Crestfall at King's Cross

‘Crestfall’ is a powerful play set in a place called the Bonelands, where the local industry is an abattoir and the inhabitants live a harsh existence consisting mainly of seedy sex and cruel violence.

Griffin Theatre’s website describes it as ‘a desolate outpost of the present day, a community in which the only civilizing attribute is the compulsion to tell a good story.’

The play unfolds through monologues from three of the town’s women. The telling is through a clipped and alliterative language, which reminds one of the dialect used in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. The theme that runs through all three monologues is that of transformation – of how each woman and the people around them are changed over the course of a particular day.

Enter then the first character, Olive (Sarah Snook), a young woman who sleeps with whoever she chooses while being married to a man for whom she feels nothing but contempt. She is, on the surface, a woman who is confidant and self-assured; she’s the mother of the local pimp’s child, but not his property. She accepts no payment from her liaisons, and so in her mind she is not a ‘whore.’ She sees herself as an equal to those men, who still wave back at her in the street when she calls out to them.

Her real shame lies in the weakness of Jungle, her husband. That is, until the closing moments of her monologue, when she recalls how Jungle asks her if their child, Popaneye, is his. Her transformation from a preening beauty to a woman cowering in the corner of the stage is truly terrifying.

The second monologue is by Alison (Eliza Logan), a mother whose marriage has staled and whose son Philip is brain damaged in an accident with a horse. She is the opposite of Olive, a woman who has lost confidence in her looks and craves to be told she is loved. Her monologue tells of how Walpole & Walpole, cronies of Inchy the pimp, torture the horse that kicked Philip.

The image of the helpless creature surrounded by the animalistic, chanting townspeople is vivid and disturbing, and is the grounds for Alison’s transformation. There is a chink of humanity in this dark episode as her husband, the Brew, refuses the cronies’ offering of revenge.

Tilly (Georgina Symes) is one of Inchy’s prostitutes, addicted to the ‘scourge’ and irreparably damaged by an abortion he forced her to have. This is Tilly’s reason for hating Olive’s privileged position in Inchy’s world, and why she is the one who enlightens Jungle on the true nature of Popaneye’s parentage. Her situation is the bleakest perhaps, her transformation and Jungle’s the climactic violent conclusion to the play.

The closing scene holds an image of the dead horse, floating down the river, followed by a pack of dogs. The relentless blood-lust still runs, but with a clean slate for a few – a hope of a ‘spick span and sparkle-eyed’ new beginning. Whether this will last or the few will again become crestfallen is left unanswered.

The production values of ‘Crestfall’ are excellent, with the team headed by Director Shannon Murphy and Producer Ben Jobberns. Each monologue begins with a blackout of the stage and a roaring soundscape which is frankly unnerving as it intensifies. The stage is sparsely furnished with a couple of chairs and a hooded jacket, which are cleverly used by the cast as symbols of the chaos around them.

The lighting casts shadows against the cold blue walls – in Olive’s case, two silhouettes of her writhing on her chair as she re-enacts a sex scene. This plays nicely with Alison’s line of the town’s ‘umpteen multiple mountings’. Mark O’Rowe’s writing is dense and highly descriptive, and demands the full attention of the actors and audience.

The myriad adjectives that he uses leaves the audience with a lasting impression of the Bonelands and its inhabitants. Having the same few props to work with really highlights the actors’ fine performances in bringing forth their characters’ personalities.

There is nothing to criticise about this play, its only shortcoming on the night being the less than full house, which will hopefully be transformed by the end of its run.

Crestfall by Mark O’Rowe is playing at the Griffin Stables Theatre, Kings Cross from 6-30 January 2010