Dramsoc’s production of Duncan Macmillan’s contemporary play Monster transports the audience back to the setting of a comprehensive London, inner-city school.
The audience fill the centre of the industrial space, The People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, facing each other across its traverse staging. The stage design, with two chairs set each side of a functional table is minimalist and creates a neutral backdrop for Macmillan’s heavily scripted dialogue.
The play unites the characters Tom, teacher, and Darryl, student, who are disaffected by their different life experiences and tracks the trials and tribulations of their growing relationship. It considers who and what is responsible for an individual becoming outlawed in society and ponders who or what is ultimately responsible for the creation of a monster.
Tom Titherington cleverly directs sound and light intergration (Davina Caheo, Nicole Burley) to create contrasts between the school environment and the home settings, whith rap music and a white spotlight suggestive of a sterile classroom setting, whilst softer light and the deduction of intrusive background noise show the transition to a gentler home setting.
Although the play’s narrative concentrates on its two male protagonists, Titherington and producer Elinor Lower have been astute in their casting of the female roles, Tom’s partner Jodi (played by Grace Calvert) and Darryl’s long-suffering and rather stoic grandmother Rita (Grace Vance). Both female actors bring dynamism to the production. Vance brilliantly creates a light-hearted tone to the play and offers us a comical but credible caricature of a hardy East-ender, whilst exerting maternal authority. Calvert in particular stole the show with her emotional range and intensity. She harbours the sorrows of a wife neglected by Tom’s preoccupations with an ungrateful youth with violent urges toward the female gender.
Titherington adheres to the script’s use of strict dialogue and this results in intense one-on-one acting throughout the play. This does not create a relaxing experience; as a member of the audience you feel coerced into the drama of the characters’ lives. At times feeling like a fly on a wall to the ins and outs of personal relationships can began to feel a little drab and predictable, especially whilst forcibly being immersed in a school setting. However allusions to violence, Darryl’s temperamental acting range and harsh lighting and sound contrasts bring you out of these dips in experience.
Undeniably the star focus of the production was the authentically depicted and brilliantly ranged acting of Darryl from James Bachman, who sensitively pulled off the character’s social class without satirising or caricaturing it. At times, the dialogue felt inaccessible and muffled because of its fast pace and the use of slang. Both these ploys are necessary, however, to create the successful allusion to violence within the play and to challenge typical stereotypes of class, gender and race.
Dramsoc’s Monster is a commendable attempt to diversify Bristol’s drama scene; confronting and bridging the issues of the class gap evident in our university’s demographic. On a wider note, the play brings to light the issues of suppressed communication amongst men and suggests how suppression of emotions among men can lead to violent behaviour or disaffection. Titherington invites the audience to confront these issues at first hand through the clever use of staging and the skilful acting of the cast.
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Performance dates are 9th, 10th and 11th December at The People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, commencing at 7:30pm.
Get your tickets for the event here:
https://www.ubutheatre.com/monster
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