Wounds to the Face

Directed by Hugh Hodgart and Liam Brennan

Set and Costume Design Kirsty McCabe

Lighting Designer Andrew Smart

Sound Designer Danielle Flecher-Herd

Assistant Production Manager Francesca Rose

Tuesday 20 May - Saturday 24 May 2008, 7.30pm Friday 23 May 2008, 2.30pm

NEW ATHENAEUM THEATRE

Cast

Michael E. Corrie. ...............Man, Monsieur, Dictator, Greek Michael Goldsmith. ............Youth, Terrorist, Double, Patriot Jenny Hulse. ..................Woman, Prisoner, Wife, Prostitute Fergus Johnston. ..............Youth, Lover, Roue Emma Lambie. ................Bride, Visitor, Empress, Prostitute, Parasol Woman Lewis Milsted. ................Surgeon, Emperor Maria Noebauer. ..............Mother Matt Randell. .................Youth, Double, Painter, Narcissus Andrew Root. .................Soldier Owen Whitelaw. ..............Youth, Figure, Guard, Greek

Technical

Stage Manager: Suzanne Goldberg

Deputy Stage Manager: Matt McFarlane

Assistant Stage Manager: Kieron Johnson

Assistant Stage Manager:

Production Electrician:

LX Operator:

Sound Operator:

Production Stills

Coming Soon

Reviews

The Scotsman

Theatre review: Wounds to the Face

Date: 22 May 2008 By JOYCE McMILLAN WOUNDS TO THE FACE

THE NEW ATHENAEUM THEATRE, GLASGOW

3 stars

WITH storm clouds of controversy and underfunding swirling around Scotland's drama schools, it's good to see the final-year students at the RSAMD testing themselves against the best. Howard Barker is perhaps the most brilliant and least compromising of all living British playwrights; and if his 1995 piece Wounds to the Face is not exactly his weightiest work, it still presents a formidable, disturbing challenge.

Structured in 14 short, episodic scenes, this powerful contemporary text examines the relationship between physical appearance and identity in merciless detail, considering the ruined faces of, among others, a war-wounded soldier, a discontented woman and an old philanderer disfigured by the pox; it also considers the sheer, casual cruelty of youth and beauty. Hugh Hodgart and Liam Brennan's production – in a towering theatre space created on the stage of the New Athenaeum – looks breathtakingly fine, with a spectacular design by Kirsty McCabe (superbly lit by Andrew Smart) that makes magnificent use of giant portrait mirrors, and tall, soaring poster images.

Where the production falters is in its tone. There's far too much conventional "acting" and characterisation, not nearly enough Brechtian dryness and distance, combined with the ruthless focus on the play's themes, made possible by that harder, clearer performance style.

Nonetheless, Jenny Hulse shows terrific promise in a clutch of key female roles and, if this Barker sometimes looks frighteningly like the kind of bourgeois British theatre he hates, it still makes for a fascinating and absorbing evening.