Alan Franks
Writer and musician
Writer and musician
Augusta reviewed in The Times
By Jeremy Kingston.
This latest play by Alan Franks, my genial and witty colleague, begins in a penthouse at Shepherd’s Bush where Patrick, an eminent biographer, is hosting a party for his latest subject, Alfredo, a seemingly important figure from a small South American state. The two men exchange pleasantries, but a suspicion steals into our minds that the relationship may not be as harmonious as the surface courtesies suggest. Like a proper host Patrick offers the whisky and the gentle flattery, but if he is not all that keen on the task ahead, what does this imply about Alfredo?
Patrick’s previous subjects have provided him with a grand bathroom (the Rothschilds) and a not-so-grand kitchen (Heseltine), but so few facts come our way concerning Alfredo that a biography looks unlikely to finance a refit of anywhere larger than the guest lavatory. Of course, the shortage of information is deliberate for a play that, with the arrival of Augusta, an exiled Brazilian painter, moves into territory famously occupied by Death and the Maiden, except that Augusta has endured rape, not torture.
Unless she is inventing her accusation. Patrick seems to be on Alfredo’s side here, while doing his best to prevent Augusta storming out before her pop star son, Daniel, makes his entry. Since the rape occurred 24 years ago and the son is 23 years old, no one will be surprised at what emerges next.
Or rather, while the revelation may not be unexpected, the way Franks develops the reshaped family pattern definitely is, although he relies too much on sending this or that couple out to the kitchen so that the others can engage in a heart-to-heart. The swift rapport developing between Alfredo and Daniel (played by James Palmer) is hard to credit, and Franks makes it harder by not showing how it comes about. I suspect the omission was required in order to focus on the developing relationship between Patrick and Augusta, but I was frustrated by not knowing how the two men bonded in the kitchen.
What develops between Patrick and Augusta, however, feels real and arrives at a neatly doubtful conclusion where we can suspect what is likely to happen but aren’t precisely told. But taking the play as a whole, there is potential here for development longer than 75 minutes.
As Augusta, the Brazilian actress Antonia Frering imparts a sense of furiously remembered injury, and George Savvides, as Alfredo, imparts a crook’s suave denial of being crooked. But the most interesting performance in Chrys Salt’s production comes from Jonathan Rigby’s Patrick, urbane, enjoyably hesitant at expressing emotion and excellently underplaying his quirky aperçus.
This latest play by Alan Franks, my genial and witty colleague, begins in a penthouse at Shepherd’s Bush where Patrick, an eminent biographer, is hosting a party for his latest subject, Alfredo, a seemingly important figure from a small South American state. The two men exchange pleasantries, but a suspicion steals into our minds that the relationship may not be as harmonious as the surface courtesies suggest. Like a proper host Patrick offers the whisky and the gentle flattery, but if he is not all that keen on the task ahead, what does this imply about Alfredo?
Patrick’s previous subjects have provided him with a grand bathroom (the Rothschilds) and a not-so-grand kitchen (Heseltine), but so few facts come our way concerning Alfredo that a biography looks unlikely to finance a refit of anywhere larger than the guest lavatory. Of course, the shortage of information is deliberate for a play that, with the arrival of Augusta, an exiled Brazilian painter, moves into territory famously occupied by Death and the Maiden, except that Augusta has endured rape, not torture.
Unless she is inventing her accusation. Patrick seems to be on Alfredo’s side here, while doing his best to prevent Augusta storming out before her pop star son, Daniel, makes his entry. Since the rape occurred 24 years ago and the son is 23 years old, no one will be surprised at what emerges next.
Or rather, while the revelation may not be unexpected, the way Franks develops the reshaped family pattern definitely is, although he relies too much on sending this or that couple out to the kitchen so that the others can engage in a heart-to-heart. The swift rapport developing between Alfredo and Daniel (played by James Palmer) is hard to credit, and Franks makes it harder by not showing how it comes about. I suspect the omission was required in order to focus on the developing relationship between Patrick and Augusta, but I was frustrated by not knowing how the two men bonded in the kitchen.
What develops between Patrick and Augusta, however, feels real and arrives at a neatly doubtful conclusion where we can suspect what is likely to happen but aren’t precisely told. But taking the play as a whole, there is potential here for development longer than 75 minutes.
As Augusta, the Brazilian actress Antonia Frering imparts a sense of furiously remembered injury, and George Savvides, as Alfredo, imparts a crook’s suave denial of being crooked. But the most interesting performance in Chrys Salt’s production comes from Jonathan Rigby’s Patrick, urbane, enjoyably hesitant at expressing emotion and excellently underplaying his quirky aperçus.
