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Shifting
production away from classics to plays with a broader audience appeal
has paid off for Snap Theatre’s artistic director, Andy Graham.
His aim of making theatre ‘interesting for young people’ certainly
seemed successful on the opening night of A Clockwork Orange at
the Everyman where, despite a warning on the flyers that the show
was suitable only for the over fifteens, the audience comprised
mainly of the under twenties.
Taking
an all women cast and hurtling them into Burgess’s chilling vision
of the future enables the essence of the story to come across with
passion and effect. Burgess was critical of the infamous film version
of his story directed by Stanley Kubrick; he felt that Kubrick did
not take the essence of the book’s central theme when he translated
it into film.
Penned
by Burgess, and brought to life by Snap Theatre, A Clockwork Orange
is a short but weighty play. Fast moving, the scenes are packed
with affecting and dynamic content. Disturbing throughout, the text
is not an easy ride.
A visual
production, the images created in the mind by the text linger afterwards
and are aided by effective stage projections. Subversive use of
classical music enables the story to evoke a sense of horror, as
does the confrontational and dominant physical presence of the actors
on stage.
A Clockwork
Orange cannot fail to affect. Each character is a victim of the
society they live in and this evokes a realisation of a sense of
place in society for the audience member. By blurring the boundaries
between protagonist and antagonist each character seems deserving
of sympathy and hate. Tackling the idea of whether evil is inherent
in a person or due to youth and circumstance, what constitutes evil
and how it is put into practice, this production relays Burgess’s
message, in an original and effective performance.
Words: Emma Hardy
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