“An overall tight performance using simple techniques to great effect and an ensemble cast that worked as a team” Uday Raj Anand ★★★★★

Pandemonium, ★★★★★

Magdalen, 26^th November 2009, 12.30

Review by Uday Raj Anand

How do you take a simple idea, and do it well, in an honest, uncomplicated way? Ask the cast of Pandemonium. This performance takes a powerful excerpt from Milton’s Paradise Lost and dramatizes it. And does so successfully I would say-if success is measured by trueness to the script. An overall tight performance with spot-on technical execution and an ensemble cast that worked in sync and unison as a team.

The chorus held one’s attention through the length of the short play by being sufficiently differentiated amongst themselves and yet coming through as a coherent whole. The play had a respectable level of acting talent with the women in the cast being particularly strong, (often compensating for the relative weakness of the men). Most importantly, the cast seemed a hundred percent committed to the performance and to their demonic characters.

The play used some simple techniques to great effect- two red clothes that doubled up as Satan’s wings and the gates of hell. Both times they filled the stage of the BT Studio and communicated exactly what they meant to- an ominous motion through distance in the first case and an impenetrable barrier in the other. The costumes too were simple, but the fact that the group had a dedicated costume designer showed in how ripped white cloth could become so expressive and effective.

Basic criticisms however are two fold. Firstly, Satan’s role in the whole production needed work. I was often more struck by the other fallen angels than by Satan, which is disappointing. Secondly, I sense that the play set out to be experimental, which I don’t think it was. There were moments where it tried to take on the identity of an experimental play, but lacked the vision it needed to take it there.

However, as said before, the play remains an effective and honest dramatization of a powerful and dramatic piece of writing. All in all, a good morning spent.