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Morph Fresh Track Productions Little Theatre, FringeHUB Feb 22 - 14 March I choose to take a holistic view of this: 'Morph' is possibly one of the silliest plays I've ever seen and yet it's not a bad piece of theatre. The play itself is a simple story of a ballerina (Grace Black, played by Melanie Vallejo) and Be (Brendan Rock), a really annoying man who enters her life in one of the flimsiest and least plausible ways possible. He's sent round by 'the Americans' to help her out as she rehearses for a performance. He never leaves. As it stands 'Morph' might be the sort of play Ionesco would have been happy to write, for it's absurd enough. 'Be' is weird (bipolar at least) and so in the first scene ends up ranting and assaulting Grace whilst wearing her G string over his filthy wet weather gear ("Ive been on a boat for two years!" he says again and again). As you'd expect (!??!) Grace, a single woman, is not in the least put out by this guy; so she continues to practise dance moves on the bar. She falls in love with 'Be' - as you would. The musical accompaniment (composer Mark Harding) is minimalist and simply fills in some gaps, and doesn't do justice to either his talents or those of Liam Gerner. Luckily, what saves this dumb concoction is the incredibly strong performances by both Vallejo and Rock, who drag the performance through the slower (and redundant scenes). Vallejo should mature into an excellent actor when faced with greater challenges, and Rock is already formidable. The way he takes charge of a scene is nothing short of breathtaking, even when you know 'Morph' is a bit long and more than a bit daft. When it comes down to it, 'Morph' asks its audience to identify with, or at least show sympathy for, one or both of the protagonists. The choice would be easily made if I cared enough for either of their characters. I didn't, and judging from what the audience was muttering on the way out, neither did anyone else. 'The Americans', by the way, are never explained. Fabulous acting though!  |
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