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Pap C Productions Clam and Honey/Baby
by Deborah Levy
Directed by Nadia Papachronopoulou
White Bear Theatre
16 Feb – 7 March 2010
A review by James Fritz for EXTRA! EXTRA! An intriguing double bill of Deborah Levy plays is presented at The White Bear. Levy, a writer who comes off as the lovechild of Sarah Kane and Martin Crimp, certainly pulls no punches in her abstract examinations of love and femininity. But it is also her skill as a rather comic writer that director Nadia Papachronopoulou has emphasised in this accomplished production. The first play Clam is an interesting little two hander that presents extracts from the troubled lives of three markedly different couples – including, bizarrely Vladimir Lenin and his mistress. Set against a cartoonish underwater design, the text presents a highly surreal examination of the politics of relationships. Double speak and wordplay are employed throughout, ensuring that the intentions of Levy’s characters are left deliberately ambiguous, and amidst the absurdity there are several very touching moments. Two strong performances from Emma West and a spectacularly coiffured Matt Hollihan help make this an entertaining, if somewhat baffling start to the evening. The second play is a much bolder, more ambitious example of Levy’s writing. Honey/Baby, a fractured meditation on love and desire, sees two couples – two impossibly gorgeous young lovers and a perfectly-pitched stereotype of Mr and Mrs Middle England – placed side by side onstage, competing both for the affections of each other as well as the attentions of the audience. The vacant housewife (played hilariously by Chloe Thorpe) sits blabbering about cake and gardens whilst her husband aches to get something off his chest: ‘It’s in the middle of my mind because I come from the middle of England’ he repeats endlessly, without ever having the nerve to tell us – or his unfortunate wife - what he means. Meanwhile the young lovers go into explicit detail as they explain just exactly what it is they fantasise about changing in each other: the answer, it would seem, is everything. Levy’s play certainly takes a cynical view of the nature of love. Each of her surreally crafted characters hides their true emotions, their relationships based on lies and convenience. The introduction of James Kenward as a terrifyingly eccentric interrogation officer only serves to highlight the fragility of each of these respective ‘Honeys’ and ‘Babies’ as he attempts to bully out of them some sense of truth or affection. What makes the evening is Papachronopoulou’s ability to draw the humour, as well as the pathos, from Levy’s subversive text. Fine performances and exquisite timing ensure that both Honey/Baby and Clam come across closer to black comedy than outright tragedy, and this only serves to sharpen the horrifying focus of both plays.
Box Office: 020 7793 9193
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