Theatre & Listings

MOUNDS OF PLEASURE

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2 May 2008

By Michael Holland

Greenwich is nice. I go there often to eat, drink or walk. I went last Friday for a special event, the occasion being a presentation of new works by talented creative writing students from the University of Greenwich; plays that have been hand-picked for the New Voices season at Greenwich Playhouse. 

What made it special was the fact that one of the performances was written by a former student of mine, Sue Hallisey, a woman who moved swiftly on from my mundane Study Skills course to an exciting degree course in Creative Writing where she has blossomed as a writer.

Neil Bradley, a writing tutor of Susan's at Goldsmith's College, and the man that started that great Millwall fanzine, The Lion Roars, said of his protégé: 'She's got a natural talent for writing - She's really got something.'

Writing has been a passion of Hallisey's for years but never seemed to have had the confidence to run with it. 
Something happened to change that and she is now on her way to fulfilling her full potential as a writer, attracting recent attention for her poetry as well as this, her first play. 

Talking to her before curtain up she said how nervous she was, but how much she was relishing this new and exciting experience. She spoke of how she had been enthralled with the whole process of theatre; meeting the actors who bring her characters to life, with the director to discuss her script. She also told me she was too scared to sit and watch the performance, opting to sit out of sight with the lighting man.

The evening was made up of two performed readings and first up was Virtuality by Liam Smyth.

Gary becomes bored with the routine of work and decides to become a writer. With support from partner Sarah he takes time off work to work on a novel but spends his days accessing internet porn, eventually spiralling into a virtual world where everyone is beautiful, there is no crime, tax, death, HSA adverts or traffic jams (My assumptions). 

Sarah senses she is becoming an internet widow so decides to create a virtual alter-ego to lure Gary into her honey trap. He does.

I suspect there may have been time restrictions on length for this event as Virtuality seemed to be brought to an end rather abruptly, with all loose ends quickly tied up, sometimes in a sentence or two.

Virtuality is a very funny play with a great performance from Charity Wakefield as the virtual cyber-woman. Plenty of room here for expanding and exploring relationships and characters.

Mounds, Susan Hallisey's piece was a more profound work. It follows the precarious and odd relationship that grows between street drinker Edith and a would-be do-gooder.

Edith lives in her own nightmares that she can't exorcise, so tries to drown them out with booze. Her prospective saviour visits her wherever she is, as she sits drinking in public, ever trying to draw her in to his confidence with offers of help and guidance. 

Like Edith we guess at who he is. Is he from a detox centre, the council, shopping mall security?  As we become aware he is someone much closer we see how Edith remains in denial, not wanting to admit to her past or to try to exorcise the demons that have blighted her life.

Delving so deeply into flawed lives must be difficult, and Hallisey has here drawn on many sources of human devastation and life experiences to create these two people. Like people we may even know ourselves, they are bound together forever but no closer now than they ever have been.

Mounds provokes thought long after the play has ended.

New Voices is an excellent project that showcases new talent, and one which I hope will be on again next year. I look forward to seeing the next plays from both Smyth and Hallisey.

Susan Hallisey will be reviewing King Lear at The Globe for The News in a few weeks.

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