18-19 October 2006 – STANDING ALONE, IB Theatre arts monologue evenings.

The IB Theatre arts class in thirteenth grade exploded on to their solo scenes with a consistent level of high-quality performances all around. The adaptations of plays and transformations of novels were impressively diverse though typically female dominated the show remained equally dispersed throughout varied psychological and historical themes in contemporary theatre.

The night was opened by Elise’s terrific interpretation of “I stand before you naked” by Joyce Carol Oates. We are taken in to the psyche of a truly desperately bored, devious housewife who spends her lonely hours at home signing checks off to every type of charity possible in order to be able to sleep well at night with a clear conscience. The notion of death and the possibility of ending up in hell after a life of effortless comfort strikes this lonely housewife who surrenders a full dependence upon the obsessive work of her husband and stays at home alone making steps towards heaven via the husbands pay checks. In this case the amusing twist came with the wild imaginary community that lives inside her mind that she protects by the use of her husbands gun. This was successfully used as a prop and handled with much precision of motion and timing of gestures. The hilarious mental disturbance of this woman was magnificently represented by Elise’s tone, clarity of expression and the often explosive comical thoughts and actions of her character. The wife launders the husbands money by taking away his payment cheques. She makes a full reconsideration of her humanitarian vocation and leaves the crowd cheering and laughing…

-Amongst the dying claps and cheers you could start to hear the voice of the typical wasted teenager at a school play over enthusiastically cheering; “That was splendid! Simply outstanding!”. Clapping along well past the crowds cheers you could instantly recognise the voice as coming from the one and only Assaf Levin. He made a direct and spontaneous entrance into the spectator’s zone in order to heat up the atmosphere for a tour of Willy Wanker’s magic chocolate factory!

Assaf’s transformation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate factory was much appreciated by the audience whose widespread popularity made this show a comic success by invoking, in many of us a return to the good old days of our childhood’s illustrated by the genial imagination of Roald Dahl. Crowd interaction was necessary and well employed considering the fact that it was a tour. Assaf managed to make me feel like a little proletarian English kid who found a penny and won a trip to the most extravagant and colourful chocolate factory in the world presented by one hell of an eccentric dude. Wonka creates a whole range of tripped out magic candy inventions that are often accompanied by physiological deformations. Then the guy tells us he’s got pipes flowing with chocolate yet that Wanker of a Willy won’t let my poor ass taste that shit, instead he recommends that I pass by the factory shop on the way out! So I reckon the show was highly ironic yet the character proved very charismatic on the whole. I found that Assaf’s strong control of stage attention took us all on a debatably psychedelic trip of Wonka’s mystery candy elaboration. There is an interesting critique of the side-effects induced by synthetic melting-pot candy produced by large candy companies: The adverse effects of child vice and gourmet speculation. Fantastic round of applause for Assaf!

-The next piece took me on the whole by pleasant surprise. Sophie brilliantly honoured a much loved absurd theatre classic with her sentimental and physical lover: her cello. The epic monologue was represented in its original French version and it took us through an entirely different approach to sexual instruments. It was executed with much elegance and sensuality whilst proving absurdly comic. For those who might remember back to the class of 05 Monologues, Nissa represented the same play also in its original French version and used much more mime than props. However, Sophie’s proved a great deal more extensive and was propped up by a great big cello which provided for much use of movement and touch that made her sexually incoherent attraction seem physically plausible. “Il faut que j’aprenne a jouer !» mais tant qu’ on puisse toucher on peut toujours aimer !! Thumbs up to Sophie for taking us through her private affair with a cello and letting us enjoy the absurdly humorous situation it created.

-Sacha impressively took the stage with the frustrated impatience of a young girl’s desire to get engaged with a man called Archie. Her dilemma comes through in her interior debate over whether she should and why she could not propose herself to this Archie type. She interpreted the role of Martha in Walter Ben Hare’s “A Leap year Leap”. Her expressions and movements were both very naturally represented with a great deal of elegance and humour. Sacha successfully satirised the much loved scene of a damsel in emotional distress over her potential fiancee. All her inner arguments as to her possibility of proposing and the level of their relationship are immediately nullified by a letter that arrives from Archie declaring his long omitted love for her and his proposal to marriage. Sacha successfully demonstrated the immediate elation felt by Martha upon reading Archie’ s romantic letter. I was stunned by the high level of naturally this performance was handled with. The quality was tops. Big up to Sacha for an amazing monologue

Due to format limitations the rest of the Wednesday and Thursday night performances will be reviewed in next weeks issue of Rioters Block. B*R*W*G*-