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Youth Theatre Reviews |
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Big CountryBy Tim Primrose Big Country is packed with issues of social import; the perfect Trainspotting Jr. for the young members of Scotland's theatre community. Detailing the struggles of a group of friends from a small town outside a larger city in Scotland (the precise location is not disclosed), Tim Primrose's script is a virtual laundry list of topics - globalisation, exclusion, drinking, gun use, sexuality, and nationalism - that might confront a group of loosely-knit friends as they gain maturity on their way to adulthood. The cast is massive, featuring no fewer than thirteen young actors who illustrate almost every configuration of teenage angst and confusion known to humankind. The strongest male performances come from Michael Argyle as Dog, the wise and world-weary oldest member of the gang, and Ross Johnstone as Mish, a clown willing to go to any extent to provoke a laugh. Their performances aren't the most profoundly layered by any extent, but they do manage to move the plot along nicely and often provide much-needed comic relief. In addition, Argyle adds an almost adult perspective to the trials of his younger friends, while Johnstone's good-natured actions and affectionate approach to interactions with the other characters makes the audience root for him throughout the show. Of the young women, it's Nicola Oldroyd's Shelly who is the most believable - this hard-drinking, straight-talking, downright nasty chick is the one female character in the play whose own personality is impossible to chart behind the portrayal of her character. A close second is Polly, played by Holly Hunter, who conveys with limited lines a genuine warmth that would otherwise be sorely lacking in the group of friends. The rest of the characters are competently played at best, but when the script demands it, the actors prove fully capable of descending into melodrama - fighting over a shotgun, provoking one another to rough-and-tumble fistfights, and getting weepy over betrayals of puppy love. One thing these actors have managed to master, which plenty more experienced actors have not, is the art of a convincing stage fight. Kudos to fight co-ordinator Carter Ferguson and the cast for constructing realistic and dangerous confrontations that could easily have fallen apart in the hands of a less capable group. The show's set is remarkably striking, featuring several layers of greenery meant to represent the hill where the friends hang out after school. Here they drink, paint, lounge, argue, joke, laugh, and cry; production designer Lisa Sangster, aided by set construction by Monkey Puzzle, has devised a set that not only comfortably holds the thirteen actors but does a good job of isolating various cliques amongst the teens. Lighting, designed by Jeanine Davies, is fairly straightforward, and separates the set into times and spaces as dictated by the script. When the kids are on the hill, the lights denote time, while artful fades to backlighting as scenes end bring to mind the setting sun.
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