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
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.