Annie has kindly agreed to review some welsh language productions that have played locally in North Wales.
Y Tŵr - The Tower
by William Gwenlyn Parry
Invertigo Theatre Company
4th
February 2015, 7.30pm, Galeri Caernarfon
A Welsh-language
production with English subtitling.
Photo
credit: Invertigo
Theatre Company
(Accessed from
www.arcolatheatre.com)
A stage populated
by a variety of white boxes, a portal high up in a wall. A young woman emerges
from inside a box and is followed by a young man, sharing and discovering a
space which might represent their lives, emotions, even life itself, a space
dominated by boxes which at times form a ladder, a tower, a path to the next
space, only attained by ascending the tower and journeying through the portal
high above.
The Man and Woman
spend 80 minutes on stage, locked into various spaces and using the Tower to
move to each new episode and phase of existence, a Tower which can only be
ascended and not descended.
Their relationship
with each other is explored, and their relationship with the Tower,and the space
and time it dominates and its power to draw them inexorably upwards, whether
they want to move or not, representing in itself the journey of their shared
lives and experiences, at times a source of excitement and discovery, at other
times an object of fear and regret. Each time they ascend the Tower, they enter
a higher, though not necessarily better,space in their life-journey, always
travelling together until the last time,where, old age attained, the man moves
through the portal alone, his final journey.
The couple move
through the journey of life and love, moving via the Tower through their
teenage years with all the attached angst, love, jealousy, fear and excitement,
all the while both scared and excited to exist within the first room, and then
becoming comfortable in the space and fearful yet excited to ascend the tower
of adulthood and sexual experience.
In adulthood,
middle age; workplace ambition and envy,marital infidelity couple with a heady
mix of spite, contempt, love and loathing, entwined inextricably with an
emotional co- dependency which leads them continually upwards towards old age,
where a grumbling contentment reigns, shared companionship and memories
sustaining the relationship and love, as they continue to travel towards death,
the next part of their journey.
Three times during
the show, a train is heard rushing past, perhaps symbolising the passage of
time and events which exist outside their own space, outside the private space
in which the Man and Woman exist: enclosed within the Tower of their own
experiences, they hear the train passing and perceive it differently, with a
different emotional response,on each occasion.
Y Tŵr is a study of the
emotions of the couple, their perceptions, both shared and individual, their
memories both true and false,their fantasies,feelings and misconceptions,
Invertigo Company
presents this play written by playwright and screenwriter William Gwenlyn
Parry, by many often considered the Welsh Harold Pinter, living and working in
a similar time frame. The production is simply presented: the set is a series of
boxes used as props,containers and the constituent parts of the complex entity
of the Tower,sometimes spread across the
stage,sometimes piled together to create a staircase toward each next life
experience, a sparse white set which seems to highlight that material
possessions are ephemeral to the journey. Costuming is also simple, costume
changes often taking place onstage as part of the journey.
Catherine Ayers and
Steffan Donnelly portrayed the roles of Woman and Man very powerfully,
convincingly encompassing a very wide range of emotions and stages in life,
often using physical expression and movement in place of dialogue.
This play was
incredibly thought provoking, sometimes causing laughter, and sometimes a
thoughtful silence,sometimes provoking shock, as the audience followed an
emotional journey of its own, evoked by the experience of the characters, and
ultimately reflecting part of each individual's journey up their own Tower and
through their own portals to new phases in
life.
This is a story
that everyone in the audience can relate with on some level, and for those non- Welsh speakers in
the auditorium, the presence of subtitles guarantees that all can understand
the themes and emotions presented in this play.
Reviewed by Annie ( @CorieltauviArt )
