Liz’s Score: 3 Stars
An Intervention’ is a witty dialogue driven tragi-comedy by Mike Bartlett. This play at 505 Theatre Newtown lasts for 90 minutes with no interval. The acting in this production was pacey throughout but I feel it lacked nuance and character building.
The audience meets ‘A’, Jessica-Belle Keogh and ‘B’, Bardlya McKinnon at a critical moment in their relationship/friendship and from that point in time, this clever two hander, moves through a period of years where we observe the non-couple come to terms with how they feel about one another.
Although Jessica-Belle Keogh worked very hard delivering a great high-energy performance, unfortunately she failed to convey the character’s drunken condition and emotional decline. Bardlya McKinnon did not convey his character ‘B’ as a whole person with a full life; rather he seemed only a reluctant sidekick of ‘A’.
Erin Taylor, Director used the small space well. The actors stepping out of character and performing physical theatre to move the props achieved the minimal quick set changes efficiently. These changes were slick thanks to Stage Manager Christopher Starnawski. Nevertheless, I found it wearing to be focusing on the actors and the furniture going backwards and forwards during these set changes.
Sound and music by Ryan Devlin and lighting by Liam O’Keefe was seamless but did not enhance the play. This was particularly the case in the last scene when I feel more could have been done.
The play relies on a clever plot device; a story line running parallel with and critical to the couple’s wrangling. This is integral to the play’s last climatic scene where lighting and sound could have assisted more to build the gravitas, pathos and humour to the final critical sound effect.
Good play but the production I believe needs some finessing.
Photography Credit: Clare Hawley
Liz O’Toole – Theatre Now
