Phrases: Angela Ferguson
Pictures: Stephen Cain Pictures
It’s an autumnal kinda summer time’s night after I set foot contained in the welcoming heat of the Chester gem that’s St Mary’s Artistic Area.
It’s additionally a college evening, after I’m normally holed up at house with the prospect of a great guide or a little bit of radio or telly to entertain me.
However, oh, how glad I’m that I’ve made the hassle to get out the home to see the newest providing from Chester’s AgainstTHEGRAIN theatre firm.
St Mary’s Artistic Area supplies the right intimate and suitably gothic area through which to park the day-to-day and escape to a different world, courtesy of this proficient solid and crew.
There’s a heat welcome from the entrance of home crew and after grabbing a drink I take my seat for the efficiency.
Not ones to draw back from staging thought-provoking and difficult productions, ‘Curtains’ takes a wry take a look at the ups and downs of being an actor.
We get to undergo the stage door and behind the scenes of the lifetime of a jobbing actor, warts and all.
It’s a bittersweet play, wanting on the hopes and goals of shut associates, Dominic (Stuart Evans) and Percival (Mark Newman).
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” counsels a weary Dom, not sure his dream of breaking into TV will ever come off.
This manufacturing, slickly directed by AgainstTHEGRAIN’s Marian Newman, takes us from that first assembly to the current day, when the chums are showing in an ‘progressive’ manufacturing of Hamlet.
We first meet Dom and Percival amidst the adrenalin-fuelled environment of an audition, the place they face the intimidating calls for of sniffy director Lance (Malcolm Gledhill).
There are jangled nerves aplenty, together with a number of outrageous moments and splendidly acerbic observations.
We see a number of actors of various ages and at numerous phases of their profession, all thrown collectively in a theatre with uber assured director Terri (Laura Smith).
Terri has some, ahem, fascinating concepts in the case of heat up workouts.
You’ll by no means take a look at a Sainsbury’s service bag in the identical method, belief me.
This fast-paced manufacturing takes us by way of rehearsals and previews during to press evening, earlier than whizzing us all the way in which again in time to that first fateful audition.
The writing and the energetic performances preserve us viewers members on our toes. We by no means fairly know what Dom and Percival and associates will stand up to subsequent.
Alongside the way in which, we meet seasoned actors akin to Angela (Fiona Wheatcroft) and Richard (Ray Bengree), who present no finish of pithy feedback and sage recommendation for his or her fellow thespians.
And we additionally get to know theatre newbies, stage crew member-turned actor, Neil (Craig Woodcock) and Wes (Thomas Parry), who has a knack for rubbing firm members up the fallacious method along with his bragging about being up for a plum function in a Netflix drama.
Amidst all of it, we get properly and really behind the masks of those colleagues and associates, studying a few of their innermost ideas and wishes, together with their foibles and regrets. A lot of it’s shared over limitless cups of dressing room espresso, with the occasional invitation to regroup outdoors their theatrical cocoon for a beverage or two.
It’s a witty and transferring examination of what it means to be human, and never only a jobbing actor. And for anybody who has ever had a dream – or continues to be holding on to that dream – it ought to resonate deeply.
What makes this all of the extra gripping is that it has been written by AgainstTHEGRAIN members Stuart Evans and Mark Newman. They will need to have many a story to inform from their time within the business.
There are many snicker out loud moments, with some very good facial expressions and bodily comedy at play.
Equally, there are some poignant moments as we’re given numerous items of the jigsaw to allow us to see the delicate particular person behind the assured masks of an actor on stage.
There’s additionally an excellent soundtrack, including an additional frisson of escapism and theatricality to proceedings.
AgainstTHEGRAIN have provide you with one other distinctive and fascinating manufacturing that can pull in your heartstrings and provides your laughter muscle mass a radical exercise.
The knowledge at play, so gently and powerfully delivered by the solid, may even stick with you lengthy after the curtain comes down on this manufacturing.
‘Curtains’ runs till Friday 5 July, with no present on Thursday 4 July because of the small matter of a Basic Election (!). Do catch it if you happen to can.
We give ‘Curtains’ a scene-stealing 5 stars.
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