THIS SHOW HAS CLOSED
Someone To
Watch Over
Me
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adam ... Oliver Speed-Andrews
Director... Lynne Foster
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REVIEWS/NOTESI expected this play to be good. The play is good; McGuinness sprinkles tension and humour easily, creating a powerful, dark but funny piece that most would enjoy. There are always certain expectations from an audience, and the three actors, Andy Perrin (Michael), Kevin Stemp (Edward) and Oliver Speed-Andrews (Adam) managed to portray this harrowing experience with such ease that I felt as though I had personally been invited into their cell. The story is of three men, held hostage in Beirut, where they cling for years to their sanity, their memories, and each other. Edward, the Irish journalist, always talking but never saying anything. Adam, the young American doctor, hiding behind his nationality and fantasies. And finally Michael, hopeful to the end that knowledge is power, when he doesn’t really know anything. Watching this play I found so many things brought the men into sharper focus…a constant clinking of chains as they moved about the stage, although not loud, was intrusive, and constantly re-enforced their situation, as did their singing, songs of hope sang with sorrow. And although the men were faced with an amazingly abnormal situation, it was dealt by all three in the most human of ways…Adam, by acting stronger than he was, by Edward masking each fear with humour, with Michael refusing to accept reality. As the situation worsens, and eventually Adam is taken, to be killed, the stage becomes a house for everyone’s worst fears. I would like to tell you that one of the actors particularly shone, but it seems all three men may have put a little of themselves into their characters, because they were excellent. I expected more dazzle, more disturbing images, perhaps more costume, but without frills this play achieved more than I imagined it would. It lost nothing - the audience is powerless, as are the three men on the stage, you cannot look away from their pain, and you are not excluded from their humour either. I expected a good play. And I got one. By Laura Couzens
Perhaps the closest that most of us will ever come to being held hostage is being stuck on the train. While this event happens occasionally and is frustrating since it takes away some freedom of movement, this cannot compare with being chained to the floor for months on end. Add to this the gnawing fear of not knowing what may happen to you, clinging on to hope, thread by thread, battling sensory deprivation and boredom on the one hand but aware that change could bring either death or release on the other. Small wonder that the three characters in this play, Adam, Edward and Michael, give full rein to their fantasies and imagination, partly to pass the time and partly, and here is the irony, as though the fantasies themselves can block out enough of the harsh reality of a hostage to allow a slim hold on the real possibility of survival and release. The balance between these three men was excellent; Adam, the clean cut American doctor, perhaps naïve in his view of the world in the way that only Americans can be but also battling with his own demons surrounding his relationship with his parents; Edward, the earthy and outwardly resilient Irishman, more knowing and worldly than Adam and who forges a dependent relationship with Adam that Michael, the outwardly effete but inwardly quite robust Englishman, suggests could be verging on the homosexual. Act One opens with just Adam and Edward, allowing us to see how the relationship between these two has evolved in the months they were captives together. We are witness to what may be just a fraction of the fantasy games they play to keep each other sane and to hold onto a belief in a world outside their own four walls. The shift in mood from the depressive anguish of one to the genuinely funny antics of the other, designed to buoy spirits and maintain each other’s grip on reality, is so quick that we feel guilty at taking even moments of pleasure from a fundamentally unjust and nasty scenario. And yet this is what helps define us as human beings; we do not pull at our chains until we die of exhaustion or gnaw through our limbs to be free of our shackles, as a rat might do when caught in a trap, but rather we suppress those instinctive primal actions and use our imaginations to displace, albeit temporarily, our worst fears with more attractive outcomes, even ethereal ones. This was captured so well by these fine actors. Accents were excellent, natural and flowing, with no hint of effort. Edward’s Irish accent was particularly noteworthy since it is more difficult to maintain; indeed Edward, on stage throughout the piece, was superb in all respects, not least for his control of the pace of the action. Quite often he was soothing Adam to his right while baiting Michael to his left and with suitable pauses in between. The range of emotions and dramatic devices, from frustrated anger to controlled terror, and in the scene of imaginary driving/flying over Dublin, the pleasure of coming home, were impressive to witness. The comic scenes in Act Two, which was somehow much more engaging than Act One, as if the murder of Adam had released a degree of tension, were also beautifully handled and the interplay between Edward and Michael when Michael was weeping for his lost wife was really touching. I enjoyed this play very much; with one basic set (brickwork exposed behind peeling paint), three leg chains, a few towels and bottles of water, this was as realistic as it was going to get. For just three actors to hold an audience for nearly two and a half hours speaks volumes for the text, the acting ability and the direction. In the 12 months that I have been visiting CTW they have produced some cracking plays and this is one of the best. Reviewer- Stewart Adkins
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