Seeing Marc Warren in one of the first productions staged by Leicester's innovative new Curve Theatre made me think again about the different merits of the stage and the small screen.
That was a surprising thing to be thinking about, because I'd expected the venue to be the most interesting part of the afternoon. The Curve is a brand-new addition to Leicester's Cultural Quarter, which is all about breaking down audience/performer barriers with its glass and perspex walls. Passers-by can see into the foyer, which stretches around the theatre like a long, round corridor. What's even more unnerving is the unreserved seating – which I'm sure is bound to lead to some fights for the best seats. This is one venue where it really pays to get there early and start the queue at the door. Oh, and apparently, the theatre's walls can slide up out of the way.
Entering the theatre – a fairly normal three-sided stage effort – for Paul Kerryson's The Pillowman, the audience has to pass several prison cells, following a winding and disorientating route that sets up Warren's first few lines beautifully – he is confused and doesn't understand why he's been pulled into this prison. There's a cage and a deep buzzing noise, all very unnerving, very dark and very apt.
This entry and the need for interpersonal interaction in the polite, civilised scrabble for seats are two of the things that I think the Curve has over the small screen. TV doesn't allow for the identification with a prisoner's plight that the cells in that twisting corridor do, nor does a living room have the community feeling of a couple of hundred people who've shared the queue and barely disguised greed of grabbing the best seats.
Also, there's nothing like a live audience for comedy, and Martin McDonagh's script is certainly funny. Yes, it's incredibly dark, yet it manages to be both brilliantly scary and blackly funny in almost the same breath. While occasionally being over-wordy, The Pillowman is otherwise a really bleak investigation into the responsibility of writers and the influence their work has on others – with an awful lot of child abuse. It is sharply staged, with an almost bare stage managing to convey the claustrophobic feel of a prison in a totalitarian state.
Marc Warren – who looks about thirty but is actually at least a decade older – plays Katurin, one of the contenders for the honour of being the Pillowman of the title. Katurin the writer has been pulled in by a brutal police and accused of child murders bearing striking resemblances to his twisted and gruesome short stories. Warren is best known for his TV work – most notably Hustle and Mutual Friends – and it shows onstage. His voice doesn't seem suited to the stage, booming out as though he's struggling with projecting beyond the range of a camera microphone. Strangely, this sort of delivery works well for the hyper-reality of the short stories he recites with a touch of humour shining through the macabre elements.
TV has nothing on the reversal when Katurin's special needs brother makes a terrible confession – it's a moment TV would cut away from, but in a theatre that silence is agonising...and beautiful.
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