

The Kite Flying scenes accompanied by wind wands are moments of magic which, along with the evocative score, transport the audience to other times and other places. Initially this magic is what carries us to the Kabul of Amir and Hassan’s happy and innocent childhood – an innocence soon to be shattered.

Ben Turner’s Amir is a big ask with a lot of words, onstage almost constantly for the play’s 140 plus minutes, and he negotiates the repeated segues from child to adult with style. His despair is palpable as his someway cowardly attempts to rescue situations lead to ever increasingly tragic consequences.

Farshid Rokey is heartbreaking as both the lifelong loyal Hassan and, later, as his own mute son Sohrab. The remaining cast members are a great ensemble but special note goes to Emilio Doorgasingh’s Baba, Amir’s father, whose torn loyalties lead to much of the tragedy, and to Nicholas Karimi as the brutal sociopath Aseef, the sort of person, we are told, for whom there is no word in Farsi. His appearance on stage swiftly becomes something that chills the blood.

Adaptation from a novel to the stage will always divide opinion, especially among those who have come to love the original first, but Spangler’s adaptation steers a careful and pretty successful course between retaining the key elements of the story while making it work in physical form – never an easy task when so much depends on invoking the imagination of the reader or spectator. You could argue that more of the spoken narrative might have been played out dramatically, but I think this may have made the piece too lengthy to sustain itself on stage.

The Kite Runner, which takes a very individual view of the human cost of events in Afghanistan under the Taliban, comes to the stage in Croft’s production with sincerity, colour and style. It opened in April at Nottingham Playhouse and spent a brief period in Brighton before transferring to the Liverpool Playhouse this week, where it runs until 6th July. Tickets priced from £12 to £23 are selling fast.
Visit www.everymanplayhouse.com for details.

Friday 7 June 2013

Lionboy – Liverpool Playhouse – 06/06/2013

It seems somehow appropriate for a show in which everything appears illusory to have been written by an author who doesn’t exist.

The trilogy of books for young people were co-authored by Louisa Young and her daughter Isabel writing under the name Zizou Corder and the resulting story, having been adapted for the stage by Marcello Dos Santos, has an immediate appeal for children and adults alike.

London-based Complicite are well known for their innovative style of theatre, and they always deliver storytelling that is brought very vividly to life. Here, in their first production aimed at a family audience, they do so with considerable flair and create a lively, fast-paced, engaging story.

Adetomiwa Edun plays Charlie Ashanti, the Lionboy of the title, so called because of his ability to talk to cats. He also acts very much in the capacity of narrator, aided by his six fellow actors and an onstage musician.

As the story goes Charlie, who lives sometime in the future, comes home one day to find his parents have gone. They have been kidnapped by “The Corporacy”, a pharmaceutical company who make their money by selling asthma medication. It seems that everyone suffers asthma due to a proliferation of genetically engineered, highly allergenic cats. Charlie’s parents are scientists on the verge of finding a cure for asthma, hence their disappearance.

On his journey, Charlie joins a circus ship and meets a variety of weird and wonderful characters, including some circus lions who he befriends.
This framework allows for a flight of imagination and some fantastical sets and costumes. The stage is designed in something like a big top layout, but the central, circular section of the roof of the set and the surrounding lighting gantry are mobile and enable various transformations, including a couple of very effective segments of shadow puppetry.
The extensive musical soundtrack comprises a mixture of live and recorded sound, most of which is written and performed by Stephen Hiscock, who occupies a fair part of the stage area with his array of exotic percussion instruments.
Adetomiwa Edun’s reputation goes before him, and it is hard to believe that he’s in his late 20s, as he plays the part of the 11 year old Charlie. His delivery of the text is superb and his cat-like movement as he depicts the conversations with lions delights the audience. He also shows that he can act standing on his head – literally.

The rest of the cast are a well balanced and multi-talented team, best demonstrated in their performances as a circus troupe, including at one point an aerial performance by Lisa Kerr. Robert Gilbert, a graduate of Liverpool’s LIPA, is excellent in his fast talking part of Rafi Sadler, a scheming but lovable rogue of a character who ducks and dives his way through the tale, while Victoria Gould has the children booing and hissing with her portrayal as the evil Chief Executive of The Corporacy. Femi Elufowoju Jr, Clive Mendus and Dan Milne complete the line-up.

Director Annabel Arden has performed a juggling act of her own in managing to get the story to tread a line that will appeal to audiences of all ages. The children in the theatre were captivated by the story, getting involved almost panto-style in booing and cheering at the twists of fortune, and screaming dutifully when wet “eels” are thrown out over their heads. Meanwhile there were equally as many grinning faces on the adults present, showing that the production works for everyone.

Lionboy is a hugely entertaining night out for everyone. Adults without children shouldn’t be put off by the material; if you like having a smile on your face come and see it! Meanwhile, this is a tremendous introduction to the theatre for children. Don’t wait for the Panto to take your family out - get yourselves to a performance of this.

Having opened at Bristol Old Vic and spent a week in Liverpool, Lionboy is touring via Oxford Playhouse, 11-15 June, Warwick Arts Centre, 18-20 June, West Yorkshire Playhouse, 25-29 June, Wales Millennium Centre, 3-6 July and Unicorn Theatre London, 9-21 July.