Mixing the familiar patter of street slang with fluid rhyming couplets, 'Two Graves' is exquisitely structured. It captures sordid detail and doomed enthusiasm, never allowing the pace to slacken.
PUBLISHED 14 AUGUST 2006
Two Graves is a monologue exploring the corrosive power of vengeance, set in a London underworld fuelled by illegal gambling and violence. Paul Sellar's forceful script dances through back-room darts' tournaments, fixed horse-races and murderous despair: Jonathan Moore's performance is remarkable for its lack of movement. He recites the extended poem from a chair, transfixing the audience with a vicious stare and harsh delivery.
Mixing the familiar patter of street slang with fluid rhyming couplets, Two Graves is exquisitely structured. It captures sordid detail and doomed enthusiasm, never allowing the pace to slacken.
From the barest bones of a predictable plot- a young man sucked gradually into a sinister East End- Sellar's rhymes evoke the excitement of dubious sports and gangster turf wars. Moore manages to bring out the abject misery of his protagonist's situation, and the suggestive soundtrack heightens the tension.
If the finale is unoriginal, and the characters owe a great deal to the cliches of British gangster cinema, this remains ferocious, arresting theatre, made all the more potent by its lack of props, set and theatrical devices.
Mixing the familiar patter of street slang with fluid rhyming couplets, Two Graves is exquisitely structured. It captures sordid detail and doomed enthusiasm, never allowing the pace to slacken.
From the barest bones of a predictable plot- a young man sucked gradually into a sinister East End- Sellar's rhymes evoke the excitement of dubious sports and gangster turf wars. Moore manages to bring out the abject misery of his protagonist's situation, and the suggestive soundtrack heightens the tension.
If the finale is unoriginal, and the characters owe a great deal to the cliches of British gangster cinema, this remains ferocious, arresting theatre, made all the more potent by its lack of props, set and theatrical devices.
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