THERE WILL BE MORE / RED, BLACK AND IGNORANT
Cock Tavern, London
NW6
Opened 29 October / 2 November,
2010
* / **
The Cock's current repertoire includes a wicked 20-minute parody of the
work of Edward Bond entitled There
Will Be More. Taking his cue from the infamous baby-stoning in
Bond's 1965 play Saved, the
author here has a mother suffocate her twin sons in their cradle whilst
her husband is dressing for a regimental dinner; on discovering her
deed, the colonel is so morally outraged that he rapes her. I imagined
a TV ad: "New, stronger formula Edward Bond – when one dead baby just
isn't enough."
There are two significant faults to the piece, however. Firstly, it
isn't as short and sweet as such a parody needs to be, but is followed
after the interval by 75 minutes more of the same, as the mother
returns from a bombed-out madhouse 18 years later to encounter her
husband and one of the also-twin offspring of the rape; and secondly,
it isn't a parody at all but was actually written by Edward Bond.
The piece contains echoes of various Greek myths: the mother, it
transpires from the programme although is never mentioned onstage, is
named Dea, though she could as easily be 'Nestra, 'Casta or who knows
what not else. But frankly, the goings-on here make the blood-boltered
house of Atreus look like the Larkins. Adam Spreadbury-Maher's
grounding is in directing opera (he is currently bent on turning the
renowned King's Head pub theatre into a fringe opera house). To say "it
shows" would be to insult much opera direction, but these productions
do suggest journeyman stagings in that form. Performers seem to be
required to hit their marks, face in a particular direction and strike
a certain emotional pitch with each line, rather than to attempt
coherence in character or narrative.
It was supposed to be the culmination of a two-month Bond
retrospective, but is set fair to taint whatever good work may (unseen
by me) have preceded it. The only other piece I attended (which opened
a few nights later... mark my dedication) has been Red, Black And Ignorant (1984), an
hour-long near-future dystopian chronicle grounded in the nuclear
paranoia of the ’80s. Maja Milatovic-Ovadia’s direction is also
over-demonstrative, as if playing to an audience of slow children. Bond
shows his skill at flinty poetry, but also includes some crass
agitprop, and even when his writing feels prophetic it seems like the
prophecy of a Cassandra, encouraging repudiation rather than
consideration.
"There will be more" are the final words of the new play, a menacing
portent not just in itself but as this is apparently part of a much
longer work (be afraid, be very afraid) examining the inadequacy of
modern drama. But it does not examine this; nor does it act as a moral
conscience, indict our complacency or anything of that ilk. What it
does is bang on about the same stuff the author has been banging on
about for half a century now, try with a bludgeoning desperation to top
all that, and fail.