Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
A hundred years ago, the Citizens Theatre was the
Royal Princess’s, a variety dive catering to what was left of the masses in the
fallout of the First World War. As the Citz’s current incumbents prepare to
move out of their Gorbals home for two years pending a multi-million pound
upgrade, it’s only fitting that the final show on the main stage as it stands
looks back to a time when the building’s grandeur perhaps wasn’t so faded.
With almost fifty performers onstage drawn from the
Citz’s assorted community companies, initially this looks set to be a braw
night of fun and frolics, especially as MC’d by tartan-trewed turn and the
theatre’s then director-manager, Rich Waldon, brought to life with grotesque gusto
by Alan McHugh. As soon as one Dorothy Donaldson breaks ranks and the motley
crew onstage realise they are the ghosts of Citizens Theatres past, things take
a different turn in Guy Hollands and Neil Packham’s expansive production of
Peter Arnott’s meticulously researched script.
Drawn from
the real life history of Dorothy and her dad Ronald, the effect is a ribald but
increasingly angry collage of high-end agit-prop that moves from Pirandellian
archness by way of Oh What A Lovely War. Arnott, Hollands and Packham are
really going for broke here, both in the show’s unflinching anti-war sentiments
and in the monumental stage pictures created by the ensemble under the eye of
movement director Jen Edgar.
All this combines to create what is possibly the
closest and most powerful near neighbour to a Joan Littlewood style epic by,
for and about the people that you’re likely to see on a stage for a good couple
of years. Possibly, in fact, until the Citz reopens for a brand new era. The
theatre’s ghosts may linger still.
The Herald, May 25th 2018
ends
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