The Son at Kiln Theatre was gripping

I discovered the works of Florian Zeller more or less by accident. His play, The Father, was on at Richmond Theatre and as a regular visitor there I took a chance on it. That compelled me to see The Mother when it came to Richmond Theatre prior to a west-end run. I was mightily impressed by both plays so going to see The Son was an easy choice to make.

The venue this time was Kiln Theatre in Kilburn which used to be Tricycle Theatre and had recently reopened under its new name following an extensive refurbishment. This included a new cafe area facing the main road where I had a coffee and something to eat. There is also a good-sized bar and restaurant area but all the tables there had been booked and I was not in the mood for a full meal any way.

The oddly shaped theatre, with rows of seats on either side not facing the stage, was much as it was though all the seats had been replaced. I recalled that the raking in the stalls was quite shallow and so I went for the circle instead where my centre seat, A7, cost me a perfectly reasonable £32.5.

The Son in question was a late teenage boy living with his mother after his father left them to start a new family with another woman.

The story started with the mother telling the father that their son had become moody and was skipping school. The mother could no longer cope and thought that the father was better placed to look after him, especially after some of the things that the son had said about the father.

What followed was almost two hours of extreme teenage tribulations and the various attempts to solve them by all three parents.

As with The Father and The Mother, the heart of the play was the in-depth examination of the intra-family relationships and some of the key events that had shaped them. It was gripping stuff from beginning to end and the 105 minutes flew past.

This was one occasion where the stage direction had a clear and dramatic impact. This was particularly true when the mother and father were talking to each other taking confrontational stances some distance from each other. The father was demonstrative throughout trying to exert the power of his position when that was of no use to the situation. He was as lost as his son.

Throughout the play there was a lot of talking but not much listening and that made the son's problem difficult to solve.

There was a happy ending, of sorts, but only after a lot of pain and some bad things that could not be undone.

I loved The Son as much as I loved The Father and The Mother, and for all the same reasons. It was an excellent play superbly presented and well acted.

A Slow Air at the Tricycle

Something about the blurb on the Tricycle web site convinced me to give A Slow Air a try, and I'm so glad that I did.

My only mistake was being optimistic about public transport on a Sunday afternoon the end result of which was that I ran in to theatre with just seconds to spare.

At least that solved the problem of where to sit.

The options were very limited (it's always good to see a busy theatre) as was the time available to make a decision so I plunged in to the first of the elevated rows at the very back of the stalls and took one of the seats left empty due to a metal pillar that threaten to obscure my view but then did nothing of the sort.

Athol walks on to the darkened stage and starts to tell us his story. He's a forty-something builder born and bred in Scotland who lives with his long-standing wife. He tells us something about his younger sister Morna.

Athol's side of the stage goes dark and Morna's lights up as she tells her side of the story. Athol is steady, dependable and even boring whereas Morna is brash, confrontational and flighty. She swears a lot.

Between them, Athol and Morna tells us a story about their lives, why they've not spoken for fourteen years, and how Morna's son Joshua is involved in this.

As with most conversations, there is a general sense of direction but there are frequent changes of direction to relevant points in the past. Through this we learn a lot more about the two protagonists both of whom come across as likable in their own way.

The story drives the narrative but it is the characters that make the story and you quickly come to care deeply about both Athol and Morna as they sweep you through the emotional turmoil that their lives have become. It is superb drama.

Athol is pretty steady through all this whereas Morna flies quickly between moods with aggression and love both prominent. It is because of this that Morna is the more important character and so the bulk of the acting burden falls on Susan Vidler who carries it off with aplomb and then some. She is fantastic. So much so that I hung around for a little while after the show to tell her so.

A Slow Air is theatre that engulfs you and demands a large emotional commitment so that it is surprise, a disappointment and a relief when it finally ends and we are thrown back in to our real worlds. It's brilliant.

A Walk in the Woods at the Tricycle Theatre

An annoying bought of something flu-like kept me indoors for a few days and in that time I managed to miss two ghostly tours, a play at the National and, most depressingly, a John Watts / Fischer-z concert. My cultural duck was finally broken with A Walk in the Woods.

This was both a first and a second. It was my first time at the Tricycle Theatre in the lesser known Brondesbury (conveniently, for me, located on the North London Line from Richmond)but my second time at this play. I first saw A Walk in the Woods in 1988 in what proved to be Sir Alec Guinness' last part in the West End. Clearly a hard act to follow.

The Tricycle is another neat small theatre that has its idiosyncrasies.

The reception area, shared with a cinema, is excellent. It's lighting, colours, decor, menu and selection of drinks are distinctly modern, comfortable and welcoming. I like that in a theatre as I usually arrive in good time for a drink and so its nice to have something drinkable behind the bar and somewhere to sit and drink it.

The theatre is very different. It looks recently and hastily constructed (much as the Arcloa does) and has a quirky seating arrangement imposed by the narrow space that it has been squeezed in to.

The first few rows are free seating but they are below stage level, then there are a few rows that can be booked and then a few more rows of free seating.

There is one row of seats on the right side and three on the left but these look straight ahead at the stalls, rather than towards the stage, and these filled last. There is an upstairs too but I did not climb up the scaffolding steps to see what this looks like.

The stalls were OK but the pitch is not that great and I was grateful when a small couple sat in front of me.

The play consists entirely of the conversations of two arms reduction negotiators as they take breaks from the formal talks to walk in the woods and sit on a bench.

The set changes little during the play, doing just enough to suggest the passing of seasons. This is good, the play is not about the set and could be delivered without one.

There are only two actors, an older man representing Russia and a younger woman batting for the USA. He wears a thick coat of cynicism gained from years of fruitless negotiation and she is fresh and enthusiastic, new to the role she is keen to be successful.

It's enthralling to watch the debate and relationship between them develop as they try to reconcile their differences in style and position. It's a battle between East and West, young and old, fatalism and hope, familiarity and professionalism, hare and tortoise, and so it goes.

What they share is the unfair spotlight on their performance and the personal consequences for their careers if they fail.

External politics intrude and at times they both have to explain why their governments are taking unreasonable positions in the negotiations.

Neither actor would claim to be Sir Alec Guinness but Myriam Cyr and Steven Crossley are more than competent. They are completely believable and lovable. We come to care as much about their futures as the safety of the world.

As is the modern trend, we watch the story unfold without a break but a good play easily keeps your attention and to stop for an ice cream while a nuclear holocaust is threatened would somehow seem immoral.

A Walk in the Woods attacks a difficult subject with intelligence and charm while managing to entertain as it does so. A real delight.