What can I say about Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey? It is now one of my favourite modern plays for many different factors. From it's pitch perfect writing to the genius directing by Nikolai Foster. The social commentary's and running themes were educational whilst not being heavy handing. In this review I will analysing the different elements of what makes this such a great play.
The staging was naturalistic. This brought to life the truth in the performance and made the play feel humble and real. We see a quaint yet deprive looking terrace of a block of flats with the doors facing down stage, stage right and stage left. This simple design gives us great angles to see action at without it being obscured by the shape of the stage. The faded blue of the doors help to create a "run down" atmosphere like you would feel if you went to any block of flats in London yet this is broken by the subtle tonnes of flowers hanging by doors and clothes rack make the believability of the piece even more real. This made me feel even more so connected to the stories of the characters on stage and didn't make me feel disconnected as an audience member because I could identify with a familiar setting.
The costumes well researched and helped me to identify what time period it was set in. It was quite clear that the fashion of the characters was akin to that of the 90's and since there was a lot of little things that would look out of place in 2013 it helped to set up the world which the play was set in. The repeat use of the colour red gave me connotations of passion especially when Ste and Jamie were wearing their school uniform. I feel like to improve upon the historical placing using costumes would be to use football shirts, I know that I can tell what time period a shirt was from so as an audience member this would pull me even further into the story.
The lighting was natural but in some parts that were necessary it would become more dramatic. For example in moments of suspense the lighting would becoming harder and brighter to really illuminate the actors face and in my opinion to make the audience feel under pressure subconsciously. I feel as if the absence of light in Jamie's room made me curious, as an audience member I was trying to take in as much information as I could about the place this character lived in and by obscuring some of his room it made me want to look harder at certain areas of the stage. Also in parts where it was just Ste and Jamie when the rest of the stage was dark it made me feel as if was alone with them taking a peak at something very private. This also is used to make Jamie seem isolated in parts.
The casting was near perfect. Suranne Jones as Sandra was the best decision that could have possibly been made. She delivers a poised yet wild performance whilst perfectly blending humour and raw emotion sometimes within the same sentence. I could really understand her motivations and I never questioned for a minute her place on that stage. In contrast I think Roy gave a much to be desired performance, I felt as if he made a very likeable character insufferable. I felt as if that character had a lot of potential but by end nothing significant was done by him! A very forgettable performance. The on stage chemistry between Jamie and Ste was tangible. The actors showed a journey from beginning where I felt the were just Okay mates right to the end where I was rooting for them to be together forever.
There were not many sound effects used but I remember one moment after a big crescendo of action there was a pause before Leah walked off stage and slammed the door. I guess they utilized a natural sound like a door slam to really add emphasis to the scene. The music was mainly used during transitions as a distraction. I felt they were trying to draw attention away from the changing of the set. It also helped to enhance the story telling and adding atmosphere for example at the very end when Ste and Jamie dance together. The song used is perfect and adds a depth that dancing to silence wouldn't fulfil.
The actors accents were very good and not forced at all. In my opinion sometimes there were moments where they went slightly over the top with the East end/cockney/commoner dialect but then again that may just be what people like Sandra and Leah talk like if they were real life people. Do to the fact it was set in urban London there was more slang which made the characters come to life as they weren't putting on airs they were being themselves which means I had a honest insight into their reality. A specific section of dialogue that stood out to me was the scene where Jamie and Ste are looking at the gay magazine and Jamie says that "frottage" was a French yoghurt because it really communicated the youth and innocence of his character in a comedic way.
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