Burton Taylor

Tuesday 2nd, Thursday 4th, Saturday 6th March; 9.30pm

“Despite the clear influence of mid twentieth century Absurdist playwrights like Beckett, this play displays its writer growing his own personal voice in the midst of what has often been seen as an ostensibly ‘difficult’ tradition.” Ashleigh Wheeler ★★★★★

“The language used was powerful and emotive in its familiarity; the repetition of words and phrases created a sense of accumulating significance and building tension. This ominously growing linguistic terrain seemed to act as a substitute for any tangible landscape” Hermione Thompson ★★★★★

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The Fireflies ★★★★★

Written by David Shackleton

Review by Ashleigh Wheeler

It was certainly a different experience to sit down to watch a play which I had had some involvement in, even if this involvement was minimal. Coming to see the first night of a play can always be nerve wracking if you begin to imagine what the actors must be feeling, but this was certainly heightened for The Fireflies, not least because after speaking with the cast and crew you could not help but to realise that this was a project they loved and felt strongly about.

Overall, I think the thing this play most displays is a genuinely promising future for its graduate student writer, David Shackleton. Despite the clear influence of mid twentieth century Absurdist playwrights like Beckett, this play displays its writer growing his own personal voice in the midst of what has often been seen as an ostensibly ‘difficult’ tradition. It has spark, the absurd humour giving way to what in the end becomes dark, lyrical dialogue and haunting images.

It may be difficult, however for many audience members to get over their initial confusion. We are allowed only glimpses into the full world of the play. Boy says that outside, the forests are burning. There is mention of the ‘Republic’, and the office technicians seem more like the mindless drones of a military regime. It therefore seems to just teeter on the depiction of a dystopian world, before this collapses into a belief that it might all just be in Filer’s head.

All these aspects, however, are merely suggested in a play which consists of mostly sparse dialogue. What this means, is that the individual performances are of great importance. Although I am reviewing this mostly on its qualities as new writing, praise must go to Scott Mooney and Will Mendelowitz in particular for their confident portrayal of two characters who at first seem to be without definition. Although at times I felt that mannerisms were slightly overdone just as the play seemed to be trying too hard to be wacky and weird in places, this was probably mainly first night and first play nerves respectively. The staging was often interestingly done, as with the firefly balloons at the end of the play, and director Rimi Solloway had clearly got out her ingenuity hat out in order to deal with such issues as how to create a filing cabinet which moved by itself, an aspect which worked particularly well. Not all of these ideas worked perfectly, but to expect so would be unfair. The cast and crew should be instead commended for trying new things without being too ‘showy’.

All in all, I personally came away from the theatre very happy, the full play having confirmed my belief that this is an exciting beginning for David Shackleton. Although it is hard for me to be objective, I have awarded this four stars because this is great, but not perfect, and in the hope that it will encourage those involved to keep on giving the Oxford theatre scene this kind of newness.

The Fireflies ★★★★★

Review by Hermione Thompson

The play focuses upon two characters, the filer and the boy, who share a relationship which is somewhere between father and son and employer and employee. The obsessive administrative tasks around which the play revolves and develops range from an absurdly purposeless awards ceremony to the creation of reports which have no recipient and no subject. The passage of time is marked by an increasingly sinister attitude in the boy, which correlates with a series of inexplicable and menacing phenomena which the filer experiences. As far as this blatantly Beckett-inspired piece can be said to have a plot, it culminates in the apparent mental breakdown of the filer, which retrospectively questions the sanity of the character throughout, and by extension throws doubt upon the reality of the entire play.

The language used was powerful and emotive in its familiarity; the repetition of words and phrases created a sense of accumulating significance and building tension. This ominously growing linguistic terrain seemed to act as a substitute for any tangible landscape in the limited and blinkered existence of the filer, and becomes the world which the character inhabits. The deliberate absence of natural influence or objective report in relation to the physical setting of the play creates a sense of isolation and numbness which is reinforced by the bleakly self-echoing and archaic vernacular of the filer juxtaposed against the younger character’s casual insincerity. This overlaid scenery of conflicting and senselessly repetitive images reaches its culmination during the filer’s long speech, which draws the audience’s attention to the significance of what has come before, and to a certain extent explains its purpose in the overall degeneration of the filer into madness. Although this intention is obvious, the effect was perhaps a little too diluted to reach its desired impact, and the impressive linguistic climax is not adequately anticipated by the scenes which precede it.

Several elements of the play seemed incongruous with the tone and intention of the piece. Most particularly, the half-hearted attempts at comedy (ridiculous costumes, unconvincingly jocular dialogue and painfully self-conscious naiveté from the boy) only undermined the serious atmosphere which was elsewhere so effectively fostered. Although the humour was not unsuccessful in parts, it did not gel with the piece as a whole and seemed to serve no useful purpose; it was too sparse to qualify the whole play as an effort in black comedy, and sadly held back the script from reaching its full potential as a starkly emotive snapshot of humanity.  The impressively engaging finale, which combines ambiguity and unflinching honesty, undeniably drives home the horror of the filer’s experience; the play as a whole would benefit from a more focused and concentrated effort towards this effect. Similarly, the use of such props as glowing balloons in the place of fireflies is entirely obsolete; if the actors can manage to mime a cup of coffee (which is very easily obtainable for the sake of realism), then there is absolutely no need to physically represent insects which may just as easily be imagined. The slapstick connotations of neon balloons only detracted from the brilliantly incisive acting of the scene.

Finally, the acting quality was mixed, particularly towards the beginning of the play; yet, some scenes were achieved with piercing frankness and acute emotion. However, the presence of the technicians – who seemed to hover between actual characters and stage managers – was at times bewildering. Their attempts at lifeless detachment appeared closer to resentment and sulkiness, and their contribution to the play as a whole was negligible. Overall, Fireflies had a stronger script than its direction made use of, but still made for a stimulating and engaging evening.