Reviews

Rank

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13 June 2009

Venue: The Lowry
Where: Salford

Rank is set on Halloween and an electrical storm has disrupted
telephone communication and isolated the characters. The scene is set ,
therefore, for a play that contrasts supernatural terrors with those of a more
mundane nature to let us decide which is the most frightening.

Unfortunately
writer/ director Joe O’Byrne allows his love of word-play to overwhelm the
atmosphere and slow the storytelling to a sluggish pace.

Taxi owner Lisa (Jeni Howarth-Williams) is revealed as the key witness in
the trial of the son of local gang boss McCready. She and her staff Nick (Clyve Bonelle), Marek (Ian Curley) and Arif (Aaron Rochford) are subject to
intimidation as the Paradise Heights Estate is torn apart by riots organised by
the rival gang bosses.

Lisa’s brother Corny (Ben Hood) , a former boxer
suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is rescued from death by supernatural
forces (in the shape of Phoebe Jones) and encouraged to make contact with the
sister from whom he is alienated.

The title has a number of meanings as itt refers to the taxi ranks, the
system of ranking boxers and the possibility of gang members gaining promotion by
eliminating the witness and the rotten state of the community. This fondness
for word-play runs through O’Byrne’s script which is rich with memorable phrases
like ‘He was a stand – up guy who we wouldn’t let stand up’.

Unfortunately it
also results in speeches that even Tarantino would acknowledge as verbose, which
drag out the running time of the play and deprive it of any sense of menace
.

Greater imagination is required in the use of multi-media techniques, such
as a radio-DJ voice-over and filmed inserts,used to convey background
information. The voice-over could have been played as the audience was being
seated and therefore added a sense of urgency.

The play is disjointed with the
over-long first half being a quest to bring the characters together. Act two has shades of The Weir with the cast telling old ghost stories. Having
ignored the effect of Lisa’s actions upon her staff in the first half it feels
forced when the subject comes up in the second.

The acting is generally of a high standard though. Howarth-Williams takes Lisa on
a journey from someone who is strong enough to take a stand but so human as to
fear the consequences to a modern-day Medea. Bonelle balances Nick’s awareness
of his seedy actions against his desperation and Curley has fun with a broadly
comic character.

The unearthly performance by Jones is exactly right for a
spirit. Hood generates sympathy for the battered boxer but the script makes him
too witty for someone in his condition. Only Rochford disapppoints with
exaggerated gestures and, at one point, addressing his remarks directly to the
audience, instead of to Lisa.

O’Byrne builds upon the mythology of his Paradise Heights community by not
only referring to past instalments but also to the future with a hint of
signficant developments at Christmas.

Despite the relative disappointment of Rank, I will certainly be back for more episodes.

-Dave Cunnningham