Revu The Players

“The Players”

When Splinters Productions announced their launch in April, they made it clear that they intended to do things differently. A group seemingly mainly made up of last year's Freshers (now 2nd Years), they've diverged from what an OUDS production company does. Instead, they've spent 7 months holding free social events, publishing a magazine, and working on a single production with an ethos of 'shared decision making and group input'. This community-building approach seems to have made Splinters quite popular with the years below, although I don't know how deliberately they are offering an alternative to usual OUDS projects (where actors and techies are often working with multiple groups at once). I must say I have a couple of slight concerns: OUDS is often charged with being "clique-y," and this is sometimes a not-entirely-unjustified suggestion - is Splinters doing something inclusive and helpful, or is this just the construction of a longer-term, more robust drama "clique"? My instinct leans towards the former, but then as a boring 3rd Year I have little insight either way into the social side of their group. What I can tell you about is the product of their long process, The Players, co-written and directed by Sasha Ranawake and Camille Branch.

This 50-minute meta-theatrical satire on student theatre (the script doesn't make this explicitly about OUDS itself, but some of its marketing does) brings us into the dressing room of an ill-fated performance of Romeo and Juliet, as tensions rise amongst its cast and director. We see none of the fictional production itself, but we hear everything over a distinctly BT-esque intercom (Oli Spooner's sound design) whilst the "players" wrestle with the stress of bad reviews, surreptitious gay relationships, and overbearing directors.

The concept is an incredibly interesting one, and the script constantly utilises it for great comedic and dramatic effect. Every inch a satire, the play amusingly features many OUDS staples: Welfare grapes, post-show cards from the director, the never-tired gag of shouting for "Welfare!," and Peter Kessler's reviews are even alluded to (although he is renamed, of course). One major plotline concerns the boy playing Romeo, Seb (George Robson) who is hiding his relationship with Milo (Alfred Hennell Cole) due to pressure from his apparently bigoted parents and a classic dose of internalised homophobia. I have to say that this narrative (at least when set at uni) does feel dated to me. But then, everyone has their own experiences, and it's hardly my place to decide what is and isn't relatable. It is also a consequence of the play's short runtime that none of its themes or characters can be explored especially deeply, but it doesn't feel like this matters much - this a concise but not rushed snapshot into the lives of an unlikely group of young people. By the end, the script has more than satisfied with a mix of laughs, drama, and warmth.

Alongside Spooner's sound, the impression that we are backstage during a show is ingeniously created with the help of Lily Peel's set design, utilising a black translucent curtain upstage. This combines effectively with Sarah Webb and Grace Kind's lighting, which places parcans behind the curtain, to project silhouettes of the actors onto it (a technique reminiscent of The Last Five Years earlier this term). Peel also makes the quite unique, and very successful, decision to bring us into an intimate thrust staging - I've been in 3 BT shows and watched 7 others, and literally never seen this done before. Esme Langdon, Sole Gadsby and Victoria Cornfield's costume is also working to explore The Players' themes silently - Alex (Joss Eastwood) must change frantically between a skirt and a pencilled-on moustache to play both Lady Capulet and Lord Montague, and there is a whole story being told here about how "androgynous" actors in OUDS are often used in casting. Splinters' design is genuinely spot-on in every aspect.

Before I get onto the performances, I must mention something interesting about the casting. This is a play about OUDS and the people who partake in it, but (aside from Sanaa Pasha) the cast is made entirely of actors I haven't seen before. Normally, I would be happy to see new people being cast, but I confess that some small part of me does feel like this satire would feel even more funny and relevant if the "players" were presented by some of the very familiar faces we are all so used to seeing in the Oxford theatres.

Or perhaps that's what I would say, if the cast Splinters have assembled weren't so damn brilliant. Every actor perfectly fulfils their role, and truthfully introduces us to beautifully, vividly drawn characters who are both intriguing and believable. Toby Bruce excels as Marcus, who doesn't actually care for theatrics and has only joined the play to get closer to Pasha's character, Lizzie, with whom he is endearingly enamoured. Bruce perfectly captures the generally-harmless-but-sometimes-overbearing sporty posh boy that everyone at this uni is so well-acquainted with, and he draws laugh after laugh from the audience. But the entirety of this cast (which, beyond Bruce, Pasha, Eastwood, Robson, and Hennell Cole, also includes Gabriella Bedford, Leya Carter, Zee Lloyd-Elliott, and Arshya Bommaraju) must be commended for their compelling, strong, playful performances. It is a rare pleasure to honestly say that there is not a weak link among them.

There are no spectacular moments of acting in The Players. There are no very profound speeches. There is no lighting sequence that blows me away. But it doesn't need any of these things, because it knows it has a simple but interesting concept, which it exploits to its full advantage. Within the constraints of a short runtime, Splinters' inaugural production achieves everything it sets out to do. Also, far more important than what I think of their show is this group's commitment to devote their profits to medical aid for those suffering in warzones. I think this is a big step in the right direction of OUDS. Assuming that Splinters maintain their charitable resolution and their joyous approach to theatre-making, I highly recommend you grab a ticket to their next production.

4.5/5

Review by George Loynes

The link to George Loynes’s review blog is: https://roomwithreviewblog.blogspot.com/?m=1&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAadKaD9DWn-5mwBnPczPWh3KXF0Wm5MTE_D9WbXEiWAbpuhhg9yNdnyYWKaYSg_aem_MX4-paKRuQoHXi7vgFXpPw

“The Players”