Leaves of Glass (Modern Plays)

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Prices may change, subject to demand.To access the best prices at the earliest opportunity, consider becoming aPark Keeper. The play is about two brothers, Steven and Barry. Steven is the head of a successful graffiti removal company and Barry, his younger brother, works for him as he is struggling to get income and recognition from being an artist. Steven, played outstandingly by Ned Costello, is the eldest of the two brothers. The strongest of the four performances, there is a constant edge to him. It feels as if he is holding something in: like a caged animal, there’s unspent energy, barely controlled but just beneath the surface waiting to erupt. He’s the eldest by 5 years and has kept the family together throughout previous trauma. The inference is that when he divulges his stories and reminiscences, they’re accurate, and therefore to be believed. By contrast, his younger brother Barry is volatile and troublesome. A recovering alcoholic, his anxiety and mental health issues suggest an unreliability of memory. In another strong performance Joseph Potter encapsulates that volatility of mental health, physically leaping about the stage, at times harming himself and potentially others, he is always on the edge of extremes: delirious with potential and excitement or in the depths of anguish. The relationship between the two brothers is perfectly on point: a fraternal co-dependence which facilitates both support and jealousy. The major theme throughout the production is memory, how what we remember can differ from the truth, and how sometimes we choose to remember things differently as it’s less painful; the show begs the question – can we trust our memories? And whose narrative do we, the audience, trust?

Set in the round, you are instantly, almost voyeuristically placed in whichever room the characters are in, strengthening the sense of investment you have in the truth and the outcome. With just a staple of four benches as the set, and additional purposeful props smoothly brought in when needed for a location change, the starkness deliberately pulls your focus to the phenomenal acting and storytelling. Everything that is there is there for a reason and not simply to dress the set, whether it be a hanging lamp, a piece of art, a remote control, or a baby monitor. The thought that has gone into minute detail is breath taking, and this extends to every creative element. Lighting will mess with your mind, taking you from a plunging darkness to feeling almost naked and vulnerable in the sudden and glaring strip lights. A particularly gut-wrenching scene is played out via candlelight, offering up yet another story telling filter where just like the characters, you are forced to listen, because you don’t have easily accessible visual clues. Costumes are designed to lead us into snap judgements. Barry first appears with impeccable detail, chunks of vomit on his top, and later with holes in his t-shirt and jeans with an unwashed grime in them. Even the make up on his wrists shows of his struggle with self-harming. In contrast, Steven wears a crisp white shirt, expensive and trendy trousers, smooth, tailored, immaculate, with not a hair out of place. We think we have seen the truth based solely on their appearances before we have even bothered to listen. Lidless Theatre and Zoe Weldon in association with Park Theatre and Theatre Deli present the first major UK revival This is a smart creative team ( Kit Hinchcliffe– set and costume, Alex Lewer– lighting, Sam Glossop– sound) who understand how our minds can sadly work. Sounds are filtered in with such discretion that whilst you may notice the barking dog or the telephone ring, you may be forgiven for feeling rather than hearing the building hum of tension, the power of silence, and the gloomy external weather.Unsettling, opening up topics audiences prefer to shy away from, that’s a function of theatre too. Ridley does it supremely well. He writes plays that delight in keeping the audience unbalanced, and this play is a fine example of that, juggling truth in a succession of sharp, focussed scenes that leave us with fewer certainties than we started with. It doesn’t make for a comfortable evening’s entertainment, but it is arguably more important because of it. And this production gives a superb platform for all that squiggly doubt.

Leaves of Glass is a vivid, unsettling drama that brilliantly captures the essence of domestic life, bristling with conflict, tension, and uneasy revelations. Penned by acclaimed playwright Philip Ridley and under the masterful direction of Max Harrison, this play is a formidable examination of family bonds, personal frailty, and the profound implications of the past that bleed into the present. As time goes on severe accusations towards Steven and dark moments from the past start to bubble to the surface; abuse, domestic abuse, extra marital affairs. Barry is also making accusations, which Stephen is keen to bury, to rewrite. The main theme in Leaves of Glass is memory, recounting stories from the past and the unreliability of any one person’s account and how these accounts can be swayed to portray them in a positive light; a key example is Liz saying she wished she had one of Barry’s paintings on her living room wall, when earlier we saw her say how horrible she thought these paintings were and why would anybody want them on their living room wall. a b Goldman, Lisa (August 2012). The No Rules Handbook for Writers (know the rules so you can break them). Great Britain: Oberon Books Ltd. p.185. ISBN 9781849431118. You’ve starred in another one of Philip Ridley’s works before, The Poltergeist. What is it about his work that draws you in?

During the course of the play, we see their interactions with each other and their two significant others, Steven’s wife, Debbie (Katie Buchholz) and their mother (Kacey Ainsworth), as a series of snapshots of their lives. Time passes in short bursts, each one charged with unspoken secrets. Both Katie Buchholz and Kacey Ainsworth play their parts with unspoken depth conveyed in glances and body language which makes the audience wonder what they actually know. The play was commissioned and directed by Lisa Goldman after being greatly impressed by Ridley's previous adult stage play Mercury Fur. [2] The production was Lisa Goldman's first in her tenure as artistic director of the Soho Theatre. [3] Like Mercury Fur the play starred Ben Whishaw in its premiere production. [4] Steven’s minimally scored soliloquies provide snapshots of their youth and recollections of their oft alluded to, long-deceased father, a most ominous presence that the brothers and their mother navigate in conflicting and evasive memories. Steven recalls his promise that he “won’t tell anyone what you did to me, Dad – our secret”, and this unspoken trauma is circled by the brothers in their every interaction, constantly suggesting a shared something that they have spent their entire lives avoiding putting into words. Costello does well to work Steven’s resentment into his ambivalence towards his wife, Debbie, whose caustic tongue and commanding presence serve to cut through his evasions and distracted nature, and the childish taunts with which he baits Barry in their final devastating confrontation. Barry’s tortured character emerges as the driving force for confronting his family’s misremembering, their evasions, their comforting half-truths, with the steadily mounting animosity between Barry and Steve culminating in an explosive scene in Steven’s cellar, where Steven is hiding in the darkness, the lightbulb extinguished and removed from the light fixture: “You can’t see the shadows in the dark.” Leaves of Glass will run at Park Theatre, London from 11 May – 3 June. It will then play at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford (15 – 17 June) and Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre (10 – 16 July).

Ridley, Philip (16 May 2007). "PLAYWRIGHT PHILIP RIDLEY TALKS TO ALEKS SIERZ". TheatreVoice (Interview: Audio). Interviewed by Aleks Sierz . Retrieved 23 July 2022. The four-person ensemble, comprised of Kacey Ainsworth, Katie Bucholz, Ned Costello, and Joseph Potter, delivers a tour de force performance. The setting, East London, 2023, is the canvas on which their characters unfurl – the hardworking Steven, the unsettled Barry, the lonely Liz, and the disillusioned Debbie. That’s the way it works in this family. Believe what you wanna believe. Twist this. Ignore the other. That’s how we survive.’ The play unfolds not just through dialogues but also through introspective monologues, lending a distinct depth and breadth to the narrative. In these moments of solitude, the characters come into their own, allowing the audience an intimate look into their lives, pasts, and psyches. These monologues are profound, poignant, and strikingly raw.Nothing I can speak of yet. I’m grateful to be working with an amazing creative team and once this is done, we will see… Did you find any contrasts and parallels in The Poltergeist and Leaves of Glass that particularly caught your attention with Ridley’s work? Or is there anything you noticed in the evolution of his writing from then to now? The death of their father has clearly affected the brothers, and their relationship with not only each other, but also their mother Liz, a straight talking East End woman who is convinced she’s holding the family together, when in reality she’s ignoring what’s painfully obvious to the rest of us. Kacey Ainsworth’s gloriously forthright performance leaves the audience wondering whether to love or hate this particular matriarch. After this and the tour, what other projects are you currently involved in that you can share with us?