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Youth Theatre Reviews |
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More LightBy Bryony Lavery Review by J.D. Atkinson (2005) "This is without doubt a challenging play for young people," says co-director Jill Adamson. "It deals with many aspects of sexuality: courtesans, oral sex, castration…it also deals with cannibalism." Not your average youth theatre production, then! Bryony Lavery's macabre one-act play is the story of how a Chinese emperor's fifteen concubines, buried alive in his elaborate tomb, decide to prolong their lives by eating the corpse of their late lord and master. Since there is a limit to the amount of fresh meat even the plumpest monarch can provide, the women - under the leadership of the resourceful More Light (Rebecca Zienko) - go in search of more food. Fortunately for them, the emperor's decision to entomb the men who designed and made his last resting place has ensured an ample supply of human protein. Murder and cannibalism soon become part of everyday life in this bizarre subterranean world; not even a eunuch (Jacob Ward) whose knowledge of an escape route might have saved the women manages to escape the cooking pot. For the first time in their brief lives as glorified sex slaves, yet as a direct result of their ghastly predicament, the concubines are free to create works of art that astound the archaeologists who eventually discover the tomb. Lavery's first plays were written for feminist and gay theatre groups back in the heyday of political theatre, and although More Light is a comparatively recent work it sometimes sounds curiously old-fashioned. But the narrative is a compelling one and the twenty-six strong cast, aged between fourteen and sixteen, tackle this difficult material with impressive self-confidence. The concubines and chorus members, identically dressed in bridal white, include both boys and girls (I particularly enjoyed the performance of Ben Winterton as Playful Kitten). Catherine Chapman's simple yet effective split-level set and Ivan Stott's music make valuable contributions to this strange and haunting production. It's the sort of play that lingers in the mind long after you've left the theatre - all credit to York Youth Theatre for having the guts to perform such an unusual and potentially controversial work. (More Light was performed as part of a double bill with Grimm Tales, adapted by Carol Ann Duffy and Tim Supple. Unfortunately, due to a crippling headache I was unable to stay for the second half of the programme.)
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