IMAGE OF AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (Guildford School of Acting)***

 

By Dave 

Link: https://gsauk.org/events/15401AGBHLPJQSLGSGPTPRKHBGTDKGKJN/book 

Available until: One more performance on Thursday 18^th March at 2.30pm.

Some people say the world has changed. Others say it hasn’t changed at all, that people have always been people.

It’s probably fair to say they’re both right and the opening few scenes of Image of a Young Woman illustrates this very succinctly.

When Ali sees a girl in a yellow dress who has been shot by the police, his instinct is to whip out his phone. But not so he can call for help. Instead, he films the incident and uploads it onto the internet.

This is an instinct that is new to our society. Twenty years ago, not many people had mobile phones and even if they did, it wasn’t standard for them to have cameras. Now, if we see anything that’s wrong, the immediate instinct of many people is to film it. To prove it’s there. To prove they were there. Word of mouth isn’t enough anymore. Everyone wants video proof.

But as Chorus A, B and C view the body, one of them just can’t help himself. He points out that they can see her knickers. That instinct has been around a lot longer than twenty years. Some people can’t see anything naughty without pointing it out.

The two reactions are very different. One old, one new. One wanting to reach the whole world with his video, one wanting to snigger with his mates. One who probably believes he’s doing a good thing, one who probably knows he’s not doing a good thing but he just can’t help himself.

But in one way, these reactions are very similar. It’s not about the girl in the yellow dress. Both Ali and the Chorus member are thinking of themselves and how they can look good. Ali wants to show that he was in the right place at the right time, that he had the ‘correct’ instinct to film it, maybe hoping he’ll be seen as some sort of influencer or at least elevated in the thoughts of his peers. The chorus member wants to be the one who spotted the rude thing before anyone else. He wants his mates to think he’s cool, for spotting it and for daring to say it. The fact a girl is bleeding and dying isn’t that important to them.

Later, Ali questions his reaction, though only when the video has gone viral and he and his girlfriend Leyla are sitting at home in the dark, scared of what will happen. With good reason.

Yasmin also puts her needs first but you can understand it. Her mum has disappeared. She wants to find her. She wants help. She seems to be everywhere, cutting into one scene after another in her desperate search. The girl in the yellow dress doesn’t matter to her. She has her own potential tragedy on her hands.

Then there are Candace and Nia. Candace seems to want to feel a connection to someone. She’ll do anything in order to achieve that. She’s exactly the sort of person Nia is looking for.

Elinor Cook’s play is very topical but perhaps a bit too much so. It’s full of questions and issues and events and it’s very dramatic but the drama becomes more important than the characters to the extent where it’s hard to get a handle on who these people are. The production is also suffering from ‘I-Just-Saw-Hamlet-itis’. Both were produced by Guildford School of Acting and they use the same set. At the back of the stage there is a two-story construction. It’s divided into box-shaped sections. Each section is outlined in light. It was very striking in Hamlet and it’s very striking now but it’s hard to look at it without remembering Hamlet. This makes you compare the play with Hamlet and how many plays stand up to a comparison like that?

The second performances of the two plays aren’t on the same day and I think Image of a Young Woman will be shown to much better advantage without the possible best play in the world getting in the way. Let’s hope so because there are a lot of good things in this production.

Director Heather Carroll makes the social-distancing seem natural with just one or two places when you remember that the play probably wasn’t written to be performed two metres apart. As the play involves a relationship and physical violence, you would normally expect physical contact and Heather has done really well to work around these issues so the play feels natural. Elliott Squire’s set could probably have done with a little bit more to make it seem less like the Hamlet set but the few pieces of plain furniture in Johanna Town’s very low lighting helps to create the ominous feel this play needs.

The play definitely has issues but that didn’t stop the actors from giving really good performances. Toby Thompson, Michael Irvine-Hall and Lauren Hadley give the play an arresting opening as Chorus A, B and C. Bethany Nye brilliantly charts Yasmin’s journey from slightly concerned to pure desperation. Chloe Cooper and Rohit Kumar do very well as Leyla and Ali, a couple who are dragged slowly and painfully apart by the harshness of the world they live in. Catherine Addy shows Candace’s kindness, while Steph Asamoah’s Nia is friendly, comfortable and always seems to want more. Tianna Arnold, as an unnamed character, gives the play its simple but powerful final image.

It’s not the best play in the world, though it certainly examines some interesting and relevant issues, but there are some great performances here and a lot of hope for the future of theatre, when it finally opens again.