(Daniel Janks. Jessica
Friedan, Ashleigh Harvey & James Alexander)
(Review from the
artSMart team from the National Arts Festival)
Outstanding cast tells stories of dark secrets borne of inner
turmoil. (Review by Caroline Smart)
In an extraordinarily calm and non-histrionic manner, four
actors tell three horrific stories in a play titled Bash which appeared on the Fringe Festival in Grahamstown.
Produced by The Wider Ground and 360 Degrees Production
House, Bash is directed by Megan
Willson and written by American playwright Neil LaBute. The outstanding cast
features James Alexander, Jessica Friedan, Ashleigh Harvey and Daniel Janks.
The staging is simple – just two comfortable arm chairs with
a side TV screen introducing each of the stories in graphics alongside words
that link to the narratives. At first meeting, the characters appear normally
balanced, civilised well-dress people. However, bar one, they all have a dark
secret borne of inner turmoil. There is clever ironic dialogue especially when
the stories move in a dark direction.
iphigenia in orem (the
screen shows the titles Breadwinner, Head, Responsibility) is the first story (Daniel
Janks) and deals with addiction to material wealth. Alone in his retrospection,
he talks about the loss of his five-month old baby after a joke that went
horribly sour.
A Gaggle of Saints
(Dream, Justice, Value) sees James Alexander and Jessica Friedan sees two young
people talking about a party they went to in New York. While the female
chatters on about insignificant memories, the man’s story goes down a
homophobic path.
The final story is medea
redux (Love Loyalty Trust). As an adult woman, Ashleigh Harvey’s character
talks about a sexual relationship she had with a much older man when she was
13. As a result she became pregnant and when the child is older she uses him as
a tool to extract her revenge. While the whole cast is excellent, as already
mentioned, it was Ashleigh Harvey’s superb performance that blew me away in her
quiet and compelling retelling of her story.
Don’t miss this one if it comes your way. – Caroline Smart
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