By Dave
Link: https://www.coliseum.org.uk/shows/an-acorn-recorded-6401ag
Available until: 17th May 2021
The thing about audiences is we can be very lazy. We’re usually happy to put in the psychological work to find out what it’s all about. We’re usually happy to put in the emotional work so we can engage with the story and the character. We’re usually happy to put in the physical effort involved in getting to the performance. But we do have limits.
We don’t want to do too much and An Acorn asks us to do several things at once. This is not only confusing, it alienates any audience members who aren’t so familiar with the latest technology.
You have to watch An Acorn on Zoom. It was filmed live on Zoom and you watch the on demand version on Zoom’s website. It’s a good quality video, I don’t think you actually need a Zoom account and as it’s a recording, you don’t need to worry about anyone seeing you when you’re not at your best.
But although captions are available, you don’t just click or tap an icon like you do with other streaming services. You have to be able to follow complicated instructions and learn lots of technical things about Zoom.
The captions are especially important if you don’t have a phone. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone has a mobile phone and some people who do just have one of the old basic ones without internet access. The idea is that you play the main play on your laptop and there’s an audio accompaniment by John Norman which you play on your phone while you’re watching the play. If you’ve got a phone, it works fine and it’s a really great accompaniment. But the audio accompaniment doesn’t seem to have its own volume dial so if you play the audio accompaniment on the same device as the play, the audio accompaniment drowns out the actors.
As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also Instagram. You don’t need an account to access this Instagram page but the idea is that you’re checking it while you watch the play. If you’re watching on demand, the Instagram isn’t updated live and I couldn’t figure out when I was supposed to look at each image.
It’s creative and original and so much work has gone into this on the technical side but I really felt they were giving the audience too much to do and also alienating the people who aren’t so good with technology. There was a lot to think about and that made it really hard to follow the play, which is quite complicated to start with. Sometimes it’s better to keep it simple.
The play itself is a great idea. Something has happened. The world has changed. Things and people are no longer as you expect them to be. I’d guess the title means that the characters have become acorns in a sense. They were once part of a big (family?) tree but now they’ve had a sort of rebirth and they’re trying to put down roots into their new world and as time passes, they slowly grow into their new lives.
The play follows four people, all adapting to their ‘new normal’. These four actors have never met. Two are from Canada - Blythe Haynes, also a co-producer, and Ryan G. Hinds. Two are from Oldham – Mina Anwar and Darren Jeffries. Only the Canadian actors have rehearsed, though presumably not with each other. The Oldham actors were given the script an hour before the show, along with a few specific instructions. Together, the four of them perform the play over Zoom.
Caridad Svich’s play is presented almost like four monologues. Each character has their own story to tell and they tell it, a little bit at a time, all taking it in turns to share what’s going on in their lives. There is no interaction in the text. The stories they share are similar and there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the roles on paper but director and co-producer Kendra Jones has obviously encouraged the actors to make their characters distinctive which really does help drive the play. Even though they don’t speak to each other, they do react non-verbally to the others’ words.
Honestly, if I hadn’t known, I don’t think I’d have realised which two actors hadn’t rehearsed. Mina Anwar’s performance seems very polished despite the lack of rehearsal while Darren Jeffries is reacting to everything – silently and often without moving but he seems very present in the moment and very aware of the other actors.
I’m not really sure what the rehearsed/unrehearsed element was trying to achieve and it does seem a bit dangerous to have the Canada pair rehearsed and the Oldham pair unrehearsed as it could have made the Oldham actors look less well-prepared (which they are) or less talented and less professional (which they aren’t). There’s no really obvious difference which is good really but it does kind of make you wonder what the point was. Still, there’s no harm done and it must have been an interesting challenge
The rehearsed actors, Blythe and Ryan, do push things a bit further emotionally than the other two but I wouldn’t necessarily put that down to more rehearsal or a greater familiarity with the script as Mina and Darren’s less passionate interpretations seem just as valid and relevant.
Ryan seems angry with their predicament and his complete conviction gives him a sort of commanding air. Blythe is emotional and jittery, sighing loudly at one moment, laughing at another, unable to keep still, almost defiantly proud of the progress she’s made in this new world. Darren is quieter, more focused, very intense. You can see the cogs of his brain turning (and that’s not something I said about him or any of his co-stars when he was in Hollyoaks). Mina is also quite quiet but always, just from looking at her, you can see that something serious has happened. She maintains that feeling throughout and it’s great to see her in a serious role for a change.
A lot of An Acorn is a bit too ambitious but the
idea and the performances are great.
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