The Winterling
Even then threads are left hanging and the jigsaw pieces are left to us to put together how we want. This is suspense with an extra edge, where surface reality is not what it seems and the masks don’t always come off.
Stone Junction’s production, as directed by Sebastien Blanc, is an intense, intellectual and imaginative piece of theatre, with stunning performances by his team of actors, whose claustrophobic presence is aided by a set that both defines and confines the characters and, in the White Bear space, puts us in there too.
Andrew Taylor’s brooding West, or Mr West as he later referred to, waits in a burnt-out farmhouse, on Dartmoor, in the depths of winter, for two associates from the city. The wine is on the table and so are the glasses, but who for and why? Fighter planes fly overhead, shaking the house – the dog is missing and who is the girl upstairs!
Mario Demetriou’s Wally, a cross between Arthur Daley and the Krays, is an old associate who arrives with Patsy, his ‘stepson’, a brilliantly balanced performance by Tommy Vine, but why are they there; why do they do what Mr West says, even when it seems a little bizarre? Is Patsy out his depth, is Mr West out of his mind and where is it all leading? With the insertion of a second act that takes us back a year to Mr West’s arrival and meeting with the owner, a young wild free spirited local, Luke Trebilcock’s arresting and frenetic Draycott, a cross between Ian Anderson’s Jethro Tull persona and Rick from The Young Ones, who knows all the tricks to survive and get freebies.
We learn of West’s underworld past and the incident that has led to his decampment from London, but will he get to go back? Pace, pause and timing are spot on as pathos and humour clash head on.
– Dave Jordan
