Harriet Hughes | Contributing Writer
This year’s Debut Shows kicked off on Wednesday, and this week’s shows certainly provided an evening of contrast! I did the double whammy and caught Ferdia Cahill’s Romeo and Juliet at 6pm, followed by Ricky McCormack’s Shopping and F***ing at 8pm, the first two shows of the five to come over the next three weeks.
The Debut shows are the work of the final year Trinity Drama and Theatre Studies directing class. Each show is no longer than an hour, and can range from Shakespeare to Albee to Ravenhill. There’s bound to be one that does it for you, theatrically speaking, so make sure to head down to the Samuel Beckett theatre before week 12 to catch one.
The Beckett theatre will host the Debut shows, a celebration of the work of final year Drama and Theatre Studies students.
The evening’s viewing started off for me with Romeo and Juliet, directed, costume and set designed by Ferdia Cahill. The set provided everything you might associate with a traditional Montague/Capulet divide (house of Montague stage left, house of Capulet stage right) with the added twist of a large pool (for want of a better word) centre stage. This pool served as fountain, moon (when lit from above, with reflections cast beautifully over the ceiling and set walls) and tomb. What could be initially have been interpreted as a town gathering point took on a symbolic edge, as Juliet was laid in the shallow water. The cloaks of the cast members who placed her there became soaked, dripping ominously as they left the stage, and adding to the sense of heightened claustrophobia and dank abandonment.
The show had a large cast of sixteen, yet there was a cohesive sense of ensemble throughout the piece. The large Capulet party and opening fight scene were perfect examples of this, and the stage combat throughout the play deserves praise. The Mercutio/Tybalt death scene in particular contained well rehearsed, professional, painfully realistic blows (a certain high kick caused the girl next to me to swear…) Stand out performances have to be credited to the double acts of both Romeo (Sean Doyle) and Benvolio (Eddie Murphy), who transformed the Shakespearean text of brotherhood into a modern day context, and the Nurse (Lucy Withrington) and Friar (Sam Coll), who used humour and an understanding of the lyricism of the text respectively to add to the overall performance.
The next performance in store was Shopping and F***ing , directed by Ricky McCormack. There couldn’t really be a more stark contrast between two theatrical experiences. McCormack’s set pulsed with a techno beat throughout, it was up lit in red, framed upstage by a wooden picket fence that could have been an urban skyline. Around the stage was positioned: a mattress, a raised wooden platform, a sofa, a TV. The action circled around these key features, flitting between the living room of two best friends desperate for money
and dealing ecstasy, to an interview room, to a hotel room frequented by gay prostitutes, to a shop changing room. Seamless light changes and the introduction of that familiar heavy techno beat helped moved the action fluidly around the stage, never leaving an awkward gap between scenes.
The piece was beautifully cast, so crucial in a piece with such few cast members, with stand out moments from every single performer. Four men (Andrew Oakes, Andy Duanne, Patrick Culhane, Matthew Brazel) and one woman (Claire O’ Reilly) led the audience through a visceral experience of real life: real claustrophobia, real desperation, real perversion. The content is not for the faint hearted. Anal sex is simulated on stage, the play deals with drug addiction, child abuse, and the lengths you’re prepared to go through if you owe a manic
£3000. The piece is powerful, in-yer-face, thought provoking, and moving.
Even if you’re not a theatre go-er, there’s something down at the Beckett this week worth seeing. Support fellow students, see something different, it doesn’t matter why you go, just make sure you get down there.
