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Len: What was it like?
Harry: War? slight pause Most I remember the peace an’ quiet. Once or twice the ‘ole lot blew up. Not more. Then it went quiet. Everythin’ still. Yer don’t get it that quiet now. |
Billy Seymour as Colin, Tom Padley as Pete and Bradley Gardner as Barry (Photo: Simon Kane) |
Following Bond’s directions about the appearance of the actors and the set, the lighting and the rectangular movie screen proportioned low backdrop have a visual impact that is of today. The cheap furniture we see in the living room, the browns of a post war utility sofa and chair are of the 1960s but not excessively so. The designer has kept to the simplicity of an understatement.
Edward Bond has allowed this revival because of the arrival of the Conservative-Liberal coalition government, which he considers the most divisive of recent times, is perpetrating and adding to the social injustice of an unjust society. The play shows us what happens when a group of individuals who have no respect for themselves, attempt to earn that respect from each other in the context of deviant group behaviour.
The actions of the boys or young men in killing this neglected infant shocks for its brutality. The baby that has no name is already abused by its mother and her family, left to cry incessantly and then drugged up to the nines with aspirin to make it silent when she hopes to sleep with her boyfriend.
The brutality focussed on the baby is a mirrored image of the same brutality measured out to the unemployed, voiceless youth by society at large. How can you expect people to be responsible citizens if they see nothing of worth in the society they live in? Bankers, paying themselves huge bonuses and then being bailed out from public funds and corruption and cheating on expenses from the elected representatives.
Bond’s play is fiction but everywhere there are real life reports of domestic violence towards children, the killing of toddler Jamie Bulger and the abuse and deaths of Baby P and Victoria Climbié. Is the baby "saved" from a life of deprivation and injustice? Is that what the title of the play means?
I have rarely been in a theatre audience that was so still and so silent as they watched "Saved" in its full three hour playing time. Sean Holmes gets clear and perceptive performances from his cast, of whom the younger members are largely unknown but cast with care.
Morgan Watkins as tall and gangly Len the lodger is the most sympathetic character although he is defined by an inability to move on or indeed to act, when from the trees, he sees what they are doing to the baby in the pram. Lia Saville as Pam is stuck in her longing for Fred (Calum Callaghan) whose attraction no-one else can see. Pam’s desperation is seen in the café towards the end of the play when Fred publicly rejects her.
Bond has scenes where the trivial dominates conversations like Pam’s rant about the Radio Times. The director has Pam delivering this, her voice heard but her face hidden by the green towel, all the animation is delivered by her hand actions. They shout at each other from different rooms and there is amusing detail to this lack of communication when Harry and Mary alternately switch off and on the electric light.
Michael Feast and Susan Brown as Pam’s step father Harry and mother Mary personify marital breakdown and dysfunction in the way in which they ignore, cross each other or squabble. Bond’s South London characters lead a life which is desperately bleak and pointless in this cycle of deprivation.
For Elyse Sommer’s review of Saved in New York go here.
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Written by Edward Bond Directed by Sean Holmes Starring: Michael Feast, Susan Brown, Lia Saville, Morgan Watkins With: Calum Callaghan, Bradley Gardner, Joel Gillman, Tom Padley, Billy Seymour, Monsay Whitney Designed by Paul Wills Lighting: Oliver Fenwick Sound: Nick Manning Fight director: Kate Waters Running time: Three hours 05 minutes with an interval Box Office: 0871 2211 729 Booking to 5th November 2011 Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 13th October 2011 performance at The Lyric Hammersmith, King street, London W6 0QL (Tube:Hammersmith) |
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