310 Play Review Two

For King and Country at the Southwark Playhouse

    Director Paul Tomlinson’s play adaptation of the novel Return to the Wood was one that didn’t quite reach the bar. By choosing to keep most of the focus on the trial of Private Hamp (Adam Lawrence), he was looking at this story through the lenses of unjust law and government. Unfortunately, his attempt to do this caused the production to be drawn out and dull most of the time.
    The casting of this play, while perfectly fine, was also nothing of real amazement. All the actors did a relatively good job delivering lines but could definitely be presented in a more natural way. To me, it felt as if the defending officer Lieutenant Hargreaves, played by Lloyd Everitt, was simply reading lines instead of actually having a conversation. There was no real time for processing when Lawrence would give a response. I do think that Lawrence gave the best performance of the group. He portrayed the frightened and confused soldier who has been through hell for years flawlessly. And by that, I mean he gave the character flaws.
    I think what really made this play as dull as it was for me was the writing. The lines the actors were spewing had no real bite to them. It as though there was nothing I hadn’t heard before and in a play that taught me soldiers were killed for deserting, that’s not what you want. The only time I felt really moved by the language was when Hamp had to relay what he had been through to the officers. I think even then it was mainly due to the actor’s delivery.
    As far as the set design goes, I feel that it didn’t really help to enliven the play. They did a great job working with the small black box theatre they were in and did create a really cool and unique set. However, they staged the entire play in this one room. Only moving about a few chairs and a table when moving from the courtroom to jail cell and vice versa. I realize they only have so much room to work with but the actual way they used the stage was rather dull as well. Hamp hardly moved from the corners of the stage, the people being questioned never moved at all, and the officers doing the questioning and judging just sat at the table or stood.
In fact, the most interesting and attention holding part of the entire play was the transition between acts. The snippets of soldiers at war, in the middle of battle, was beautiful. It acted as a flashback that someone with PTSD like Hamp would be going through. To be honest, I got more meaning from those few seconds than I did during the entirety of the production. I am pretty sure that isn’t what Tomlinson was going for which only adds to the disappointment of For King and Country.