Theatre
Mancub
Cumbernauld Theatre
Mary Brennan, four stars
There’s an uncompromising starkness in the design for Mancub: two chairs, a small table – all briskly white – occupy most of what looks like a narrow shelf, rather than a full stage. Costuming puts main character, Paul, in school uniform black while the ‘ensemble’ -– all two of them – are casual in white. Props are kept to a minimum. Stripped back to such basics, this production has a totally focussed dynamic: nothing will be allowed to distract – or detract – from the performances or the writing.
It’s a good move on the part of director Ed Robson. Douglas Maxwell’s adaptation of John LeVert’s book, The Flight of the Cassowary, has a savvy, uncluttered energy that immediately alerts us to the inner conflicts that beset 16-year-old Paul. Whether he’s at home, or at school, Paul never feels as if he fits in. When the notion that we’ve evolved from all the animals – not just the primates – takes over his thoughts, and then his behaviour, Paul starts losing his grip on reality. By the end, what was often entertainingly daft is teetering on the verge of tragedy.
If Maxwell’s script convincingly relocates LeVert’s Aussie scenario into Small Town, Scotland, the performances all get thoroughly under the skin of his characters. Andy Peppiette gives Paul a likeable gawky charm as he narrates the daily failures that lead him to morph into various animals – in a blink, Peppiette physically and vocally shape-shifts across species, an impressive rhino among them.
Meanwhile David James Kirkwood and Christina Gordon are doing some remarkable role-switching themselves, with altered accents and adjusted body language vividly accounting for Paul’s family members, teachers, friends and even next-door’s dog.
If there’s a wee echo of Gregory’s Girl in the boyfriend/girlfriend scenes between Peppiette and Gordon, well we are in Cumbernauld! And though the audience surrounding me was mostly Paul’s age, Mancub’s turbulent growing pains will undoubtedly impact on older generations too.
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