By Cal
Link: https://www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/show-homepage/tarantula
Available until: Livestreams on 3.15pm and 7.45pm on Saturday 1st May. Although advertised as livestreams, they are available for a few hours after the event. A lot of Southwark Playhouse shows are made available on demand after the event so if you do read this after Saturday, it might be worth checking the Southwark Playhouse and Stream Theatre sites to see if it has been made available, but don’t just assume that will be the case – grab the opportunity to see it now if you can.
Philip Ridley has kept us all brilliantly-entertained throughout lockdown, first with his The Beast Will Rise series and then with The Poltergeist, which was so good, I watched it twice – and there isn’t a lot of room in my online theatre schedule to watch things twice. Not forgetting the small matter of university taking up my time.
Tarantula gives us yet another opportunity to enjoy Philip’s work. Not to mention the opportunity to see another very talented actor. Although it’s mainly been the monologues written for males which have particularly resonated with me – and that might be more to do with me than the writing – he creates a fascinating female character, Toni, in Tarantula.
If the plot seems a little bit confusing, I’m very happy for that to be all my fault. Something very major happens in the early part of the play which is quite difficult for Toni to deal with, but in the second half, no reference is made to this trauma, with Toni talking about a completely different trauma instead. I won’t give my ideas for what might be going on here as I don’t want to influence anyone else, but I am a bit confused and very frustrated with myself for not knowing exactly what’s going on!
As always, Philip tells a wonderful story. There’s drama and excitement, not to mention some moments of real terror, but there are also some really touching moments between Toni and various other characters, as well as some really sad moments. There are also some really happy moments, which are lovely, though if you’re anything like me, you might find yourself waiting for it all to go wrong! Tarantula has a bit of everything and Toni has so much to share with us on many different aspects of life.
Director Wiebke Green directs it very cleverly. There are suggestions early on that things might go wrong, but they’re like pauses between moments of happiness. The happiness itself feels real because it is real happiness to Toni. I also really like Toni’s costume change, as though she’s reinventing herself, which she actually is. These are clever little moments which add to the drama without taking the focus off Toni.
Toni is really sweet. Right from the start, she’s the sort of person who really wants to help others and it seems like nothing is too much for her. Actor Georgie Henley expresses her personality really well. Toni is a fascinating character with lots of layers and Georgie performs the role really well. But it’s her ability to express emotion, and to switch back and forth between extremes of emotion and back to narration, which really is amazing. I’m not an actor, but I know a few and they say that’s very difficult to do, particularly when you really let go to the extent Georgie does. To give the impression of completely losing control, but then being able to rein it back in… it’s just as impressive as it looks and definitely does look impressive.
Georgie actually doesn’t play the other characters as much as usually happens in Philip’s monologues. The technique is used, but a lot of the time, she doesn’t play the role, but you get everything you need from the way she talks to them. Even then, she manages to make it very clever what these characters are like. Even without hearing Georgie do their voices, I feel like I know them.
Another really interesting monologue from one of my
favourite writers.
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