Theatre
Role Shift
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
four stars
SERIOUS mischief has become a provocative undercurrent in recent Birds of Paradise shows, and that tactic of using comedy to challenge assumptions about disability is well to the fore in this co-production with Oran Mor for the Play, Pie and Pint lunchtime slot.
Ally (Robert Softley Gale) and Bernie (Louise McCarthy) are at sea, cooped up on a luxury liner, betting on the roulette wheel over guys they both fancy. On the side-lines, but disconsolately so, is BSL signer Carrie (Natalie MacDonald). The corkscrew twists in Lesley Hart’s script start when Carrie – whose role-shift signing deftly differentiates between the characters speaking on-stage – decides to stop being "everyone and no-one" in the play and enters the action. Soon, like a croupier fixing the wheel, she’s interfering in the lives of two total strangers with outcomes that include shriekingly ecstatic sex and a role shift where the apparent swapping over of bodies plays initially for laughs, but then frankly addresses what it means to live with disability.
There is a forthright honesty in Ally’s words about having cerebral palsy – and, like Softley Gale himself, being a wheel-chair user with a speech impediment – that lacks all vestiges of self-pity. Instead, the episode leads onto a spirited, affirming reflection on the game of life, on taking chances, making the best of your time at the table. By then, however, another thought-provoking strand has been woven through the interplay of signing and speaking, Is Carrie communicating the truth of what passes between Ally and Bernie? Or is she surreptitiously directing them? No need – Garry Robson’s already done a cracking job of balancing the frisky humour and sensitive issues of gender, sexuality and disability while giving his tremendous cast room to be mischievous!
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