Riddlin' Philip

 Having seen a couple of Philip Ridley's plays this year, and read a collection over Christmas, I feel entitled to make a huge pronouncement about his art. Although he has insisted that the contemporary theatre is currently asking questions about form that were posed in visual art during the 1960s, his scripts seem to employ a technique that goes back to the Renaissance.

The clue even comes up in some of his titles: The Pitchfork Disney, Dark Vanilla Jungle, Tender Napalm. Sweet'n'sour is more than just Ridley's favourite Chinese takeaway. The competing flavours battle at every level of his work (director Eve Nicol memorably defined this as 'tickles and terror). Cosmo Disney, the cockroach eating urchin in Pitchfork and Cougar Glass (from The Fastest Clock in the Universe) are seductive and repulsive in equal measure - the latter, with his taste for young boys, shares a sweet tooth with Disney's protagonists The Stray Twins. Never mind the amount of confectionary devoured by the characters: Ridley laces his treats with rat poison.

He brings chiaroscuro across into playwriting,  but his facility for the telling phrase and the extended monologue gives the impression of an almost conservative writer. He subtly undercuts the audience's understanding of events, questioning the reliability of the characters' commentaries. 

It is this mixture of dark and light, the chiaroscuro, that defines Ridley's scripts and makes the violence all the more chilling. Like a good classical author, however, Ridley doesn't revel in the on-stage representation of cruelty. The threat hangs heavy, and occasionally breaks out into a ruck, but the atrocities tend to happen off-stage or, in the case of Pitchfork, in the protagonists' dreams.

Even in his most narrative driven works (Dark Vanilla tells a story from beginning to end, albeit through a very unreliable narrator prone to black-outs), Ridley carves a reality both familiar and alien. Familiar in so far as the props and places are recognisable (chocolate, consumed to excess; stuffed birds; paedophile rings) but alien in that the characters are isolated in their own worlds. Cougar pretends he is young, so as to better seduce teenagers, The Stray Twins keep the doors locked. Even when he does get physical (Ghost from a Perfect Place has a girl-gang getting medieval on an old gangster's ass), Ridley frames it within a universe that veers violently from mood to mood, never dropping narrative for a surreal rush but always challenging the surface impression and hinting at bleaker depths.

Ridley's background - he is also a visual artist and a filmmaker - may have encouraged his adaptation of Dark Vanilla, the young woman could be either sympathetic victim or deceitful abuser (she's both) and whether she is villain or heroine is never established: Pitchfork features detailed descriptions of dreams that appear to contain elements of the play's previous scenes.

There's a lovely sense of Brecht's alienation effect at work - the characters are always distanced from the audience, ambiguous - and Ridley juggles the fundamental division in theatre (between what is actually happening on stage, and what that is supposed to represent) until it is impossible to decipher whether the scripted action is set in reality or is a more symbolic psycho-drama. Tough stuff indeed, and a reminder that the cool, searching intelligence can upset the format without losing a dramatic punch.

Visual and Script and Harrower and Ridley

Although a working definition of visual theatre gets me through manipulate (roughly, it's performance that uses the image as the primary carrier of information, with slight overlaps into dance and physical theatre), there is other theatre that eschews the visual. David Harrower's Fringe success Ciara is a sprightly monologue that unfolds the interior life of a woman on the edge of Glasgow's violent underworld, performed to perfection by Blythe Duff. Unsurprisingly, it is driven by Harrower's attention to detail and facility with language that straddles the colloquial and the theatrical, but as a live performance, there is little communication through the visual dimension.

That isn't to say that Duff's performance is pedestrian, but her movements and postures evoke little beyond the script's storytelling magic. Duff's Ciara is a woman clinging to respectability, despite her family's gangster antics, but the force of the writing needs little support. Consequently, its performance in a theatre - at least in the production which wowed the Citizens - could be easily transferred into radio. The telling moments come from Harrower's unpicking of Ciara's artistic tastes and social ambitions, as well as Duff's measured, unrepentant tone.

Against this, Philip Ridley's Dark Vanilla Jungle has several key moments that rely on the movement to expose a subtext to his story of childish sexual obsession and deceit. Gemma Whelan (despite being a mature woman and familiar in all action mode in Game of Thrones) pulls off a depiction of  neurotic teenager Andrea and, at a crucial moment, falls into a twitching fit that explains why her narrative has become increasingly erratic. Whelan throws herself to the floor, exposed and vulnerable, and in the kicking of her legs expresses the severe mental trauma that has led her character from abused to abuser.

Ridley - one of that generation of playwrights who burst through in the 1990s and became known as the neo-brutalists - is concerned with the hidden depths of the psyche, whence monsters spring forth, and how violence has its roots in the previous experience of the perpetrator. Andrea is as much a victim as a criminal and her abuse of a vegetative soldier is clearly linked to her own abuse at the hands of a paedophile. This tension comes out in the jerky, uncomfortable physicality of Whelan - and her fragmented speech.

Andrea and Ciara are both clearly concerned with their public appearance (they begin by stating that this is their version of events), and both present an image that puts them in the right. It is perhaps a measure of their respective ages that their physicality is so different: Ciara can quite clearly handle herself, while Andrea runs about wild and awkward.

Like Ciara, Dark Vanilla  is a monologue. It uses the visual sparingly (including it within manipulate would be pushing the definition of visual theatre), but as an effect counterpoint to the self-justifications that make up Andrea's explanations. Conversely, it is Ciara's lack of telling physicality that adds a layer to Duff's performance, since the self-control of the character is at the heart of her tragedy (she puts up with an unfaithful spouse and the legacy of her father's gangland empire and seedy deals).

Both Ridley and Harrower are exciting writers, and it is inevitable that their vision of theatre is based in the power of language - they are the proud and worthy successors of that particularly British tradition that sets the script as the template for theatre. But while Orla O’Loughlin's direction of Ciara could make an easy translation straight into audio, Dark Vanilla director David Mercatali recognises how even limited use of the body can add a nuance and power that evokes the darker forces at work beneath the presentation of self.

Soho Theatre... Fleabags and Bitches

Despite my location in the distant north, I try to keep an eye on Soho Theatre. Partially because it brings back memories of my youth, when I pounded the streets of London seeking out alternative theatre in the shadow of the successful musicals, and partially because it operates as a good guide to what might happen at the Edinburgh Fringe. The mix of serious and fun performance keeps me on my critical toes - and forces me to bemoan the theatre that I have missed. 

Fleabag  is a good example. Check out the press release.

Today I am going to be a new person. No more slutty pizzas. No more porny wanks. Lots more lovely threesomes. GO.The Fleabag bites back. A rip-roaring account of some sort of a female living her sort of life. Directed by Vicky Jones, whose play The One won the 2013 Verity Bargate Award for best new play. Wed 7 – Sun 25 May, 7.30pm (Thu & Sat matinees, 3pm, Sunday matinees, 5pm)

That this was not at the top of my 'must-see' list in 2013 is further evidence that I am set to lose my reputation for catching cheeky new works. And to follow that up, another former Fringe hit (which I missed). 

Bitch Boxer

Written by 2013 Soho Six member Charlotte Josephine when she was a member of Soho Theatre’s Young Company Bitch Boxer won Soho Theatre’s Young Writers Award 2012. It has since had sell-out runs at Soho Theatre, and Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the Old Vic New Voices Edinburgh season. As Chloe trains for Olympic boxing glory she is left winded by two life-changing events in a fast-paced show full of blood, sweat and tears. Tue 25 Mar – Sun 13 Apr, 7pm (Sat matinees, 2pm)

In my defence, I did catch Dark Vanilla Jungle at the Traverse. There is a review pending, so I can't say too much. It is worth catching, if your tastes extend to precise, provocative scripting and the gradual unfolding of a modern horror story. Besides, it is Philip Ridley, and he has a distinctive style - his fans will be already making a sinister queue at the box office, filled with hidden meanings and half-reliable storytelling. Tue 25 Mar – Sun 13 Apr, 8.30pm (Sat matinees, 3.30pm)