|
THE CENSOR
by Anthony Neilson
"The Censor" topped the Guardian Guide's 'See this!' list during it's run.
REVIEWS: Bolton Evening News - Manchester Evening News - City life - Bury Times REVIEW BOLTON EVENING NEWS - 22ND SEPTEMBER 1999. PLAY WITH THE POWER TO SHOCK.
Although there is no nudity,and the bad language is limited, there are some graphic sexual scenes. These are made the more disturbing by the accompanying verbal description, delivered in cold clinical detail by the maker of the porn movies, Miss Fontaine, played with studied detachment and exquisite arrogance by the superb actress, Sarah Parker. The storyline follows the growing relationship between Miss Fontaine and the man who wields the scissors, the film censor, as she attempts to get him to reassess the film. He wants to throw it out as hard porn; she wants a classification so that it can be seen by a wider audience. What he sees as titillation, she says is a crucial event in the evolution of the world. Their relationship is further complicated by The Censor's wife, who continually humiliates him with a succession of blatant infidelities. Exactly what message this play, which does have the odd light moment, is trying to put over, I really don't know. There seems to be several messages - most of them depressing. Miss Fontaine extols the benefits of freedom from repression.. "Perverts", she says, are victims of society, and in the future will be celebrated as "recognisable visionaries". Perhaps this is writer Anthony Neilson's vision of the future. It that's the case it's rather frightening. But the finale of the play seems to suggest something far more conservative. A continuation of the status quo. This is an all-round polished production from the award-winning, Manchester based Rocket Theatre Company. There are excellent performances from all the cast. Paul Sullivan is remarkable as the repressed, unhappy and humiliated censor. A man who thinks little of himself and expects humiliation around every corner. And Susan Cormack makes the most of her part as his bored, uncaring wife. This play is at times shocking, sometimes controversial but never less than intriguing. You continually wonder where the relationship between Miss Fontaine and The Censor is going. Recommended for those who don't shun the controversial, are not easily shocked, and can see the artistic merit of performing a normal private physical function on stage.
REVIEW - MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS - 23 SEPTEMBER 1999.
SOME of the effects they can achieve in the theatre these days are amazing. We are not talking hi-tech sound and lights but the startlingly graphic re-creation of a lavatorial sexual fantasy that's so convincing you can almost smell it. I can't go into the details here and, especially if you are reading this over your tea, you really wouldn't want me to. The Censor, by ex-actor Anthony Neilson, now a theatre, film and TV director, is about an encounter between a porn film actress and the censor's office which has to tell her that without drastic cuts, there's no chance her work will grace even the shelves of the sex shops. The production comes from Manchester-based Rocket Theatre Company, winner of last year's Manchester Evening News Best of the Fringe award. It's sharply directed by Martin Harris and involvingly performed by Paul Sullivan and Sarah Parker, with Susan Cormack as the sidelined wife. It's for broadminded adults only. - Alan Hulme.
INTERVIEW FROM CITY LIFE - 29TH SEPTEMBER 1999.
The Rocket Theatre Company isn't renowned for taking the easy route. Last year they won the Manchester Evening News best fringe award for their unsettling production of Jim Cartwright's squalid one act play I Licked a Slag's Deodorant, and also tackled the tricky area of Millennium cults in the accompanying piece Arise. This season they return with Anthony Neilson's The Censor, the story of a gripping brief encounter between a pornographic film actress and the official film censor. Martin Harris, Rocket founder and director of the play, says "It appears shocking, and some of the things which happen in the play are shocking, but as it turns out, it's actually a love story." The censor has a sexless relationship with his wife, but he feels that he still loves her, however, when Miss Fontaine - the porno girl - enters his life, he is forced to address certain truths, which he has thus far kept hidden. "The play is about whether sex and Love are connected, whether they are separate things, whether you can have one without the other. People repress their desires, that's what the censor does, he has a thing which is socially unacceptable and as a result he's been quite depressed." What's the thing? "He likes watching women shit." OK, so watching women shit isn't to everyone's tastes, but in the whole spectrum of kinky sex, it's certainly not the most perverse, argues Harris. "If someone wants to do something, why should they have to repress it. One of the lines in the play is 'sex destroys lives', which it does. I can only speak from a man's point of view, but generally men spend loads of time thinking about sex or chasing women or doing things which are a natural animal urge and we're taught to repress that, and it fucks people up. I often wish there was a switch, so I could say, "right I'm not interested in sex, I'll switch this off and then I could get some fucking work done." Rocket's raison d'etre is to bring the best new work - predominantly from London - to Manchester theatres. So for the past few months Harris has been scouring scripts from reputable new writing theatres like The Royal Court, which is where he found The Censor. "It's a very well written piece, very spare, very restrained. The first time I read it I thought "Oh, there's a lot of pauses, it's very Pintery", but the power comes from the restraint." Later in the year Rocket present the city premiere of Patrick Marber's internationally successful poker play Dealer's Choice, a witty look at the way gambling can build and break relationships. "It's a very laddish play, but it is very funny. The more I look at it the more I like it, but it is a bit of a departure for us. There's no sex in it, but don't mention that or people won't come." RECOMMENDED!
REVIEW - BURY TIMES, 24TH SEPTEMBER 1999. STRONG STUFF AT BOLTON OCTAGON
THE Censor, a short play running until tomorrow night at Bolton Octagon's little Bill Naughton Theatre is strong stuff. The eponymous character is a Pooterish, inhibited man who works in a stuffy basement, watching the hardest of hardcore. Like Winston Smith in 1984, he works alone in a dead-end job. Well overdue for promotion, he tells himself he's not unhappy. But beneath the surface, he is a seething mass of inhibitions. In fact this guy has inhibitions a foot long and curling at the ends sticking out all over him. His wife is cheating on him, his career has hit the buffers and to cap it all, he's impotent. Into his office comes a sexy young lady to plead for special treatment for her latest porn film. Even though that movie consists only of assorted sexual encounters, she says it is an ordinary tale of an everyday love story. As the play goes on, she slowly gets him on her side. He agrees to make out a case for allowing the movie a public showing. And gradually a kind of love affair develops between them. Paul Sullivan impresses as the censor: uptight, tortured, frustrated - and coming more and more under the spell of his strange visitor. As the girl, Sarah Parker has all the best tunes. The play takes a frank, thoughtful look at censorship, and she has a number of good speeches. She is also expert at removing her knickers. As I said, the piece is not suitable for anyone under 16, or perhaps 56. Certainly the big coup de theatre towards play's end made me sit up. In the words of the advance publicity: the piece contains explicit scenes and language. There is also a great deal of humour in it. Directed by Martin Harris, The Censor is at the Octagon until tomorrow. Next week it's at Didsbury Studio Theatre.
|
