The Amateurs

They march toward us out of the darkness, singing, flaming torches aloft - a ragged band of travelling players in cloaks and dirty costumes of faded red.  In death’s head masks they begin to perform as the Seven Deadly Sins, a play in rough, clunky couplets.  Suddenly, one of them dies… 

We are somewhere in the middle of the 14^th century, the time of the Black Death.  People die every day, in their hundreds, in their thousands…  Scapegoats are targeted – among them, foreigners, pilgrims, Jews - and travelling players.  We will learn that the troupe is on its way to a particular Duke,in the hope of becoming his players – for prestige and protection.  Everything hangs on their major opus production of ‘Noah’s Flood’…  That flood, another mass extermination of human beings – like the Plague – sent by God?  No?  Then why?

An old man, Gregory (Brian Lipson), sweetly childlike, makes props and drawings of the animals two-by-two for Noah’s Flood.  The troupe’s leader, director and text writer is pompous authoritarian Larkin (Dion Mills), who usually, of course, plays the role of God, and covers his own anxieties and inadequacies with bluster and bullying.  Hollis (Emily Goddard) , whose brother Henry it was who died, seems the most unsure and awkward player, but later we’ll find out why.  Butch Brom (Darcy Kent), from the North, is grieving Henry for his own reasons.  Diminutive Rona (Olga Makeeva), caustic, matter of fact, currently Larkin’s lover even if she likes to put herself about.  Rona adds a mocking, sceptical irony to the ‘religious’ plays the troupe perform.  All these characters are ‘bad actors’ but, of course, it takes very good actors to make that work.

The excellent, evocative set, echoing the art of the time, and the costume design is by Dann Barber.  The confined Red Stitch stage becomes the setting for a journey and an arrival.  The grieving players regroup around the cart that holds their possessions and is their moveable stage.

The Amateurs is a play of many risky layers.  Playwright Jordan Harrison goes right out on several limbs and without an exceptional cast and an exceptional director, one suspects the play could fall on its nose.  Fortunately, this production does have an exceptional cast and in Susie Dee, an exceptional director.  

One cannot say too much without spoiling the great enjoyment of the surprises, revelations and theatrical rule breaking.  The play confronts us with questions that have no answers – or answers about which we’d rather not think.  There are constant shifts of tone.  There are shocking events.  More death.  There is possibly the longest breaking of the ‘fourth wall’ in theatrical history when one cast member steps totally ‘out of character’ only to play another and contemporary character.  And a second cast member suddenly plays herself (or does she?) to tell a story about herself – which, as it turns out, is absolutely to the point – a story that is crazy and yet makes perfect sense and by its end the audience loves her and is cheering for her.

Indeed, the text throws together many ideas and issues and melds them – by sleight of hand, by control of tone, by headlong energy and internal logic - into a coherent whole.  It is about the role of theatre itself, about having ‘agency’, about ‘coming out’, about identity, about death, about Bible stories, about God, and about going on in the absence of God.  It is very funny and very sad.  We don’t forget that the characters are in constant jeopardy.  But despite their conflicts, they care about each other (they are all they have), including a new addition, The Psychic (Khisraw Jones-Shukoor).  He sings too – and acts – and is in even more danger than the others.  We come to care about these bumbling bad actors – particularly Emily Goddard’s Hollis.  Her comic timing is exquisite and her mobile face that registers doubt, defiance, humour, and love is a marvel. 

The Amateurs is a play that has the audience spellbound.  What will happen next?  Time flies by.  We almost don’t want it to end. 

Michael Brindley

Photosgrapher: Jodie Hutchinson