IKAG Productions. The Producers Hotel. 8 Jun 2017
Will Eno is a playwright often compared to Beckett. His rolling, discombobulated monologue comprising the text of Title and Deed is instantly identifiable to the ear as having the hallmarks of that Beckett laden dry, dark, and distantly observant voice of an outsider.
Tom Gentry’s self-directed performance is with some merit and many deficiencies, some not necessarily of his making, more the blazing enthusiasm and driven passion of inexperience.
Eno’s unnamed character has no known place in the world and for all we can tell, is not of this world. He is an aimless chimera spinning tales which seem to have neither true beginning or end.
Distance is the key to this work. Textually, in direction and performance. By choosing to direct himself, Gentry has disallowed the absolute necessity of being observed and moved apart from his own preconceptions of the work by a director in a collaborative creative endeavour, pulling out of him a performance and characterisation he is not aware is within him; something challenging, something capable of reaching the layers in the text awaiting discovery.
This is not to say Gentry doesn't offer moments in which, like a brief flash of light, the otherness of the character seems yet to reflect a true ‘humanity’ and push the idea with conviction we too are in communion with - this ‘other’ telling tales to us on the stage. We are one. We are alien.
Unfortunately, such moments are few. Gentry’s static level of delivery and energy drains away a hold on the audience and inhibits variances of energy in performance needing to be accessed and expressed.
David O’Brien
When: 8 to 18 June
Where: The Producers Hotel
Bookings: trybooking.com
