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Reviews - The Pimp
www.theStage.co.uk
By Paul Vale
Published Mon 24 April 2006 at 11:45
The Pimp
Poet and dandy Charles Baudelaire sets up home with an actress prompting his
doting mother to launch a seemingly endless campaign to expel her from his
life. Dic Edwards new play touches upon a selection of themes such as rebellion
and racism as the Western world begins a new era of modernity.
The language of Edward's script is delightfully classical and yet its heavy
use of the vernacular works remarkably well thanks to tight performances and
a wonderful sense of pace given by director Ana Dirckinck-Holmfeld.
Anna Lindup give a fine, multi-layered performance as Baudelaire's intriguing
and emotional mother. Hers is not the expected dowager widow and the hints
of the passion beneath the crinoline. Her ally in battle is the ridiculous
lawyer Narcisee Desire Ancelle played by Timothy Dodd whose scenes as the
go-between bring much humour to the play. Dodd masters this role beautifully
and tinges the lawyers philosophies with an almost innocent menace.
Lara Agar-Stoby obviously relishes her role as Jeanne and plays it to perfection.
Edwards has given the character a lively voice and it is this role which lifts
the play. Will Tosh as Charles seems to take some time settling into the role
and in the early scenes he appears very awkward on stage. Fortunately, the
later scenes and his final demise are well handled.
Tandis Jenhudson has created a thoughtful score to compliment the piece and
Ellen Kyriacou's costume designs offer a flamboyant contrast to Sadie Tilbury's
Spartan setting.
Londontown.com - 26 April 2006
The Pimp
White Bear Theatre, 138 Kennington Park Road, SW11 4DJ
Paris 1842. One intoxicating evening Charles Baudelaire, poet and dandy par
excellence, encounters the Creole actress Jeanne. When their inter-racial
relationship is exposed, his mother and the Baudelaire family lawyer begin
a two-decade campaign to drive Jeanne out of his life, with unsettling and
unexpected results.
Dic Edwards is one of the hottest young writers around at the moment, and
no stranger to controversy - his last mock opera featured a female suicide
bomber as the heroine. This is a brilliantly observed period piece, with authentic
language and social mores, but still liberally peppered with horrible brutality
between characters. After all, there's no reason to think the Victorians weren't
just as rude and beastly as we are.
We're not massive fans of shock tactics at LondonTown.com and ventured along
to this show after some excellent notices - entirely justified. This is visceral,
gut wrenching theatre with nasty language and nudity, but shot through with
humanity. The characters are entirely realistic, and brilliantly acted, and
the play is a triumph, confronting the repellent side of human nature but
also celebrating love and loyalty.
www.mylondonyourlondon.com - 23rd April 2006
Theatre Review: The Pimp at The White Bear Theatre, Kennington
by Jonathan Grant & Nirmal Grewal
This is a play about the pimp, the poet and the paradox. Charles Baudelaire
(Will Tosh) is the heir to a handsome fortune and has fashionable society
at his beckoning in 19th-century Paris. Yet, in true intelligentsia style,
and au fait with the times, he rebels against conventionality and takes a
mistress, a muse for his poetry, choosing one who is an ex-prostitute of Creole
origin at that.
Baudelaire is a poet, aspiring yet failing, and The Pimp, now at Kennington's
White Bear Theatre, is, prima facie, the story of his struggles to publish
his works - considered obscene for the age. Yet his liaison dangerous, with
the self-destructive Jeanne (Lara Agar-Stoby), and the actions and reactions
of Paris' opulent classes, provides the interesting and substantive part of
this story.
Superbly written, full of Wilde-like witticisms and aphorisms that are sharp
enough to peel words back to contextual reality, the dialogues between the
cast, also including Caroline Aupick (Anna Lindup), Charles despairing mother,
and the aptly named Narcisse Desire Ancelle (Timothy Dodd) are well delivered,
with a delightful depth of intelligence. The frustrated poet himself, who,
with each desperate attempt to cut loose from the privileged class he belongs
merely serves to tighten that bond on which he depends so heavily, clearly
understands his position.
The characters are acutely defined in true Oscar Wilde tradition. Ex-prostitute
Jeanne is a maverick who, after claiming she's "lived on the streets
and the world that put (her) there is a world of contracts" enters a
contract with Baudelaire that ultimately breaks her spirit far more than the
streets ever could. Ancelle, the self-proclaimed "crusader for the values
of wealth against anarchy" and firm proponent of double-entry book-keeping,
who has a self-destroying penchant for black prostitutes, is a staunch traditionalist.
Yet, while well-defined, none of these characters are inherently good or inherently
bad, and each one becomes too obviously a parody of themselves to ever warrant
the audiences support, pity or hate. Moreover, this stereotyping shatters
any attempt by the playwright, Dic Edwards, to comment on the racism of a
bygone age, and left this audience-member wondering first whether the treatment
of racism in this context was appropriate, then second whether further commentary
on this issue in this age is needed when, in our own time, we still have so
many social divides to bridge and ills to cure.
Stunning period costume in a classy design is perhaps, however, a saving grace
for some. See this play you like the wit of Wilde. Don't if you despair at
hatchet racist commentary or crude characterisations.
The production continues until May 7 at The White Bear Kennington. Box Office: 020-77939193.
Extraextra.org by Mary Cozens - 22 April 2006
Some Engaging Evening . . .
It has to be said that, although I've attended many a fine production at
the White Bear Theatre in the past, this outstanding performance of Dic Edwards'
new play The Pimp has to be one of its best to date. The storyline of the
play is extremely compelling, and the acting alternates between being thoroughly
entertaining and putting you on the edge of your seat. The play seems to boast
something for everyone in that, although it is set in the Paris of 1842, it's
had the advantage, in this case, of having been written in the present day,
granting it a freedom of speech it could never have entertained if penned
in the 19 th century. Given its artistic license, which, at times, allows
the language of the play to almost mirror that of the decadent poet Charles
Baudelaire, who is its main character, along with thoughtful casting and fine
direction, The Pimp is capable of conveying all of the unexpected twists and
turns of relationships in a realistic, no holds barred, totally engaging manner.
It might sound like a cliché, but you could have literally heard a
pin drop from the opening scene, the audience seemed that involved in this
engaging production. It was almost as if one forgot one's own inhibitions,
in a sense, as an audience member, with people, taking whatever they would
from the play. At times, rather cryptic laughter could be heard emanating
from a few, or even, occasionally, a lone individual, who'd obviously related
to and/or relished, certain scenes or lines from this multi-faceted play in
their own, individual way.
From the moment Will Tosh as spoiled young fop, and would-be scandalous poet
Charles Baudelaire, opened his mouth, the audience couldn't take their eyes
off of him. It was impossible to tell whether the actor had bags of inborn,
nervous energy, or if he was simply pretending to, for the sake of his character.
In contrast, Lara Agar-Stoby, stunningly strong in the role of his Creole
mistress Jeanne Duval mouthed her refreshingly frank, brazen for 1842, lines
with all the resignation one could imagine from a female in her position,
settling for the patronage of a heir she doesn't really expect love, true
or otherwise from. That this isn't a fairytale, with a happy ending is apparent
from the outset. This unsettling notion is further emphasised by the introduction
to Charles' small, imposing mother, wonderfully played by Anna Aupick. At
times, the actress almost seemed to morph into a fire-snorting dragon as she
venomously breathed her lines. But nothing is what it seems in Edwards' stunning
play. Having said that, outstanding actor Timothy Dodd in the roll of 'double-entry'
bookkeeper Narcisee Desire Ancelle literally seems to elevate the calibre
of this already outstanding production right through the rafters. Dodd was
recently fantastic at the White Bear in the role of Don Quixote, a seemingly
impossible feat, but now, in The Pimp , he outdoes himself further as a gentleman
as changeable as a chameleon. In a surprise turn of events, the actor also
plays a bit part as a janitor, and manages to infuse the role with a genuine
sense of intelligence and warmth. However, it has to be noted that the focus,
and interplay of all of the actors in this fascinating production was so convincing
that it almost felt at times as though we were eavesdropping, while looking
at them through a keyhole - quite an achievement for any group of actors,
in any venue, let alone one as compact as the White Bear Theatre.
But nothing about The Pimp feels compromised, and the costumes, by Ellen Kyriacou,
are well crafted and true to their period. At times, Anna Aupick's gown in
act two put me in mind of ones seen in photographs of Queen Victoria. Thoughtful
lighting, designed by Richard Williamson was especially notable in the context
of delicate scenes where it helped heighten the sense of poignancy and desperation.
And Tandis Jenhudson's lovely, thoroughly haunting score is a fitting accompaniment
to this first-rate production.
Turn yourself a clever trick and book tickets for The Pimp as soon as you
possibly can, for if this fantastic production gets its just deserts, it'll
soon be completely sold-out.
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