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London/Tour.
THE LESSON
by Eugene Ionesco translated by Donald Watson.
Old Red Lion Theatre 418 St John Street EC1V 4NJ To 29 September then tour to 14 November 2007.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 6pm.
Runs 1hr 10min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7837 7816.
www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 16 September.
Ambitious attempt to relate play to today brings in a host of associations.
Who’d have thought Absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco, Rumanian-born but long-time inhabitant of France till his death in 1994, might have sold one of his scripts as the basis of a Hollywood slasher-movie? Or at least made a few francs from offering it as the scenario for a sophisticated French murder movie?
This 1951 play’s threat may be less all-engulfing than in the about-to-be-revived Rhinoceros but the violence is a lot more personal. The eager young pupil who turns up at a Professor’s door for her lesson is only one in a cycle who end up dead, as he becomes frenzied in his power over her, his sexual desire not at all the enlightenment she thought she’d come for.
But it’s this girl’s fate that’s shown and which in 2007, after all the violence-against-women stories, true or fictional, we’ve seen or read, has to leap out of the Absurdist manner and appear horrific in a way at odds with the play’s early arithmetical comedy.
The mathematics, given a pupil who can add easily but finds subtraction problematic, then announces she has learned the infinite possibilities of multiplication ready for what ever figures come her way, links nowadays to the type of Oliver Sacks case-studies enacted in Peter Brook’s The Man Who…, or suggests an autistic capability.
It’s hard to ignore these when Max Lewendel’s Icarus Theatre production ends by dragging in another contemporary issue. Ionesco’s post-World War II context is replaced by that of the War Against Terror, as the professor eventually dons a camouflage baseball-cap and assumes an American accent.
And the final suggestion of a cycle repeating itself, as books and scrawled spellings and calculations begin to be re-shelved or wiped away, makes for a bitter image of continuing destruction, personal or political.
Amy Loughton brings a happy eagerness to her Pupil, hands and legs flapping like a bird keen to improve its bird-brain, then convincingly agonises over the toothache the Professor ignores. John Eastman relies overmuch on external mannerisms to suggest his character’s full potential treat, but Julia Munrow is suitably efficient yet detached as a domestic assistant.
Professor: John Eastman.
Pupil: Amy Loughton.
Marie: Julia Munrow.
Director: Max Lewendel.
Designer: Christopher Hone.
Lighting: Matthew Newbury.
Sound: Matt Downing.
Costume: Christina Stergios.
Assistant director: Rosa Wyatt.
Tour:
2 Oct 7.30pm Tacchi Morris Arts Cent re Taunton 01823 414141.
3 Oct 7.30pm Farmour’s School Fairford 020 7870 3787.
5 Oct 7.30pm Dorchester Arts Centre 01305 266926.
8 Oct 5.30pm Marist senior School Sunninghill 020 7870 3787.
9 Oct 7.30pm Stantonbury Campus Milton Keynes 01908 324422.
10-11 Oct 7.30pm Trinity Tunbridge Wells 01892 678678.
12 Oct 8pm The Maltings St Albans o1727 844222.
15 Oct 4pm & 8pm University of Winchester.
16 Oct 7.30pm Corn Exchange Newbury 01635 522733.
17 Oct 9pm Bacon Theatre Cheltenham 01242 258002.
18 Oct 7.30pm Plaza Theatre Stockport 0161 477 7779.
2-3 Nov 7.30pm Keats Theatre Edmonton 020 8807 6680.
7 Nov 8pm Bishop Stortford College 020 7870 3787.
9 Nov 7.30pm Shire Hall Howden 01430 432510.
10 Nov 7.30pm Guildhall Derby 01332 255800.
14 Nov 7.30pm Uppingham Theatre 01572 820820.
THE LESSON
by Eugene Ionesco translated by Donald Watson.
Old Red Lion Theatre 418 St John Street EC1V 4NJ To 29 September then tour to 14 November 2007.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 6pm.
Runs 1hr 10min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7837 7816.
www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 16 September.
Ambitious attempt to relate play to today brings in a host of associations.
Who’d have thought Absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco, Rumanian-born but long-time inhabitant of France till his death in 1994, might have sold one of his scripts as the basis of a Hollywood slasher-movie? Or at least made a few francs from offering it as the scenario for a sophisticated French murder movie?
This 1951 play’s threat may be less all-engulfing than in the about-to-be-revived Rhinoceros but the violence is a lot more personal. The eager young pupil who turns up at a Professor’s door for her lesson is only one in a cycle who end up dead, as he becomes frenzied in his power over her, his sexual desire not at all the enlightenment she thought she’d come for.
But it’s this girl’s fate that’s shown and which in 2007, after all the violence-against-women stories, true or fictional, we’ve seen or read, has to leap out of the Absurdist manner and appear horrific in a way at odds with the play’s early arithmetical comedy.
The mathematics, given a pupil who can add easily but finds subtraction problematic, then announces she has learned the infinite possibilities of multiplication ready for what ever figures come her way, links nowadays to the type of Oliver Sacks case-studies enacted in Peter Brook’s The Man Who…, or suggests an autistic capability.
It’s hard to ignore these when Max Lewendel’s Icarus Theatre production ends by dragging in another contemporary issue. Ionesco’s post-World War II context is replaced by that of the War Against Terror, as the professor eventually dons a camouflage baseball-cap and assumes an American accent.
And the final suggestion of a cycle repeating itself, as books and scrawled spellings and calculations begin to be re-shelved or wiped away, makes for a bitter image of continuing destruction, personal or political.
Amy Loughton brings a happy eagerness to her Pupil, hands and legs flapping like a bird keen to improve its bird-brain, then convincingly agonises over the toothache the Professor ignores. John Eastman relies overmuch on external mannerisms to suggest his character’s full potential treat, but Julia Munrow is suitably efficient yet detached as a domestic assistant.
Professor: John Eastman.
Pupil: Amy Loughton.
Marie: Julia Munrow.
Director: Max Lewendel.
Designer: Christopher Hone.
Lighting: Matthew Newbury.
Sound: Matt Downing.
Costume: Christina Stergios.
Assistant director: Rosa Wyatt.
Tour:
2 Oct 7.30pm Tacchi Morris Arts Cent re Taunton 01823 414141.
3 Oct 7.30pm Farmour’s School Fairford 020 7870 3787.
5 Oct 7.30pm Dorchester Arts Centre 01305 266926.
8 Oct 5.30pm Marist senior School Sunninghill 020 7870 3787.
9 Oct 7.30pm Stantonbury Campus Milton Keynes 01908 324422.
10-11 Oct 7.30pm Trinity Tunbridge Wells 01892 678678.
12 Oct 8pm The Maltings St Albans o1727 844222.
15 Oct 4pm & 8pm University of Winchester.
16 Oct 7.30pm Corn Exchange Newbury 01635 522733.
17 Oct 9pm Bacon Theatre Cheltenham 01242 258002.
18 Oct 7.30pm Plaza Theatre Stockport 0161 477 7779.
2-3 Nov 7.30pm Keats Theatre Edmonton 020 8807 6680.
7 Nov 8pm Bishop Stortford College 020 7870 3787.
9 Nov 7.30pm Shire Hall Howden 01430 432510.
10 Nov 7.30pm Guildhall Derby 01332 255800.
14 Nov 7.30pm Uppingham Theatre 01572 820820.