A pleasure to watch
1/12/2010 11:00:00 a.m.
The Height of the Eiffel Tower, directed by Abigail Greenwood, Bats Theatre, reviewed by Lynn Freeman.
‘THIS show comes from the bottom of our really big hearts’ is one of the director’s handwritten comments in the programme and that encapsulates a lot that is to like about this play. It’s been performed around the world before coming to Wellington, which also explains the finesse and confidence of the co-creator and sole performer, Morgana O’Reilly.
This is a charming way to spend an hour, an excellent example of how one actor can transform without need for costume changes into a variety of characters and make them each individuals you get to know and like, in a very short space of time.
This is a family story – Nathan who is cheeky and struggling to get up the nerve to talk to girls, Anna-Louise who is up the duff at 16 and clearly not ready for motherhood, Katie who has a good head on her shoulders has just started her OE and writes home to their mum, Terry. Terry, well she’s a hard case, a devoted mother but under-appreciated and under-estimated by most of her children and her husband. She is starting to realise that she has also undervalued herself, as she talks to an old school friend who took a very different path.
O’Reilly is an absolute pleasure to watch, effortlessly slipping in and out of characters, as comfortable in Nathan’s tweeny shoes as those of his ‘trailer trash’ Mum and a mad Englishman extolling the virtues of urine as a medical remedy. She’s the whole package.
Greenwood has a sure and inventive sense of direction, including choreographing some pretty impressive fight scenes between Nathan and Anna-Louise. She and O’Reilly clearly have great chemistry and we can expect a more ambitious story from them next time.
‘THIS show comes from the bottom of our really big hearts’ is one of the director’s handwritten comments in the programme and that encapsulates a lot that is to like about this play. It’s been performed around the world before coming to Wellington, which also explains the finesse and confidence of the co-creator and sole performer, Morgana O’Reilly.
This is a charming way to spend an hour, an excellent example of how one actor can transform without need for costume changes into a variety of characters and make them each individuals you get to know and like, in a very short space of time.
This is a family story – Nathan who is cheeky and struggling to get up the nerve to talk to girls, Anna-Louise who is up the duff at 16 and clearly not ready for motherhood, Katie who has a good head on her shoulders has just started her OE and writes home to their mum, Terry. Terry, well she’s a hard case, a devoted mother but under-appreciated and under-estimated by most of her children and her husband. She is starting to realise that she has also undervalued herself, as she talks to an old school friend who took a very different path.
O’Reilly is an absolute pleasure to watch, effortlessly slipping in and out of characters, as comfortable in Nathan’s tweeny shoes as those of his ‘trailer trash’ Mum and a mad Englishman extolling the virtues of urine as a medical remedy. She’s the whole package.
Greenwood has a sure and inventive sense of direction, including choreographing some pretty impressive fight scenes between Nathan and Anna-Louise. She and O’Reilly clearly have great chemistry and we can expect a more ambitious story from them next time.
