The Cut by Mark Ravenhill.
Directed and co-produced by Sammy Moynihan. Co-produced by Lexi Sekuless. Sound designer and operator Marlene Radice. Lighting designer Jen Wright. The Seeing Place (Sammy Moynihan and Marlene Radice) and Lexi Sekuless Productions. The Mill Theatre. September 12-21 2024
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Diana Caban Velez as John. Ali Clinch as Paul in The Cut |
Playwright Mark Ravenhill does not tell his audience what the Cut is. It is up to the audience to interpret the meaning of I and decide for themselves the meaning. It is a challenge well worth the effort in Sammy Moynihan’s sparse and tightly focused production at The Mill Theatre. The Cut defies conventional theatre. It resembles in many respects the work of absurdist playwrights such as Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett as well as the Epic Theatre of Bertolt Brecht. Director Moynihan has cast the play for four female actors who play, the official at the institution that administers the Cut (Ali Clinch as Paul), an eager recipient (Diana Caban-Velez as John and Meena ), Hannah Tonks as Susan, Paul’s wife and Maxine Beaumont as Paul and Susan’s son Stephen). It might have been less confusing and more believable to play all characters as female by simply changing the names where applicable) The four actors give convincing performances and it was not until I looked at the programme at the end of the performance that I was aware that they were playing Ravenhill’s male characters. Given the emotional and psychological strength of each characterization by all four actors I could see no need to suggest that they were anything but females.
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| Maxine Beaumont as Stephen. Ali Clinch as Paul |
In the first scene between the conflicted Paul ( Clinch) and the insistent John (Caban Velez), morality is called into question. Paul is bound by the government to administer a procedure that brings him into conflict with his own sense of morality. John seeks the freedom that the Cut could bring as it has brought those before him. The consequential physical pain that is involved is ameliorated by the desire to be free of the constraints of social attitude and oppressive authority.
The play’s provocative dialectic exposes the contradictions that permeate this production. Paul is compelled to act against his conscience. John demands to be submitted to an immoral procedure. In the second scene, Paul and Susan (Tonks) argue because of his reticence to reveal the details of his job. His plaintive admissions of love fall on his wife’s deaf ears
As predicted in the first scene,
a new government bans the Cut and Paul finds himself imprisoned for continuing
to administer the practice. There the new generation through his son Stephen
pronounces the guiding morality of humanity. Son and father stand astride the
moral compass in a conversation that drives a wedge between them.
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| Hannah Tonks as Susan. Diana Caban Velez as Meena |
New theatre company, The Seeing Place (Sammy Moynihan and Marlene Radice), has launched its inaugural production at The Mill Theatre with a play that is provocative and confronting. The Cut compels an audience to engage with the lives and opinions of people who represent society’s diverse search for answers. In the company’s production of The Cut, director Moynihan with sound designer Marlene Radice and Lighting designer Jen Wright and four fine actors opens our eyes to the impact of a dystopia that confronts our very notion of morality and our response to the world we live in. It is particularly relevant to the attitudes we may hold in respect to the role of government in world conflicts. The intimacy of The Mill Theatre is the ideal venue to present the kind of work that the company aspires to. The Cut is an impressive and important debut and I look forward to more finely produced work by this committed and intellectually challenging theatre.
Photos by Andre Sikorsky
