Written and directed by actor Michael Yale, this timely and potentially explosive play opens at the Tristan Bates Theatre as the eyes of the sporting world focus on the Sochi Winter Olympics. With this comes the revelations of abhorrent abuse of gays and lesbians in a country where they are packaged alongside paedophiles and accused of being disease-giving, society-corrupting, anti-god, anti-law abominations of nature!
With attitudes such as these, In The Thrice Ninth Kingdom had the perfect platform to take on these issues, themes, misunderstands, abuses of power, liberty and basic human rights. Instead it gives us platitude-filled rhetoric along with clichés and a ponderous retelling of sound bites direct from Wikipedia and YouTube!
In what could have been insightful and informative scenes of immigrant interviews and Soviet correction models, we were presented with formulaic and non-interrogative prosaic renderings of perception rather than insight.
Handled well enough, within the confines of the thinly drawn text, the company manfully tried to rise to the challenge of creative, effective, affecting theatre. In the end, we were left with ineffective and reductive writing.
An opportunity missed to use theatre to make a stand, take a position, comment, interrogate, inform and reveal. Disappointing.
Orlando Weston
