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 Attempts on Her Life
A woman is dead. That much is likely, if not entirely certain – at one point she may well be a motor car – though it hardly matters in Martin Crimp’s famous and internationally lauded Attempts On Her Life. It’s from Crimp’s own subtitle, “17 scenarios for the theatre,” that you get a clue about the piece’s intent, as in his instruction that it should be played in a way “that best exposes its irony.”
The unseen star of the show is tangibly present in the little plays that make up the work. She’s not always up front, nor does she need to be, but to make her so consistently present is the greatest challenge facing the actors in this very difficult piece. The freedom Crimp insists upon places the responsibility very squarely on the creative team to meaningfully – perhaps entertainingly is a better word – interpret each episode. Director Geordie Brookman and a very strong cast throw caution to the wind and deliver everything from impassioned speeches to belly-laugh comedy, from anguished pleas to shouting matches, in exploring how “she” came to be in the state she’s in.
Attempts On Her Life is ensemble theatre par excellence, and to that end the entire cast of Kate Box, Terence Crawford, Lizzy Falkland, Cameron Goodall, Jude Henshall and Roman Vaculik deserve equal praise with director Brookman and their backstage colleagues, especially Geoff Cobham, whose lighting design is as good as any he’s done, and that’s saying something.
For all that, it’s not perfect, and there’s some down-time in the challengingly long running time which is rather too close to 2 hours, an eternity on the lumbar-support-free seats in the Space. And there’s an occasional hint of Geordie and Friends where Brookman allows too much leeway and indulgence sneaks through, and that ain’t necessarily so. But a considerable achievement, that still has this critic thinking.
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