40. The Harvest - Play Reading at the Royal Court

This play reading at the Royal Court was a bit of a last minute booking for me, upon discovering that John Heffernan was going to be part of the cast and since my recent conversion to his talent. It also held curiosity for me though as it was written by Belarusian author Pavel Pryazhko and since seeing the Belarusian Free Theatre last year, I was definitely interested to see how the situation in the country was impacting other work. If you do have some free time I would highly recommend reading the following articles on the situation in Belarus and the work of the BFT:- here and here and here



One thing I must admit I hadn’t expected, was to come away forever associating Belarusian theatre with the image of fruit rolling across the floor. In the BFT’s Discover Love one of the most striking images was of oranges scattering the stage, which the young lovers danced amongst – here, with the play following the attempts of four young people to complete an apple harvest, we were treated to descriptions of apples doing likewise, though with less dancing and more destruction. The combination of the two gave these descriptions an odd resonance for me and, quite possibly, at the same time a sense of dissonance – though it also helped me to visualise them very vividly.

In fact, the entire reading made it incredibly easy to visualise a more complete production given that it was one of the most active play readings I have experienced (it misses out slightly to Pacific Island by Alexander Arkhipov at the RSC a few years ago, which featured the actors actually standing up and, if I’m remembering rightly, press ups). It also helped that the entire play was accompanied by narration, sometimes adding details of setting or events, sometimes repeating things we had already seen and heard and all delivered in such a droll, deadpan style by Kevin McMonagle that it managed to be hilarious. In fact I laughed a ridiculous amount throughout, the deceptively simple plot providing a surprising and wide variety of comic situations. Plus the four characters were easily recognisable, despite their Belarusian origins and were truly brought to life by the continually delightful John Heffernan and the equally excellent David Dawson, Laura Elphinstone, and Emily Taafe.

Well worth the trip to Sloane Square, despite its short running time as it was wonderful fun. Though I was left at the end wondering if it would work as a full production without the element of narration and with the niggling doubt that it might all boil down to an elaborate but not overly clever metaphor. One bad apple spoils the bunch and all.