Out Of The Cage is an explosive NEW play about the female munitions workers of Silvertown, London during World War One.
Sitting warm as a sun-soaked piece of wet toast, feet soggy from underground perspiration on my commute across 'town' to Finsbury Park, I got the best view of the upstairs bar area whilst lubricating myself with a coca cola at the Park Theatre.
I cast my eyes to the Gods to view the ceilings drooping bookshelf. No, seriously. Probably fifty-shades of rope suspended books are literally drooping down from the Gods. Introducing The Theatre by Ernest Short was the first and most prominently apt book for this occasion to capture my attentions as my eyes wandered fleetingly across the wooden countryside grotto meets Shoreditch Box Park bar area. In Finsbury Park. (Lest there be any confusions) My heart was already beginning to skip beats. My second in as many weeks (and at the time of writing this post-second affair with Out Of The Cage, approaching my thrice weekly) extra-curricular excursion to embrace our Twenty First Century Globes' Bard of the English written word, Mr Alex McSweeney's NEW play - Out Of The Cage.
Did I already mention the name? Out Of The Cage?
Out Of The Cage, If seen please view with a heart pump and fresh box of Kleenex.
Ps. Suspended emotions
Alex's wanton wit and deeply psychologically inept play leaves an audience jaw dropped and flabbergasted. Dialogue driven one cannot help but become enthralled and in-tune with the characters and by progression start to look inwardly to ones self and soul for comfort and fortitude. All in one gob-stopper of a hullabaloo and what not.
Hullabaloo not of confused dialogue or plot I hasten to amend. A hullabaloo of emotions. You understand.
Alex's exquisite cast manage to straddle both dark and gritty drama and musical theatre - with varying degrees of musicality (not to be confused with this being a musical. It is not!), with physical theatre to an almost dance club like bassline representative of the machines these women work day after day, night after night, week after week, year after god forsaking year on. The entire all female cast (of eight) - and quite right too - capture the gut-wrenching inequalities and hardships faced by the women of the munitions factories during World War One in an ongoing fight for Equal rights. Equal pay.
A Master Crafts-persons of their trade. The art of story telling and creation.
Now come on Annie Casteldine, we'll av none of that Hullabaloo from you dear.
The cast capture some moments of light relief with, for one notable example, Lil' Ginny -played beautifully by Jill McAusland - as the endearing young girl of the factory who bless her kind heart spends the entire play being told to be quiet and move on, oh and scrub floors. And things. Business. Which she dutifully does " But...but . . . mum . . ."
One further episode of joviality comes in the form of Annie Casteldine and good old Carrie Sefton played by the mesmerizingly skilled Emily Houghton and Lindsay Frazer respectively - as they become the cheeky girls of the group conducting a mini-play within a play as Carrie portrays a favourite silent movie star of hers under direction from her friend Annie Casteldine. A sisterhood is quickly established with each character assuming her position within the united arms of sisters for Equal rights and Equal pay. A whistle is harnessed as a tool to mirror the men's call to go over the top as for the women to strike and stop running the machines. Psychologically implanting the shared fight for freedoms both men and women fought.
Interestingly Alex's in-tune mind to the era he writes in affords an audience many many moments of literary realism. Full names used, Annie Casteldine, how dare you . . . Hullaballo . . . what not . . . and oh so many more moments of literary magic when woven into the fabric of the play in its entirety and the consummate skill and deftly deployed art of storytelling by ALL cast members.
See, multi-skilled, multi-engaged piece of theatre. Not too dissimilar to Shakespeare himself one may posit. So I shall.
The construction of this play has to my mind many hallmarks of a great Shakespeare script. A play by an actor for actors. Quick mood and character changes, complex characters and relationships, running scene changes, musical interludes, inopportune and wholly un-expected dollops of light relief bordering on comedy, in-fact comedy on occasion, and a chance to hark back to the silent days of cinema with physicality being the mode of storytelling in part (cinema reference plainly not applicable to Willy). . . etcetera . . .
So, back in the bar . . .
I sit post-performance utterly and suitably stunned. Shell-shocked one may say by the gravity of experience delivered to us by the company of Out Of The Cage. Have I mentioned the title yet? prey do tell. Have I?
A lump in my throat and yes, a dampness to an eye forced me to silently slip away to the solitude for a cup of Yorkshire tea. In mug! To yet again be warm as a sun-soaked piece of wet toast, feet soggy from underground perspiration on my commute back across 'town'! But I would do it again everyday if I could. I felt a genuine sadness to leave these characters from a bygone era behind, on the stage, relinquished to the recess of a dark theatre until the light shines again and the show goes on in the morrow.
Well anyway's and what not, Out Of The Cage is one of the rare moments in life when a pin drop can be heard amongst a sea of silent souls. Captivated!
Until we meet again through the page, I hope this finds you in sterling health and a happiness
I'm going out for a cup of tea
Just thee and me, and me and thee
With not wanton wit repatree
Just thee and me, and me and thee
At a quarter to three
Tootling along, no hullabaloo, along the streets of London Zoo
Just thee and me and me and thee
Warmly Yours
@RJ Wardle
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